Are You an Emotional Eater?
By Dr. Roger Gould
I eat because I'm ravenously hungry. I eat because I'm bored, or lonely, or married or single. I eat because I pass a doughnut shop, or because I had too much to drink, or was at a party, or because my mother cooked and I didn't want to disappoint her, or because I want to eat as much as my husband can, or I don't want to deprive myself or I'm depressed.
Do any of these excuses for overeating sound familiar? If so, it's a good bet that your weight problem is closely linked to the phenomenon of emotional eating. You've somehow chosen eating as your preferred way to handle negative emotions.
This psychological pattern makes you fall off the diet wagon time and time again. Are you ready to finally take charge of your hunger, your weight and your life?
There is no magical bullet for your extra pounds. First, you must learn to control your emotional eating and, in effect, flick off your hunger switch. Only then can a great healthy eating plan allow you to take off the weight and keep it off.
Let's get started on the path to a better life. The first step is to take an insightful little emotional eating quiz to determine if you indeed are an emotional eater.
Simply answer the following seven questions, then check out what your answers mean.
The last time you ate too much:
1. Did you notice your hunger coming on fast, or did it grow gradually?
2. When you got hungry, did you feel an almost desperate need to eat something right away?
3. When you ate, did you pay attention to what went in your mouth, or did you just stuff it in?
4. When you got hungry, would any nutritious food have sufficed, or did you need a certain type of food or treat to satisfy yourself?
5. Did you feel guilty after you ate?
6. Did you eat when you were emotionally upset or experiencing feelings of "emptiness?"
7. Did you stuff in the food very quickly?
Emotional Eating Quiz Answers
Didn't take the quiz yet? First, take the Are You an Emotional Eater quiz, then come back and check your answers!
1. Emotional eating hunger comes on suddenly while physical hunger develops slowly. Physical hunger begins with a tummy rumble, then it becomes a stronger grumble, and finally it evolves into hunger pangs, but it's a slow process, very different from emotional hunger, which has a sudden, dramatic onset.
2. Unlike physical hunger, emotional eating hunger demands food immediately, and it wants immediate satisfaction. Physical hunger, on the other hand, will wait for food.
3. A difference between physical and emotional eating hunger involves mindfulness. To satisfy physical hunger, you normally make a deliberate choice about what you consume, and you maintain awareness of what you eat. You notice how much you put in your mouth so that you can stop when you're full. In contrast, emotional hunger rarely notices what's being eaten. If you have emotional hunger, you'll want more food even after you're stuffed.
4. Emotional eating hunger often demands particular foods in order to be fulfilled. If you're physically hungry, even carrots will look delicious. If you're emotionally hungry, however, only cake or ice cream or your particular preferred indulgence will seem appealing.
5. Emotional eating hunger often results in guilt or promises to do better next time. Physical hunger has no guilt attached to it because you know you ate in order to maintain health and energy.
6. Emotional eating hunger results from some emotional trigger. Physical hunger results from a physiological need.
7. When you are feeding physical hunger, you can eat your food and savor each bite, but when you eat to fulfill emotional eating hunger you stuff the food in. All of a sudden the whole pint of ice cream is gone.
A study I conducted of 17,000 failed dieters showed that virtually all of them relapsed because of emotional issues -- mostly related to self-esteem or emotional hurt. They were doing really well on their diets, and then their husband started having an affair, or they lost their job, or a parent got sick, and so on. Perhaps you had a similar kind of thing trip up your diet efforts in the past.
One thing I've learned is that attacking emotional eating hunger by counting calories is almost like trying to run a marathon while lying on your couch. It just doesn't make any sense. You need to go deep within to control emotional hunger, because as real as the hunger feels, it originates not in your belly, but in your mind.
Dr. Roger Gould is a psychiatrist who specializes in adult behavior and the author of the best-selling book Shrink Yourself: Break Free From Emotional Eating Forever! For more information on emotional eating and handling the stress of everyday life, go to www.shrinkyourself.com.
I eat because I'm ravenously hungry. I eat because I'm bored, or lonely, or married or single. I eat because I pass a doughnut shop, or because I had too much to drink, or was at a party, or because my mother cooked and I didn't want to disappoint her, or because I want to eat as much as my husband can, or I don't want to deprive myself or I'm depressed.
Do any of these excuses for overeating sound familiar? If so, it's a good bet that your weight problem is closely linked to the phenomenon of emotional eating. You've somehow chosen eating as your preferred way to handle negative emotions.
This psychological pattern makes you fall off the diet wagon time and time again. Are you ready to finally take charge of your hunger, your weight and your life?
There is no magical bullet for your extra pounds. First, you must learn to control your emotional eating and, in effect, flick off your hunger switch. Only then can a great healthy eating plan allow you to take off the weight and keep it off.
Let's get started on the path to a better life. The first step is to take an insightful little emotional eating quiz to determine if you indeed are an emotional eater.
Simply answer the following seven questions, then check out what your answers mean.
The last time you ate too much:
1. Did you notice your hunger coming on fast, or did it grow gradually?
2. When you got hungry, did you feel an almost desperate need to eat something right away?
3. When you ate, did you pay attention to what went in your mouth, or did you just stuff it in?
4. When you got hungry, would any nutritious food have sufficed, or did you need a certain type of food or treat to satisfy yourself?
5. Did you feel guilty after you ate?
6. Did you eat when you were emotionally upset or experiencing feelings of "emptiness?"
7. Did you stuff in the food very quickly?
Emotional Eating Quiz Answers
Didn't take the quiz yet? First, take the Are You an Emotional Eater quiz, then come back and check your answers!
1. Emotional eating hunger comes on suddenly while physical hunger develops slowly. Physical hunger begins with a tummy rumble, then it becomes a stronger grumble, and finally it evolves into hunger pangs, but it's a slow process, very different from emotional hunger, which has a sudden, dramatic onset.
2. Unlike physical hunger, emotional eating hunger demands food immediately, and it wants immediate satisfaction. Physical hunger, on the other hand, will wait for food.
3. A difference between physical and emotional eating hunger involves mindfulness. To satisfy physical hunger, you normally make a deliberate choice about what you consume, and you maintain awareness of what you eat. You notice how much you put in your mouth so that you can stop when you're full. In contrast, emotional hunger rarely notices what's being eaten. If you have emotional hunger, you'll want more food even after you're stuffed.
4. Emotional eating hunger often demands particular foods in order to be fulfilled. If you're physically hungry, even carrots will look delicious. If you're emotionally hungry, however, only cake or ice cream or your particular preferred indulgence will seem appealing.
5. Emotional eating hunger often results in guilt or promises to do better next time. Physical hunger has no guilt attached to it because you know you ate in order to maintain health and energy.
6. Emotional eating hunger results from some emotional trigger. Physical hunger results from a physiological need.
7. When you are feeding physical hunger, you can eat your food and savor each bite, but when you eat to fulfill emotional eating hunger you stuff the food in. All of a sudden the whole pint of ice cream is gone.
A study I conducted of 17,000 failed dieters showed that virtually all of them relapsed because of emotional issues -- mostly related to self-esteem or emotional hurt. They were doing really well on their diets, and then their husband started having an affair, or they lost their job, or a parent got sick, and so on. Perhaps you had a similar kind of thing trip up your diet efforts in the past.
One thing I've learned is that attacking emotional eating hunger by counting calories is almost like trying to run a marathon while lying on your couch. It just doesn't make any sense. You need to go deep within to control emotional hunger, because as real as the hunger feels, it originates not in your belly, but in your mind.
Dr. Roger Gould is a psychiatrist who specializes in adult behavior and the author of the best-selling book Shrink Yourself: Break Free From Emotional Eating Forever! For more information on emotional eating and handling the stress of everyday life, go to www.shrinkyourself.com.
posted by Jacques Girard, Ph.D. at 2:06 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home