Winter often goes hand in hand with emotional eating – using food to deal with stress or overwhelm. We take a look at some new ways to limit or avoid this behaviour so you can glide into 2023 feeling positive and in control of your food.
CURLING UP ON THE sofa with hot chocolate and bickies sounds like heaven, especially when it’s cold and dark outside, but when comfort eating becomes a habit or a way of managing anxiety, you can find the pounds piling on.
‘We tend to suffer from emotional eating when we feel stressed, bored, anxious or lonely,’ says Saba Stone, qualified nutritionist and coach at
SportSession.com (sportsession.com). ‘Unfortunately, it involves eating sweet and fatty food that sabotages weight-management efforts. The soothing effect that comes from emotional eating is temporary and can lead to a sense of guilt and, subsequently, more emotional eating.’
Frustratingly, it’s not just negative emotions that cause us to reach for the cake tin – feeling happy or excited can also give us the urge to eat. But why is this?
‘It’s really to do with any kind of heightened emotion that is causing you to feel a little bit out of kilter,’ explains Dr Meg Arroll, chartered psychologist and author of new book Tiny Traumas: When you don’t know what’s wrong, but nothing feels quite right (£16.99, Thorsons). ‘Your body and mind is always trying to aim for a sense of homeostasis,’ she adds. ‘So, if there’s a heightened emotion – whether it feels nice or not particularly nice – your brain is trying to realign you back to a sense of balance. And, of course, because you’re often surrounded by food or images of food, you’re always primed to eat.’
Want to learn how to beat comfort eating for good? Read on to see what the experts have to say about taking care of your emotions, so you no longer turn to food for emotional nourishment…
DISTRACT YOURSELF
Food cravings only last a few moments, so using distraction techniques can be an effective way to manage them when the urge to eat strikes. ‘You can distract yourself cognitively by trying to read a paragraph back to front out loud or doing some mental arithmetic,’ says Dr Arroll. ‘Or try using temperature. Grasping something cold will quickly
nudge you out of that craving state.’
In fact, anything that takes your attention away from thoughts of food is a good short-term strategy to use in the moment. Research shows even just tapping your forehead with your index finger for 30 seconds significantly reduces cravings.
AVOID TEMPTATION
It’s hard to resist snacks and treats when your kitchen is full of delicious things, but rather than cutting them out
