Many times, weight loss diets do not fail because there is something wrong with them, but because the dieters cannot learn to control their emotional hunger. Have you ever felt the urge to eat when you were really upset? Even more, did you act on that urge and stuffed yourself with sweets, ice cream, pastry or pizza? Therefore, there is no wonder diets don’t work if you cannot master your feelings other than by literally feeding them food.
You need to understand that eating emotionally is not a reaction to physical hunger. Your body does not require food. Instead, your feelings, your state of mind, most of the times distressed, act as a stimulant – eating becomes a must in the attempt to deal with all sorts of feelings. In order to do away with such a harmful habit, you should first identify what activates it. Number one in a rather extensive list of need-to-eat-though-I’m-not-hungry triggers is the feeling those around you don’t know to appreciate you. Maybe you’ve been promoted or gained a bonus to your monthly payment, but nobody has bothered to acknowledge it. The next “natural” step is to give yourself a treat by diving into a bucket of ice cream and thinking that you do deserve this sweet “escape”, since the others haven’t even bothered to ask what you have been doing lately.
A second trigger is often resentment. You are bitter at yourself – no matter what you do, it doesn’t turn out right – or at someone else – yeah, you know, they seem to just not care about you – so the only thing you know will do you any good is food. You eat with resentment and you eat a lot, because this is one feeling that will not go away easily. In fact, the more you eat, the more resentful you may feel – until you get tired and think you’ve had enough, but you’re already at the point where you’ve stuffed your body and done damage that is difficult to mend.
Another trigger of emotional eating is the French-echoing “ennui”. You feel there’s nothing you can do to diversify your life: you have no choice of travelling, of activity, of befriending someone, or of occupying your time. In other words, you are bored, so you find a getaway in eating. Food can truly both diverse and diversifying. However, you forget that, while filling up part of that boring time, food will also load up your body. You forget that, once you’re set on losing weight, you can actually find yourself at a point where boredom, resentment or feeling unacknowledged should be tackled with in all maturity and understanding of your concrete needs. In other words, there are ways of not being bored, of not feeling underappreciated or resentful different from eating. I’m not saying it’s going to be child’s play – no matter what you do, weight loss will always require some effort from the part of the dieter – but things can work out for the best if you are able to recognize what makes you eat when you’re not hungry at all and then find ways to correct this unnecessary “necessity”.
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