Lose Weight Find Life

Pre-operatively, and sometimes post-op (!), I ate for pleasure.  Pleasure of filling time from boredom, squelching emotions or uncomfortable situations was managed by emotionally eating.  My surgery and weight loss woke me up.  The time, energy wasted and extra calories that I thought was pleasure actually was pain.  I ate to get pleasure to soften the pain of living.

Until my weight loss, I interpreted my destructive behavior as pleasure.  The pleasure from emotional eating is an illusion.  That “pleasure” was hurting me and making my problems much worse. 

True pleasure comes from being healthy, losing excess weight and maintaining it, making positive lifestyle changes, and being fully present in our lives without the numbing of our life from food.  These true pleasures are far more fulfilling and satisfying than the pain I was causing myself.

Believe In Yourself,
Cathy, Certified Life Coach
Weight Loss Surgery Coach

Heading for the kitchen when you’re feeling angry, lonely, bored, or tired may be the reason you’re gaining weight or at a plateau.  Emotional eaters lose less weight and are more likely to gain it back than those that are situational eaters.  If you’re an emotional eater, create strategies to combat emotional eating to manage your feelings.

When you’re feeling angry, try a cardio workout, take a brisk walk, or kickboxing.  These “get up and go” exercises release endorphins that can boost your mood.

When you’re feeling lonely, reach out and call a friend to chat or send e-mails to friends and family.  People not food provide a fix for feeling lonely.

When you’re feeling tired, lay down and either take a nap or even close your eyes to rest.  Taking a nap and resting is much healthier and rejuvenating than emotionally eating. 

When you’re feeling bored, do something with your hands such as scrapbooking, needlework crafts, give yourself a manicure, or read a book.  Get busy doing something you enjoy to keep you mind on rather than in the kitchen.

Every emotion has a healthy remedy rather than emotionally eating.  Emotion management success is found in developing strategies personal to you.  One of the areas I work on with my weight loss clients is emotion management.  Create a checklist of things to do instead of eating.  It works!! 

Believe In Yourself,
Cathy

Have you ever found yourself standing at the refrigerator or kitchen cabinets searching?  You aren’t hungry yet frantically searching for something?  What is that something?  What are you searching for?   What you are searching for isn’t contained in the kitchen.  Rather than look inside your kitchen, look inside of yourself.

Many times when we find ourselves searching for just the right thing to eat to satisfy that longing, we are looking for something to fill ourselves.  Food won’t satisfy that longing but we can.  Check in with yourself to see what you need.  Are you bored?  Are you angry?  Are you sad?  Do you feel anxious and don’t know why?  Are you frustrated and feel helpless as to what to do?  Food can be the one size fits all fix for feelings, emotions, and situations we feel out of our control.

The next time you are searching for something to eat to fill that longing you feel, ask yourself “What do I need right now?”  Your first thought might be a response that involves food.  Keep asking yourself what you need until you find the answer that will truly fulfill that need.  The real answer you are looking for doesn’t involve food.  The real answer lies inside of you and not inside your kitchen. 

All the best,
Cathy

I’m sick today.  I have a cold, sore throat, headache, you name it.  I don’t like being sick.  No one does.   Being drained of energy, tired, and just generally lethargic makes me feel vulnerable.  I don’t know what it is about getting a cold but it makes me want to eat.  It may be that I’m wanting to feel better and comforted so I turn to my favorite comfort foods rather than the appropriate cold relief medication.  I know the things that I need are hot tea, water, and plenty of rest.  This is the time to practice self-nurturing habits rather than self-destructive habits of eating emotionally for comfort. 

I’m off to take a shower, drink some hot tea, and take a nap.  I’m listening to what my body needs rather than what my head hunger wants.  That’s truly the best of health I can give to myself.

All the best,
Cathy

What is emotional eating?  Emotional eating is when we eat in response to situations and feelings other than physical hunger cues from our body.  It is as though we are feeding our head hunger than our physical hunger.  Physical hunger is feeding our body; head hunger is feeding a void in ourselves that we want to fill.  Emotional eating is a way to suppress, quiet our inner voice of emotional discomfort or pain, or calm emotions such as worry, boredom, sadness, anger, or stress.  Emotional eating serves as a quick fix that also wears off very quickly.  The key is to discover the source of why you want to emotionally eat and address it.  When you eat to feed a feeling, whether consciously or unconsciously, emotional eating is triggered.  Use the urge to emotionally eat as a window into your head and your heart.  So, adopt the practice of STOP-LOOK-LISTEN.

STOP = When you first get the urge to emotionally eat, give yourself a moment of pause and STOP.  Don’t go to the kitchen, don’t reach for food yet.  Give yourself an opportunity to get control over the urge.

LOOK = LOOK at the situation; LOOK inside yourself as to what is driving your desire to emotionally eat.  Are you physically hunger?  Check in with your body to see if you are truly hungry?  Not head hunger but physical hunger.  They can be tough to distinguish but there is a big difference.  Head hunger can seem like physical hunger so be a detective and discover the difference for yourself.  How long has it been since you ate?  Is it too soon for your body to be hungry or is it, in fact, possibly time for a meal or planned snack?  If it is not physical hunger, LOOK at the reason you may be wanting to emotionally eat and LOOK at what you are trying to fill.

LISTEN = What is it you need?  What is causing your head and heart to want to be filled?  Is it a feeling, an emotion, a situation, a person, or a sense of being generally uncomfortable?  LISTEN to what you need.  Do you need to take care of a situation in order to feel resolved with it?  Do you need to deal with a person by talking or interacting with them to resolve your concern with them?  What are you feeling or what is the emotion?  Try to identify the specific feeling(s) or emotion(s).  Many times if you can LISTEN and identify the need you are wanting to emotionally eat over, you can make the urge lessen and go away completely. 

Think how you’ll feel when you are Sherlock Holmes and solve the mystery for your emotional eating!  You can take the mystery out of emotional eating by doing some detective work for yourself.  With each success and not succumbing to the drive to emotionally eat, you gain more confidence and inner strength to overcome any eating or life challenge you encounter.  Now THAT is better than anything you can ever eat!   

All the best,
Cathy