Emotional Eating..we all do it!

When it comes to emotional eating, I think it's safe to say.... we all do it!  Yet we all have our emotional triggers that can help us or hurt us.  Let's say you have something to be extremely happy about.  Life is good, you wish more days could be like this, next thing you know, you're celebrating with what else????  Food!  Now comes the mindless eating..... you're happy, and you don't feel like worrying and stressing (that's a negative thing), about what you are eating.  Besides everyone around you is enjoying the good food in front of them, and you "deserve" to celebrate, right????  Then later, reality comes to haunt you.  That is if you gave in to unhealthy choices during your happy dance.  Then you are bewildered....."how did this happen"?...."why did I eat all that?".......like some uncontrollable force overcame you and took over your body and willpower!

This similar scenario could have happened with an emotion like anger, frustration, anxiety, boredom, depression, exhaustion.  Any of these sound familiar????  You're not alone.  We all face these emotions on a regular basis and we all have to make decisions.  Did you know that the average person has to make about 147 food choices per day!!!!   Yep!  Just think about breakfast:  1. Am I hungry? 2. Should I eat breakfast? 3. What should I eat? 4. Eggs?  5. Oatmeal? 6. Muffin. 7. Leftover pizza 8.  Ok, eggs. 9. One egg or two? 
10. Fry?, 11. Poach? 12. Scramble?  Ok scramble.  13. In butter, or Pam?  14. Top with salsa? 15. Top with ketchup?  16. Toast or no toast?  17. butter or not butter  18. Fruit with my egg?  19.  hmmm what to drink?  20. Juice? 21. Milk?  22. low fat or 2%?    Overwhelmed yet???  And we've just thought about breakfast!!!  No wonder we do so much mindless eating!  We are just so tired of making so many decisions......much easier to just pop whatever in the hatch and worry about it later:(  And then there is the current emotion at the time to deal with too.  Whoever says food choices are no big deal, either has an amazingly organized way of eating, has developed wonderful healthy habits, or can tune out the stress that comes with all these daily choices and their consequences.

So what to do, what to do??????  If your answer is.. "Give up".   Please DON'T!  Start by giving yourself some credit for wanting to take control, and wanting to make healthier choices.  Start by writing down everything you eat for 1 week, and the emotion you were feeling at the time.  And how you felt after. Start right now, no matter where you are on your journey.  You don't have to be perfect, don't beat yourself up if you are writing down some not so great food choices.  That's ok right now.  The purpose of this is to help you "see" what you are really eating and more importantly  "why".  Then you will be better prepared to make a plan of action to help you where you need it most.  My next post will be about the battle plan.  How to get through those rough times. How to combat that thing that overpowered you when you had all the good intentions in the world.  So start that food journal, and I'd love to hear all about it.  I want to know what you are discovering about yourself.  This is your starting point, and it's all going to improve from here, one step at a time!

Shout out to : My client that has lost 21 pounds in 5 weeks! Way to go S. You are off to such a great start! Keep reading Dr.A's Habits of Health.


Did you know: The average American consumes 120 pounds of sugar a year!!! That's roughly 1 pound every 3 days. ( And that's almost double what it was 30 years ago). Where do we get all that sugar? Start reading food labels. It's in almost everything processed or sweetened. ea: 1 serving cocktail sauce; 15 grams sugar, 1 soda, 45 grams sugar, etc, etc. Be aware and choose wisely.