Emotion eating

What is emotion eating

What exactly is emotion eating anyway? Emotion eating literally means eating in response to your emotions. It is often a response to emotional stimuli such as stress, boredom, sadness or loneliness. Someone who is an emotion eater often uses food as a way to deal with their emotions or comfort themselves and not because they are hungry. It can result in eating large amounts of food, especially foods rich in fat, sugar and carbohydrates, which are considered "comfort foods."

Consequences of eating emotions away

Emotion eating is a complex pattern of behavior and can have negative effects on both physical and mental health. It is often used to fill a void or to dampen your feelings. It can lead to weight gain, guilt, shame and create a vicious cycle of emotion eating. It starts to take over your life more and more, and it is important that you free yourself from emotion eating in time. People who regularly eat emotionally may also have difficulty recognizing hunger signals and losing weight consistently.

Where does emotion eating come from

Remember when you were young and always got a candy when you were hurt? From an early age, food has been used as comfort or to ease sadness or pain. When we have had a hard day we often want to reward ourselves with something sweet. When you feel negative emotions this can lead to an emptiness. It is often believed that food can fill this emptiness or distract you from the emotion. We then think that after eating something tasty we will feel better again but this often has the opposite effect. If we really want to tackle emotion eating, we would have to go all the way back to the beginning. Fortunately, you can also unlearn yourself from emotion eating, read below how you can stop emotion eating.

Mastering Emotional Eating

Do you find that you regularly suffer from emotion eating? It is important that you master your feelings in order to stop emotion eating. To be able to stop emotion eating, you need to identify your habits and emotions and the trigger that makes you eat. Do you have a habit of grabbing a snack after work when you've had a stressful day? By finding out what situations you often start eating in, you can better control them and figure out what really causes them. For example, keep a journal where you write down the triggers, how you feel and what you do to control these feelings.

Tips against emotion eating

What to do about emotion eating? Of course, it's easier said than done and quitting emotion eating obviously doesn't happen overnight. There is no one solution against emotional eating and everyone handles it differently. Therefore, here are some tips to help you overcome binge eating.

1. Eat enough: Make sure you eat enough at your meals so you don't suddenly get hungry later and suddenly want to eat a lot
2. Eat consciously: Be aware of what you eat and when you eat.
3. Eat regularly: When you eat regularly you will be less likely to get hungry and crave all unhealthy foods.
4. Find alternatives to emotion eating: When you use food to suppress negative emotions, find an alternative to deal with them such as writing or reading.
5. Drink water: When you think you are hungry, drink a glass of water first. Often we are thirsty when we think we are hungry.
6. Seek guidance on emotion eating: Sometimes you can't manage emotion eating on your own, and the help of a coach or dietitian may be able to help you master emotion eating.

Professional counseling for emotion eating

Would you like to lose weight and master binge eating in a healthy way? At Beyondfit, our coaches will help you establish a healthy relationship towards food. Beyondfit is a small boutique gym that focuses on lifestyle coaching with a holistic approach. We don't just focus on working out more or eating better, we think it's important that you create the right mindset and work on a strong foundation. Only with the right mindset will you succeed in controlling emotion eating. Wondering how we can best help you? Schedule a free intake.