Your key 🗝️ to overcoming emotional eating

If you try to lose weight, chances are you have heard about “emotional eating”.

 

You know, we call emotional eating each time you reach out to food, not because you’re hungry, but because you feel some overwhelming feeling…

 

It can be as common as feeling tired or bored, but also feeling sad, upset or even happy! Yes, for some people feeling joyful make them want to eat. 😊

 

Why do we eat when feeling those feelings? That’s because when we eat certain foods (especially sugary or fatty food), our body releases some “happiness hormones”. In other words, we feel good once we have eaten.

 

Of course, when we reach out to food to deal with our feelings, it will soon show up on the scale and in our clothes (ahhh that waistline that feels tight…)

 

So how can we overcome that emotional eating? If you listen to most weightloss gurus, it seems easy as pie! You “just” need to dig into the root cause of your feelings and track the emotion behind them… and deal with them!

 

If you have ever tried this method, you know that it’s easier said than done. Although doing some psychological work and face our emotions is important and healthy. As a psychologist I don’t underestimate the power of working on our emotions and feeling and it can certainly be partially done but reading some self-development books or follow some self-development guidelines.

 

But I also know that it’s hard work and you can’t just overcome it in the midst of feeling the urge to eat. Whoever says that dealing with emotional eating is “as simple as” working on your emotions has never done a real psychological homework 😊

 

Instead, you need some simple strategy you can practice whenever the urge to eat hits. Something that you can practice pretty much everywhere, without needing to work any childhood trauma or family history.

 

Does this mean that you need to give up and throw hands in the air with a heartfelt “I can nothing against the emotional eating”? Of course not!

 

There is something you can do that will work for you without needing a hard psychological work: you can use the power of walking!

 

Let me explain:

 

Walking when you feel overwhelmed by any (uncomfortable) emotion has multiple benefits:

• Walking helps you to distract your mind:

When we feel some unwanted feelings (including, but not only boredom), we want to stop feeling them and think about them. Walking is the perfect method to distract yourself without putting some food in your mouth.

 

• Walking acts as a mindfulness session:

Wanting to address those feelings and thoughts instead of putting them aside? Walking is still your best option! If you are not used to some practices such as mindfulness (which basically consists of acknowledging what you feel WITHOUT holding on to them), walking is a way of letting those uncomfortable feelings and emotions exist, without obsessing over them. Indeed, you are in movement and in order to not fall, you need to concentrate on something else! In order words, you get your body in movement and anchor yourself in the present moment.

 

• Walking helps your body to release some endorphins (or happiness hormones):

When you are practicing any kind of exercising, your body releases those wonderful chemicals we talked about earlier without using any food!

 

• And last (but not least), walking helps you spend some calories:

Not only you don’t build up some more fat to store in your body (by eating when you are NOT hungry), but also you spend more calories. The benefit is twice!

 

If you continue to follow those psychologizing tips, you won’t be able to face your “emotional eating” pattern and identify your so-called “self-sabotaging” behavior. Plus, you will add some more guilt because of the lack of your “willpower”. But if you practice walking whenever you feel the urge to eat, not only you will avoid those additional calories in your mouth, but you will also feel empowered and less prone to feel down and get into that vicious cycle:

So next time you feel the urge to eat while you are NOT hungry, stand up and walk. And BTW, you can perfectly walk indoors for an extended amount of time. I’ll show you later how to do so 😊