Comfort Eating

We are a couple of weeks into our fitness challenge and making changes to become healthier can be difficult, but don’t get discouraged. If you need help and encouragement that is what we are here for! Here is some information to help you on your way.

Why do we eat? The obvious answer to this question is we eat because we need food to survive. But if we step back and really think about why we eat when we do, there maybe a lot more to it. We have many emotional reasons for why we eat, what we eat, when we eat, and how much we eat. This emotional eating can lead to being overweight and unhealthy. So what can we do to change this? The first step is to become aware of when you are eating for emotional reasons. Then you can determine what emotions that are coming up when you are being driven by emotions to eat. Some common emotional reasons that we eat for are: anxiety, anger, boredom, loneliness, feeling deprived, discouragement, sadness, and grief to name a few. Eating out of boredom can also encompass habit or trigger eating, such as I always eat popcorn when I watch a movie. Deprivation can include feelings of being scared or afraid. Many people have a hard time giving up comfort foods because they are scared they can never eat them again; getting to a point where you can overcome cravings for comfort food by telling yourself you can pass on it for right now can very helpful. Discouragement can cause emotional eating when you have tried dieting before only to gain the weight back. You therefore eat because you tried and failed before so why try again. When we eat out of loneliness food becomes our friend, comforter and companion. We use food in an attempt to create love, joy and connectedness. Food will not change these emotions and becoming aware of the emotions behind eating will help you to start eating for the reason we do need to eat, to fuel our bodies. When you eat only for hunger and fuel  you will find yourself eating the proper amounts of food and able to say no to cravings, so that you can eat healthy food. A good reminder phrase to use when trying to overcome emotional eating is “Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels”.