One seldom discussed topic when it comes to weight loss and weight management is the subject of emotional eating.

You know how it is… something upsets you or stresses you out and next thing you know you find yourself tossing another Mars bar wrapper in the bin. What happened? And where did all your good intentions just disappear to?

That’s just what the excellent article from the Healthy Lifestyle blog discusses.

The biggest point that I took away from it is this: you need to be mindful of what you are eating at all times and why. As soon as you want to eat something “bad” or you find you’ve just done it it’s not time to beat yourself up. You’ll only make yourself feel worse. Instead, stop for a moment and work out *what* feeling caused you to behave like that. Also, what caused that feeling in the first place?

Once you know this, you can consciously work on avoiding or stopping the problem to begin with, and also finding displacement activities for when it next happens.

A displacement activity is one recognized by behavioural scientists as one that is carried out when another one is actually meant. A displacement activity could be fighting with your loved one because you don’t see them enough - except after the fight you’ll see them even less for a while of course.

In dietary terms, just like when quitting smoking or any other harmful yet powerful habit, you need to find things you can do to take your mind off those habits.

Here’s an example I have used in the past. When I’m out running and I start to slow and falter and that little voice in my head starts telling me just a short break won’t hurt me - after all I’ve already run 2 miles - I envision myself in a marathon.

Now I’ve never run one in my life, nor at the moment would I do so, but imagining I’m in second place with the first runner just a few metres ahead of me helps me to pick up the pace as I race my imaginary competitor.

So what can you do to stop you from eating emotionally? Could you imagine the disappointment on your partner’s face when you fail to lose weight? Could you eat a carrot instead? Could you sing a favorite song to yourself? Imagine a beautiful beach with you stretched out tanned and toned on it?

Have a think - then try a few out - until you come up with a behaviour, no an automatic response - that will help you deal with the cravings.

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 4:35 pm and is filed under Healthy Eating & Diet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.