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June 23, 2024 By Geetika Patni 3 Comments

Mindful Eating: Mind your Mood – part 4

emotional-eating

My previous three blogs discussed the concept of Mindful eating and how mindless eating can be harmful. In my second blog, I talked about why you should eat slowly to enjoy your meal and shared some tips on how to do so here. The third blog covered portion control and how to be wise with it here. Continuing in this 5 part series on Mindful Eating, today, I will take you through how stress eating can be harmful and should be avoided.

Have you noticed why buttered popcorn sells out quickly during a movie intermission? Or why you might empty an entire packet of Oreos or chips when you’re feeling emotional? That’s because certain foods can be emotionally comforting. In most cases, these comfort foods are high in fat and sugar and low in nutrition. They are comforting because they trigger neurons in the brain that create a false perception of well-being.

Turning to food to make you feel better is ‘Emotional eating’.

emotional-vs-plysical-hunger

It’s not necessarily bad to eat food from time to time as a pick-me-up meal, a reward treat, or a celebration feast. However, if food becomes your primary coping mechanism for anxiety, loneliness, boredom, anger, frustration, or exhaustion, and your first impulse when upset is to dig into a tub of ice cream, it calls for your attention. Feeding your emotion with food may feel good at the moment but doesn’t resolve the underlying problem. Often, you may end up feeling worse later due to unnecessary calorie bingeing and the physical havoc it wreaks on your metabolism.

The guilt, feeling powerless over emotions, and impulse eating leads to an unhealthy cycle, causing physical and emotional turmoil. Despite the difficulty, it is possible to make a positive change. All it requires is some effort on your part.

To help you break this cycle and mindless eating habit, here are a few pointers that work best when followed in order:

  1. Be Aware: Acknowledge your habit of emotional eating. If your near or dear ones have pointed it out or you know it by yourself, take it seriously! Awareness is the first positive step. Identify the emotions that lead to binge eating. Are they positive like exhilaration, victory, or success? Or negative like frustration, loneliness, anxiety, depression, anger, or boredom? Know your comfort foods, whether sweets, chocolates, ice creams or salty ones like chips, fries or some junk food like pizza, burger, maggi etc. that drive your emotional cravings. You may come up with multiple choices for multiple emotions and it is absolutely okay. You may also notice that your choice of comfort food is entirely different from others. So accept your unique patterns.

Tip: Maintain a food journal to help identify your emotions and associated foods, or use the food log feature in the GOQii app.

  1. Know your Hunger cues: Identify why you wish to eat. Hunger cues can be physical or emotional. If your stomach is growling and it’s been a few hours since your last meal, eating a salad or any other meal will suffice. But if you can postpone your hunger, you are likely to stop once you feel full, without guilt. This is true physical hunger.

Contrarily, if your hunger is sudden, urgent, and you crave specific foods like cookies or chips, or specific types of foods like sweets and fried foods and you are likely to over consume, feeling guilty later, you are about to be snacking out of false hunger, then the head hunger is generated out of emotional cues.

Tip: Next time you reach out for a snack, check if it’s driven by physical or emotional hunger.

  1. Cross check: Once you’ve identified your hunger cue, ask yourself why you are eating. Take a deep breath and get a clear answer. This helps put a check before the binge. If you’re reaching for a snack and unsure if it’s emotional, just ask yourself, “Why am I eating this?” Pause and reflect.

Tip: If it’s justified hunger, grab something healthy-roasted or steamed. If  it’s emotional, respectfully place the dish aside.

  1. Distract: Change your location once you put the dish aside. Go to another room or head outdoors. Find an alternative to food to fulfill your emotions. If lonely, talk to someone. If depressed or frustrated, watch a comic movie. For exhaustion, get a foot massage or take a warm bath. For anger, let it out or write it out. For anxiety, listen to your favorite music. If happy and wanting to reward yourself, indulge in your hobby.

Tip: You can also do some window shopping, reading, walking, exercising, meditating, or taking a nap which will give time to pass off the emotional storm and make you a stronger self- one who has more willpower to cope up with his/her feelings.

  1. Giving In: Emotional eating is an automatic and mindless habit. Sometimes, before you know it, you’ve eaten half a tub of ice cream. If you can pause for a moment when hit with a craving, you can make a different decision next time.

Tip: When you feel the urge to give in, pause and reflect. Don’t shut out the craving. Wait and consider what’s going on in your head and how you feel. Even if you eat afterward, this reflection helps you understand why and prepares you for a better response next time.

 

Understanding-Hunger-Physical-vs-Emotional
If you approach your feelings with kindness, reining in emotions is not a difficult task.

Listen to your emotions, accept them even if they are negative and when you do so, your body will understand that it doesn’t need to overeat to comfort itself and/or protect itself from powerful feelings.

Learning to mind your mood this way enables you to repair your emotional responses and physical fitness. Seeking help from experts or a personal coach can bring a turning point. Reach out if you need help to enjoy a better physical and mental health.

In the last blog of the 5 part series, I will discuss connecting with your meals and share tips on transforming your relationship with food for the better.

To be continued……………

#BeTheForce

About Geetika Patni

Geetika Patni holds a bachelor's degree in physiotherapy, diploma nutrition, certification in cardiopulmonary physiotherapy and yoga 'Visharad'. She has worked with various hospitals as a physiotherapist and holds expertise in holistic fitness. She has been associated with GOQii for + years as a coach and expert consultant. She is a firm believer of the immense human potential and is an ardent follower of meditative approaches for harnessing this potential! Her fitness motto is “Believe in it”. Sharing what she has learnt over the years gives her immense pleasure. She personally indulges in physical activities such as endurance training, Yoga and meditation, and encourages all around her to believe in the power of lifestyle. A strict vegetarian, and pro in fasting therapies, she loves to cook and experiment with vegan recipes.

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Comments

  1. Ajay says

    May 19, 2017 at 8:35 am

    Nice very well explained and illustrated Information .

    May be covered in next topic
    Just I m not asking prematurely​
    But how to avoid offered food (Which is usually in form of snacks ,or drink like Tea Lassie)
    And it’s always dilemma when someone​ Superior offer you .(He/she feels insulted)
    Or most of time people around u want to make you happy.

    Here along with your mind
    There mind is also involved.
    It becomes really difficult in country like India
    Where Guest are over requested​.
    Thanks
    Ajay

    Reply
    • Geetika says

      May 19, 2017 at 3:08 pm

      Hi Ajay
      Thank you for your suggestion. I’ll certainly share the insights on the same in a detailed article, but till then few pointers may help you-
      It is absolutely okay to oblige anyone offering you a snack or beverage, food is a bonding factor afterall! But practice moderation with such offerings (so have only a small piece of snack offered or reduce portion of beverage/lassi)and later attempt to eat clean for rest of the meals of the day.
      And if you are learning to wean off any particular food dishes (like sodas/cold drinks/excessive beverages/sugar treats etc) for good, then a polite but firm No to the offering is a wise way out. It will help you maintain the self discipline and people around you won’t be offended if you reassure them that you are happy following the mindful eating practices.
      Hope this helps!

      Reply
      • Ajay says

        May 19, 2017 at 4:21 pm

        Thanks again

        Reply

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