Goals


January 03, 2011

Best of #1

So, today I want to share with you one of my post from a year ago. Though the title is named Best of - I find that a lot of my postings are great and helpful, and that just reading them again encourages me. So, today I wanted to focus on Emotional Eating. I know a lot of you are struggling again with the holiday weight gain or just overall wanting to get rid of the extra weight, and sometimes it's those emotional times that give us the hardest time. Read my post from last year - I've found I do much less emotional eating these days and a lot more stress relief in place of the food.
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Posted on January 15, 2010

On a different note, I wanted to bring up the topic of emotional eating. I caught myself this evening wanting to eat because I was overly emotional. (My daughter was crying herself to sleep again.) I stood in front of the refrigerator with both doors open and realizing all I was doing was trying to stuff my feelings away. I closed the doors and thought through my feelings, and even shed some tears. I read somewhere that 75% of overeating is due to our emotions, and I want all of us to really focus on identifying our triggers towards our emotional eating.

Some triggers I have are obviously the stress of my daughter’s emotions. This comes from several areas of emotions. Another area I have that causes me to eat is boredom. I have had this trigger all my life. I can remember as a young girl I would come home before my mom and raid the fridge and watch cartoons. I would do the same thing when I was sick, sad, and as I got older even when I was happy. Before I began this journey 3 weeks ago I would catch myself eating my meal with my daughter, and then if she didn’t finish I would eat hers as well. (Now, I just give it to the dog.)

Emotional eating triggers are important aspect of our weight loss and to ensure you keep the weight off for the long haul. Once we identify those triggers we can take eating and weight problems out of the equation of our emotional problems. To help you identify your trigger’s I have found the break down of five categories of trigger’s from WebMD.

* Social: Eating when around other people. For example, excessive eating can result from being encouraged by others to eat; eating to fit in; arguing; or feelings of inadequacy around other people.
* Emotional: Eating in response to boredom, stress, fatigue, tension, depression, anger, anxiety, or loneliness as a way to "fill the void."
* Situational: Eating because the opportunity is there. For example, at a restaurant, seeing an advertisement for a particular food, passing by a bakery. Eating may also be associated with certain activities such as watching TV, going to the movies or a sporting event, etc.
* Thoughts: Eating as a result of negative self-worth or making excuses for eating. For example, scolding oneself for looks or a lack of will power.
* Physiological: Eating in response to physical cues. For example, increased hunger due to skipping meals or eating to cure headaches or other pain.

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Best of posts will appear once a day for 12 days.

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