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Emotional eating: Recognizing and managing it

Emotional Eating

There is a difference between physical hunger and emotional hunger. In order to regulate and manage it, we need to recognize the difference between them. Emotional eating is generally the eating which is not triggered by the growling stomach but the emotions. This happens because food also satisfies our feelings apart from filling our stomach, so we tend to satisfy feelings with food. It is seen that when people are happy, they opt for pizza or steak. When sad they tend to eat cookies or ice creams. Boredom can lead you to eat potato chips. Jane Jakubczak, a registered dietitian at the University of Maryland, says that when in place of physical demand initiating hunger, feeling initiate it, then it is called emotional eating.In this article, we will ponder on the signs of emotional eating, foods which are most sought after to quench this hunger and how you can counter it.

Recognizing difference between physical and emotional hunger

The following can be the difference between physical and emotional hunger :

1. Physical hunger is felt gradually, whereas emotional hunger is felt instantly.

2. When you feel emotional hunger, you crave for a particular food and you will be satisfied only by that food, like ice cream, cookies, chips or pizza. On the other hand, when the hunger is physical you eat to fill your stomach and look into other options also.

3. Physical hunger can wait for sometime but emotional hunger makes you desire for the particular food instantly

4. When you eat despite of the fact that you are not hungry and are full, it is sure that you are eating to gratify your emotional need. This is not good for your health and will lead you to eating on and on. Whereas in physical hunger, you only eat until you are full, as soon as your stomach is full you will stop eating.

5. Emotional eating usually leads you to a feeling of guilt and you blame yourself for the extra calories you have consumed. This does not usually holds true for physically hungry.

Food to comfort your emotions

Emotional hunger has very unique characteristics of focusing you towards a particular food. These foods are called comfort food. These foods are those which people consume to satisfy an emotion. It is incorrectly assumed that comfort foods are only related to negative and sad feelings. Few foods are those which comfort the good moods also. One of the most common comfort food is ice cream. After ice cream, women go for cookies and chocolate, men prefer casserole, pizza and steaks. The type of food you desire for also depends on your emotion. Happy people favor pizza or steak. Sad people favor ice cream and cookies and bored people prefer potato chips.

Overfeeding Emotions

Eating to satisfy ones emotions is a common phenomenon. But it becomes alarming when people tend to make this the only and major strategy to handle emotions. This is an unhealthy approach as you are providing extra calories to your body which your body does not require and it is stored as fats. This will lead you to become overweight. Hence, this is a concern which needs to be addressed.

Managing Emotional Eating

Following are few ideas through which you can handle your emotional eating:

1. Recognizing Emotional Eating

Recognizing the fact that you are eating to satisfy your emotions is the first step towards overcoming it. You can keep a record of every time you eat something, this will enable you to see whether you are having food to fulfill emotional needs or not.

2. Learn techniques to handle emotions

The reason of this can be rooted in the fact that when a child is sad we give him a chocolate or an ice cream. So we become use to this way of managing our emotion even when we grow up. Therefore, you need to devise and practice strategies to direct your emotional need from food to something else.

3. Make out whether you are eating to satisfy emotions.

4. Keep a list handy with enjoyable activities that you can do when you want to eat even when your stomach is full.

5. Take a walk, call a friend, play some game or cards, do laundry, etc. You can even take a nap.

6. Choose a comfort food which is healthy

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