Tips to Manage Emotional Eating
How to Stop Eating Due to Boredom, Stress, Frustration or Anxiety
Jun 7, 2009
Eating is a complicated process. One would think that people eat when they are hungry, but there are many other reasons that cause people to eat more than they need to eat. Understanding what emotional eating is can help the emotional eater begin to manage his or her emotional eating.
Many people eat when experiencing different emotions such as stress, boredom, anger, anxiety, frustration, sadness and loneliness. For those trying to manage or lose weight, emotional eating can cause havoc on weight-loss efforts.
Having a collection of strategies that can be used in place of emotional eating will help the emotional eater to regain control over how and when he or she eats.
Tips for Managing Emotional Eating
Here are some useful suggestions, tips and strategies that can help the emotional eater manage his or her emotional eating, or help stop eating out of boredom, stress, frustration or anxiety.
- Drink a glass of water. To make the water more festive, serve it in a wine glass with a sprig of mint, lemon or lime slices.
- Go for a walk to take the mind off of eating.
- Chew Gum. Peppermint or mint flavors are particularly helpful.
- Call a friend for a chat to take the mind off of eating. (This is one of the techniques advocated by fitness expert Denise Austin in many of her video tapes and DVDs.)
- Keep positive affirmations around the work desk, on the refrigerator and bathroom mirror. Affirmations like "healthy body," "boundless energy," "wellness" and "mindful eating" can serve as reminders to help one stay on track.
- Drink a cup of tea.
- Keep snack foods and comfort foods out of the house. This is where the expression "Out of site, out of mind" can be very helpful.
- Light a candle that is vanilla or apple scented. Vanilla and apple have been two of the scents tried to in different studies to help people with weight loss by curbing appetite.
- Read a book. (Maybe with the cup of tea.)
- Make sure the hands stay busy. Doing something else with the hands, like having a manicure, knitting, sewing or typing can make it more difficult to eat at the same time.
- Brush the teeth with a mint-flavored toothpaste. This gets a mint taste in the mouth that makes food less palatable.
- Be more mindful when eating. Take time to just eat. Do not try and eat while doing other things, like watching television, working on the computer or attending a meeting. Focusing on chewing food helps one to be more mindful when eating.
Recognizing that one is an emotional eater is the first step in helping to manage emotional eating. The article on What is Emotional Eating? helps emotional eaters understand what makes them eat even when they are not hungry. Having strategies to help manage the emotional eating can be very helpful the next time that boredom, stress, frustration or anxiety strike.
Read more tips to help live a healthy life at How to Be Healthy for Life.
Resources
Mayo Clinic Staff. 2007. Weight-loss help: how to stop emotional eating.
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