The field of nutrition is filled with conflicting advice, making it very confusing for us to know what to eat and what not to eat. However, good nutrition requires not only that we know which foods to eat, but also how to consume them. There are many concerns when it comes to maintaining healthy eating habits such as increasing concerns about body image, the increase in the prevalence of obesity, overeating, binge eating, emotional eating and bad eating habits.
Many of us have developed bad eating habits without even realizing it. We don’t always eat to satisfy our hunger. Many of us resort to food for comfort and as a way of reducing stress levels or suppressing negative feelings. Emotional eating often refers to binge eating as a coping mechanism to deal with negative emotions. It is when you use food to feel better – to fill emotional needs, rather than your stomach. This also includes eating for positive emotions such as rewarding yourself for achieving a goal or celebrating a happy event.
When you resort to food as a response to any emotion, you become stuck in an unhealthy life cycle without even realizing it, and without addressing the real issue at hand. Instead of feeling better, you actually end up feeling worse. Afterward, not only does the original emotional issue remain, but you also end up beating yourself up for the unnecessary calories.
Therefore, it’s important to distinguish the difference between emotional hunger and physical hunger in order to break free from this vicious cycle.
The first step to break the cycle of emotional eating and fight cravings is to identify your personal triggers. Once you have identified your emotional eating triggers, you need to learn healthier ways to feed your feelings.
Common causes of emotional eating:
- Stress
- Stuffing emotions
- Boredom or feeling of emptiness
- Childhood habits: did your parents often reward good behavior or accomplishments with ice cream, pizza, or chocolate? These habits can often carry over into adulthood.
- Social influences: it’s easy to overeat when the food is there and when everyone else is eating.
The next step is the change your relationship with food and your body and adopt healthier eating habits. You need to learn how to manage your thoughts and feelings in a way that does not involve you eating. You can boost your metabolism and make eating a pleasurable and fulfilling experience using the following techniques:
- The Metabolic Power of Relaxation
- The Metabolic Power of Awareness
- The Metabolic Power of Pleasure
Metabolism is the sum total of all the chemical reactions in the body, plus the sum total of all our thoughts, feelings, beliefs and experiences.
The Metabolic Power of Relaxation
Wolfing down your food doesn’t give your brain enough time to catch up with your stomach and signal that you are getting full. Fast eating, or eating when stressed, forces the body to interpret this behavior as life-threatening and activates the safety mechanisms such as the speeding up of the heart rate, blood pressure increasing, and the release of cortisol. This results in the digestive system completely shutting down.
In other words, the same part of our brain that activates stress in turn shuts down digestion. Conversely, the part of the brain that turns on the relaxation response turns on full, healthy digestive power.
Moreover, during chronic low-level stress as well as acute stress, cortisol is released in significant quantities resulting in the storage of fat, with no muscle building, as well as a decrease in calorie burning capacity (metabolism). This can cause you to pack on a few pounds.
So, remember, worrying about fat makes you gain fat!
Eating healthy food is only half of the equation of good nutrition. Being in an ideal state to digest and assimilate food is the other half.
The Metabolic Power of Awareness:
Have you ever eaten a good-sized meal, mindlessly consuming it on fast forward mode, then suddenly realizing that you’ve finished, with a belly that’s full but your mouth still hungry?
Digestion begins in the head as chemical and mechanical receptors on the tongue and the oral and nasal cavities are stimulated by smelling food, tasting it, chewing it, and noticing it. A hearty awareness of your meal initiates the secretion of saliva, gastric acid and enzymes, gut-associated neuropeptides, and production of the full range of pancreatic enzymes.
Lack of attention translates into decreased blood flow to the digestive organs, which, as we’ve seen, means less oxygenation and hence a weakened metabolic force.
The same thing happens when you have your meal while working, watching TV, or driving.
When we eat too fast or fail to savor our food, the brain interprets this missed experience as hunger. The brain simply says “I don’t remember eating anything. I didn’t get any satisfaction. Nothing happened. I’m hungry. And so, we reach for more food.
The Metabolic Power of Pleasure:
The simple scientific equation for the profound biochemical effect of pleasure is this: When you’re turned on by food, you turn on metabolism. Chemistry of pleasure decreases the fight-or-flight chemistry. When food is eaten too fast or without awareness or with guilt, the central nervous system and the enteric nervous system both register only a minimum of pleasurable sensations. The result is that we are physiologically driven to eat more.
Strategies to help you stop emotional eating:
- Address the root cause
- Ask yourself why you’re eating (Be Aware)
- Swap out your worst snacks
- Choose food that fights stress
- Make emergency packages
- Distract yourself
- Practice yoga, meditation, and exercise
- Go slow
- Don’t skip meals
- Avoid stockpiling
- Practice Mindful eating through simple steps:
- Sit on the table and distract yourself with eating only
- Employ all your senses when you’re eating
- With the food in front of you, take a moment to appreciate it
- Take a bite, and notice how it feels in your mouth
- Give gratitude and reflect on where this food came from
- Continue to eat slowly
Practice saying “no,” not only to unhealthy foods but also to emotionally charged situations that sabotage your efforts to develop better eating habits. It really is about your way of eating and having a healthy sustainable lifestyle which can include your favorite indulgences with a proper balance.
