ARE YOU AN EMOTIONAL EATER? It was another bright morning, when I met my beautiful client Preethi (Name changed), who desperately wanted to lose the flab and get toned. As I went on with the dietary recall, analysis and challenges, she said, ” I can follow everything that you suggest with regards to the timings and discipline, but the only challenge I have is that the moment I get upset over my office work and approaching deadlines, I have the tendency to hunt for some food. I dive into emotional eating. I also end up ordering from the nearest Dominos most often. That cheesy feel relaxes me so much !!! “. Now that threw some light on the exact problem.

Analysis:

1. Preethi believed that she could do everything that I would suggest.
2. She also beieved that she can never feel better at workplace without some junk food.
3. She made her body a victim of her work pressure and the deadlines that her boss has imposed.
4. She looked for momentary relief to solve the problem of “WORK PRESSURE”
5. Finally, Preethi was not aware that she was an emotional eater.

Tackle emotional eating:

After analyzing, I took some courage to convince Preethi that this is totally her uncontrolled emotional craving. As a natural body response, we look towards food as a major source of relaxation. However, its most often a junk food. The underlying cause of most emotional eating is depression, anger, frustration, lack of love, too many responsibilities, boredom, fear, tension and confused state of mind. Emotional eating can lead to calorie seeping into your body when you actually do not need it. Moreover, with such state of minds, the body releases stress hormones called cortisol which inhibits fat burning. Now one can imagine what would happen if we eat something which we do not need and also not burn it. It will definitely get stored as “FAT”. When this happens more than once a week, you are at a higher risk of gaining more weight and lifestyle diseases.

To tackle, emotional eating, do not focus on the eating, instead, focus on the emotion. Every problem has a root cause. Be honest to yourself and identify the underlying cause. Once you identify, find ways of tackling the problem with real solutions and not with food. For eg, studies reveal that a person nibbling on chips is someone who is bored of responsibilities. In this case, try to make your life more interesting by taking up a hobby. Turning towards food when in emotional downturn can only worsen your health condition. Practice control over emotional eating. This will happen only when one takes time to analyze the root cause and act upon it. Conquer your emotional eating and never suppress it. I assure, someday, you will be proud that you do not need that cheesy pizza or crunchy chips to smile!!