A Closer Look at Emotional EatingWhen we turn to food for emotional reasons rather than eating food for physical hunger, we are asking food to do something it cannot do, namely to make us feel better.

Yes, there are chemicals and ingredients in highly processed food that will give you a chemical boost (and it’s legal) but there is the bigger emotional connection to deal with even if you fix your eating.

If we truly think about this and take a closer look at emotional eating we might see that we’re expecting food, an inanimate object, to effect an action in our lives, and create a change in our emotions.

We are looking outside ourselves for a solution to a problem that can only be solved within us.

A Closer Look at Emotional Eating

If I eat because my body is hungry, I am providing fuel for it to function. Fuel for my brain to process my thoughts, to run my nervous system, fuel for my muscles to move my body, fuel for my body to thrive.

If instead I eat and/or overeat  to make myself feel better when I am not physically hungry, I am essentially overfilling my gas tank. I already have a full tank and I am dumping more fuel on top of what is currently there.

What results is the storing of this excess fuel in my fat cells to be used later, meaning…. overweight or obesity. The exact opposite of what you want, right? But in the moment when you’re eating for emotions or to feel better emotionally, that’s what you want in that moment.

The Power of Emotions

Emotions are very powerful and they can be used to create wonderful, positive changes in our lives. Emotions can also be very negative and heavy, feeling even heavier than the extra weight you carry on your body. For example, the emotion of shame is the heaviest emotion of all, and isn’t it interesting to take a closer look at emotional eating and notice how much shame is usually tied to emotional eating?

Also, when we take a closer look at emotional eating we might also see how much shame is tied up with overweight, overeating, obesity, and the whole weight loss topic.

There’s something else we must look at also, when taking a closer look at emotional eating, which is the food itself. More specifically, what is in the food, which leads to the question which comes first: the emotion, or the food which changes your emotional state?

What’s In the Food?

Usually when thinking about emotional eating we tend to think that emotional eating is motivated by feeling bad, but what if there’s something in the food that you are leaning on to change your emotional state?

What if food is your drug?

What if your emotional eating is not as much about eating food because of how you’re feeling but it’s more about eating food to get a bump feeling from the food? And the reason you are seeking a bump feeling from the food is because of what’s IN that food.

After all, have you ever noticed the kinds of foods you eat when emotionally eating? I bet you don’t emotionally eat plain steamed broccoli, right?

Instead, don’t you tend to eat sweets like ice cream, cake, cookies and candy? Or what about pasta, chips, fast food and pizza? What do all of these foods have in common?

Getting a Bump Feeling from Emotional Eating and Sugar

What all of those foods have in common is high sugar content. Refined sugar is highly addictive and even some fruits can be a problem because their sugar content is so high.

So here’s the question to take a closer look at emotional eating: what if you’re eating foods to get that emotional bump feeling from the food and there’s a big crossover between emotional eating and food addiction?

What if in order to heal your relationship with food you’ll need to discover new ways to feel good besides relying on food to make you feel better?

What if there really are ways to manage your emotions instead of relying on certain foods to give you that emotional bump, almost like a drug? And then what if as a big benefit you’d have a much easier time losing weight if you could learn how to manage your emotions without relying on food as a crutch?

How wonderful would that be? To be able to get control of your eating, stop using food to feel better, and learn new ways to feel good without being dependent on ice cream cupcakes or candy? And end up losing weight too?

Who Else Wants to Break Free of Emotional Eating?

If you’d love to stop emotional eating there is a way to do it and it doesn’t have to take a lifetime to break free.

Since 2009 I’ve been coaching smart, successful women to struggle-free weight loss in eight weeks or less. This includes helping them heal their eating so that they can stop emotional eating, stop binge eating and stop yo-yo dieting.

Once you get control of your eating can you imagine how much easier weight loss will be?

If you want to break free of emotional eating and you can see that mainstream diets haven’t helped you do this then take a first step and apply for a complimentary weight loss discovery session with me. Click here to get started and just imagine… how good would you feel if you really could break free of the ongoing problem of using food to feel good?

Wouldn’t it be great to gain independence from that struggle? You really can break free of emotional eating if you want to but you’ll need to do something different than what you’ve done up until this point.

If you’re serious about leaving your comfort zone and learning new ways to manage your eating, so that you can lose weight for good, then apply here now.

Here’s to your best life, in your ideal body!