The Emotional Connection to Eating

For two weeks, the Fire Up Club members have learned about how our emotions sometimes impact our eating.

One of the guest speakers provided the following tips for breaking the cycle of eating for an emotion.

1. Journal when a craving occurs. Explore the particular event and the emotions that are associated with it. Begin to identify the ‘triggers’ that lead to the need to eat. Emotional triggers become patterns.
2. Separate eating from other activities. If you sit in your chair, watch TV or read the morning paper while eating everyday, you will feel like eating during these activities, irrespective or physical hunger.
3. Consider eating as a pure experience. Nothing else should be done while eating and every bite should be tasted (each bite should have 10-12 chews). Activities become a distraction from eating.
4. Follow an eating schedule. Just by changing or planning an eating schedule or controlling the number of times you eat can make a difference.
5. Limit the places where you eat. Places can be associated with eating. Some people can eat anywhere, but the best practice is to have one place in your home where you will eat.
6. Set realistic goals. Being realistic with your goals helps to prevent disappointment and a sense of failure that could lead to breaking your diet. You can sometimes set yourself up for a fall.
7. Make intermittent goals. In other words don’t make goals you can’t maintain, but constantly review where you are and where you need to be, and change the goals as you gain more insight into your own eating patterns.
8. Keep a food record. Record everything you eat. It could get as detailed as when, where, and what you’re doing while eating. This way, you can keep track of how many calories you have in your food account. It’s the single most effective behavioral tool to losing weight.
9. Avoid a chain reaction. Some of us eat because of behavior we’re used to doing and continue to repeat. For example, we get stressed which leads to eating a cookie, which means falling off the weight loss plan, which leads to depression or which leads to eating more or all of the cookies. It’s a chain reaction. In this case, break the chain with a non-food reward. Instead of a cookie, treat yourself to a hot bath or some other activity.
10. Reward yourself. Rewarding yourself for doing well too, but NOT with food helps to give you a sense of accomplishment. Instead of a candy bar, buy a favorite trinket, CD, or read a book, take a bubble bath – give some time to yourself and do some self-nurturing.
11. Do the following if craving doesn' stop. If a craving just won’t stop, then give yourself permission to have a little of something or substitute it with something healthier – even gum can help as it gives us the chewing motion.
    
    MOST IMPORTANTLY: Learn, Understand and Accept Your Value and Worth. God paid a high price for YOU! You are fearfully and wonderfully made. Search the scriptures and see how much value you are, from Genesis to Revelation – it’s all in there.