As I sit on my sofa stuffing my mouth with
potato chips and French onion dip, my anxiety increases because this ongoing
battle with emotional eating has exacerbated this last year to a point of
emotional exhaustion.
Truthfully, my struggles with emotional eating
began when my mother died almost five years ago. I also lost two aunts and an
uncle in the same year. Plus, dealing with chronic health issues has caused my
emotional eating to spiral out of control.
With that being the case, weight gain was
inevitable and to the point where buying some new clothes was necessary. My
emotional eating along with the weight gain has affected my mental health
because this ongoing battle causes depression and anxiety. In the article, “Turning Down Nachos
(aka Managing Grief and Comfort Eating,” it states the following:
“When we think about grief we
often think of the tears, the anger, and the guilt. We talk about the strain it
puts on our relationship with friends and family. We consider the
existential crisis it can induce. But one thing that often doesn’t get
discussed is that grief can bring on a whole new relationship with
food. For some this means struggling to eat anything, with a stomach in
knots from pain and anxiety. For others, grief and comfort eating become a
constant reality. Food suddenly becomes a new best friend.”
I spend time with my best friend, who sometimes
goes by the name of cheese fries, chocolate chip cookies, pizza, tacos, nachos,
chocolate fudge brownies with pecans, Shrimp Pad Thai, and Pepsi to name a few.
But, as the old saying goes, the truth shall
set you free and I want to be free of this compulsion of emotional eating.
If you are experiencing the same struggles, I
am sure you can relate.
Despite it all, I won’t give up until I get
back on track with using healthy coping skills to deal with life stressors
rather than stuffing my face with food. And, in the process, I want to lose
some weight.
Below are 15 tips I am now using to begin this
journey of healing to overcome emotional eating:
1.
Get back on a regular sleep routine
2.
Set healthy boundaries and don’t over commit
myself
3.
Spend at least fifteen minutes daily to relax
and decompress from the day
4.
Complete meal prep to measure my portions and
have food ready and available so I won’t want to eat out on a regular basis
5.
Start using MyFitnessPal more consistently to
log what I eat and write down my feelings about food in the diary section
6.
Start the morning with a well-balanced
breakfast, which helps me not to eat and/or snack as much for lunch and dinner
7.
Stop buying junk food and the foods I crave
when stressed
8.
Do some form of exercise daily
9.
Use cognitive reframing to prevent negative
thought patterns from getting to a point where they can become destabilizing
10. Read and journal consistently
11. Re-focus on my goals
12. Pray, meditate and listen to music
13. Schedule check in appointments with my therapist on a regular basis
14. Have self-compassion and don’t ever give up because my health and
sanity depend on it
15. Engage in mindful eating
If you too struggle with emotional eating, I
hope that the tips above can be of help to you. Also, if this story hits home,
please feel free to leave me the following comment “I can relate” and any other
words you would like to share. Don’t hesitate to share some useful tips that
are helping you to overcome emotional eating.
I am now second-guessing
whether I should share this blog post because anxiety is starting to creep on
the scene. But this time I am not going to look in my refrigerator or kitchen
cabinets to see what I can eat to help ease my emotional discomfort.
I am going to hit the send button and ensure
that I get a good night’s sleep...
3 comments:
I can relate. Thank you for this inspiring and heartfelt article! It is very helpful as most of us are staying at home, due to the pandemic.
Hi Tynia, thank you so much for reading my blog post and sharing your comments. I really and truly appreciate it. Yes, being at home during the pandemic makes it even that much harder with emotional eating but we will both keep pressing on. Have a great weekend.
I think this is an informative post and it is very useful and knowledgeable. Are negative emotions useless? Should we try to avoid and control them? Which are the most important? All that and more here.
emociones básicas y complejas
listado de emociones
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