How To Identify Emotional Overeating And What It Is Connected With

Together with an expert, we figure out how to take control of hunger and stop eating stress and other emotions.

According to the MSD health information guide, about 3.5% of the female population and 2% of the male population suffer from an eating disorder, and this is only official data. In fact, many more people regularly overeat and use food as a way to cope with stress. The problem of overeating remains relevant to this day; for many people, such a relationship with food is the only available way to drown out negative emotions. Femme4, together with an expert, figured out how to take control and get rid of this problem.

Let’s try to figure it out and answer the question: why do I overeat? There can be many reasons, we will consider the most common:

1. You don’t understand your emotions, you don’t know how to cope with them, so you just eat them. For example, you may be angry at your boss or worried about the future, and instead of getting the bad emotions out of your body in an environmentally friendly way, you use food as a solution.

2. You don’t listen to your body and its true needs. You need to understand how many calories your body needs for comfortable consumption, and based on them, form your diet. To calculate calories, you can choose the standard form, it is 1900-2100 kcal per day for women and 2100-2300 kcal for men, or contact a nutritionist who, based on your lifestyle and preferences, can calculate the required daily allowance.

3. You get very tired and instead of quality rest (for example, sleep), you use food as an opportunity to get a portion of pleasure and relaxation.

How to identify emotional overeating and what it is connected with

Also, the cause of overeating can be your psychological experiences, for example:

– Sensitivity to criticism;

– Experience of humiliation;

– The need for protection;

– Suppressed anger;

– Dissatisfaction with oneself;

– Self-criticism;

– Denying your feelings and yourself.

If one (or more) of these reasons seemed close to you, then let’s figure out how to deal with overeating. Where should you start?

Agree, this path is long and difficult, because it is very difficult to change your eating habits. You will probably break down, something will not work right away, and this is completely normal. There is a technique called the Food Diary: Every time you eat, write down how you feel by answering three questions:

What am I eating now?

What do I feel now?

What did I feel after eating?

How to identify emotional overeating and what it is connected with

After a while of journaling, you will understand the reason for overeating (for example, you do not have enough positive emotions), and you can begin to build a strategy for switching to mindful eating. And also, in order to discipline yourself and learn not to fall for cakes and chocolates, you can try the Grow Food line of healthy food delivery. Choose the line that’s right for you (or the Fit Slimming range) and eat delicious yet healthy foods (like Dried Fruit Pancakes and Strawberry Pineapple Smoothie) and transform your body and life.