Just as you get into the swing a new eating plan and begin to enjoy the results of this through a healthy weight loss, something can go wrong in your life and you can feel stressed and turn to food to help relieve this. The emotional eating busters below, will help you control your eating regardless of how you feel and help you stay on a calories loss diet that will lead you to a permanent weight loss and a healthier, happier life.
Learn how to determine whether what you feel is hunger or just a learned emotional response. The real physical signs of hunger can include a rumbling tummy or perhaps feeling lethargic and weak so if you have experienced emotional responses to eating across many years, you may eat before feeling truly hungry and not recognize these symptoms easily. Allow yourself to get genuinely hungry before eating so that you can become familiar with what this feels like and more accurately pin point when you should eat to provide the fuel your body needs.
Recognize your emotional eating triggers by keeping a little notebook and a pen with you and write down when you feel like eating and what you want to eat and soon you will start to notice a pattern emerging. Do you always crave fried food after a meeting with your boss instead of meals you would eat on a calories loss diet? Do you want cake the minute you walk in the door after the evening commute or do you need a double cheeseburger at lunch just to get through the afternoon?
Understanding the causes of and times when you have an overwhelming 'need' for certain foods is the answer to preventing your uncontrolled eating. When you can pinpoint these aspects of your behavior you can begin to change this by finding other ways to manage stress. Have alternative healthy foods that will satisfy you cravings for sweet and fatty salty foods on hand to eat or plan to actively do something like jogging or working out or, on a more relaxing note, playing your favorite music or asking for a back rub or head massage.
Stride past comfort food in the grocery store never stopping, to make sure that you do not have any junk food within arm's reach at home as a temptation. When your emotions rollercoaster next and you find yourself feeling low and in need of chicken and fries, are you as likely to go out to buy it if it is not in the house? Generally the answer is 'No' so stock up with as many healthy replacements for the foods that you know you will crave from time to time and you also know are not good for you, then start to satisfy your cravings in healthier ways.
Do not use food as comfort and instead of reaching for the ice cream when you are depressed or lonely, find other ways to comfort yourself. Call a friend, take a hot bubble bath, treat yourself to a manicure, write in a journal to try and discover what is making you sad or lonely. There are hundreds of ways you can comfort yourself besides reaching for food so learn to use other things to get you through a tough day and this leaves room for you to continue to eat calories loss meals when you need to.
Keep healthy food in the house because if you have healthy snacks in the house you can use those as a substitute for comfort food when a craving hits. Instead of candy bars, keep granola bars in the cupboard and instead of chips, keep popcorn or sliced veggies or other calories loss foods around because making healthy substitutions for the foods you crave is a very practical way to deal with emotional eating. After all, cravings happen but eating healthy snacks in place of the high fat, high calorie comfort food is a practical and responsible way to deal with food cravings when they happen.
Delay any eating at least 30 minutes from when you are first aware of your craving, keeping a close and accurate check on this time. Do not cheat and start eating earlier than this and if after 30 minutes you still feel hungry, only eat half the portion of the food you planned to eat. You will often discover that after the waiting 30 minutes that your craving will have diminished or even vanished especially if you have found something else to occupy yourself.
Get exercise because exercise is not just good for burning calories as when you exercise, your brain releases serotonin and endorphins, which make you feel good and make you happy. Twenty minutes or more of exercise can trigger the same feeling of peace and happiness and well-being that you get from food. Emotional eating is not responsible for your entire weight gain, but it can be a factor in why it is hard for you to make a consistent weight loss. Using these tips and tricks to control your emotional eating will help you stick with a calories loss diet and might be the way for you to start losing weight and keeping it off.

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Rowena French knows that emotional eating can sabotage weight loss programs. Tired of dieting with no results? Determined to reach your weight loss goals? My free gifts explain how how calories loss is the simple answer. Read my guide, hear my audio book!

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