Do you find yourself running to the fridge when you're feeling down or otherwise upset? Emotionally eater people may unwittingly find themselves in front of the refrigerator several times a week to suppress their own emotions. These eating attacks are followed by feelings of guilt and regret, and this becomes an unbreakable cycle.
How can you stop emotional eating?
Emotional hunger is not easily suppressed by eating. Because at that moment, you eat not because you are physiologically hungry, but to suppress your emotions. The solution to this situation is to focus on the problem itself that you think you have solved or suppressed while eating.
1. Find other ways to deal with stress
The first thing to do is figure out how to deal with emotional eating. Emotional eating is a gift of stress to us. Then, if we overcome the stress, we can also control emotional eating. You can walk, read a book, watch an elephant or take a shower. Everyone's way of controlling stress is different.
2. Make sure to add movement to your life
We know that regular physical activity helps in the release of serotonin and dopamine and helps to relax. You don't have to run or do fitness, calm activities like yoga will also help you release dopamine.
3. Try meditating
Meditation, which is one of the most effective methods of calming down, is also a good treatment for people who have many eating disorders. For example, Jason Stephenson's "Guided Meditation for Anxiety and Stress" video has over 4 million views and is more than 30 minutes of a series of visualizations and breathing exercises. You can try this in the first step.
4. Keep a food diary
Seeing what you eat, how much and when can help you control your cravings. When you have eating attacks, you can look at what you ate that day and realize that you are already full.
5. Establish a healthy eating routine
It can be difficult to distinguish between real and emotional hunger. If you have a daily meal routine, it can be much easier to distinguish because you will know in advance what time you will be hungry.
6. Remove packaged products from your kitchen
The biggest mistake most people make is to buy packaged products for their home. Do not bring packaged products that do not contain any real nutrients, are made of powders and preservatives, and that have the highest rate of triggering food addiction, not even into your kitchen, but even into your home.
7. Pay attention to the portion of food
What you eat is very important, you know that. How much you eat is just as important as what you eat. Small plates and small glasses will help you the most for this. They may seem small right now, but in time they will become your normal.
8. Feel free to ask for support
We all experience stress, anxiety, unhappiness and anger problems from time to time. What matters is how we reflect these feelings. For example, some people reflect this on their food when they are stressed and eat all the time, while others do not eat at all. So this situation is very individual and very diverse. Therefore, in such cases, if you cannot overcome the problem, getting individual support will relieve you.
9. Eliminate distractions
Eliminating distractions such as the phone and television while eating will make your meal routine much healthier.
10. You can have positive self-talk
As we talked about above, eating disorders are a common problem that almost all of us experience from time to time. In such a situation, instead of feeling ashamed or guilty, accepting this and getting professional support will permanently change your perspective, your life and many more.
Everyone has a secret they keep inside, an experience they keep hidden under the carpet. What we said at first, "It's better that way", that we try to ignore so that it doesn't hurt more. But then the garbage I hide under the carpet starts to stink. Yet you continue to ignore it. So can you ignore it?
Does ignoring similar experiences or feelings work? Pretending to be valuable and being subjected to unworthy behavior. I know it meant a lot when I was younger. But when you bring it to the surface, you witness that it doesn't hurt that much. Yes, you are shaken first. But when a person matures. What does real maturity mean? To me it means to prepare. Here one begins to look at his experience from different meanings.
In short, I have to say that; We are as sick as the pain we suppress. We are as sick as the secrets we hide and the meanings we attach. What to do? He must dive to the bottom of the fear and see that there is nothing to be afraid of. Aren't feelings temporary? Then why do you ignore it and enlarge it? A person relaxes because he releases the emotions he clings to.
