To overcome emotional eating and defeat cravings can be challenging! Many people confuse emotional hunger with physical hunger. Do you know how to spot the difference?
Emotional eating is eating for reasons other than hunger like stress, anger, confusion, disappointment, depression, or feeling overwhelmed. Emotional hunger comes on suddenly, where as physical hunger occurs gradually. Emotional hunger feels like it needs to be satisfied instantly with the food you crave, whereas physical hunger can wait.
When you are eating to fill a void, that isn’t related to an empty stomach, you crave a specific food such as pizza or ice cream and only that food will meet your need. When you eat because you are actually hungry, you are open to options. Try to stop eating when you have satisfied your physical hunger. To do this, eat twenty five percent of your portion and stop. try to track your feelings. How full are you? What do you feel in your stomach? Repeat this when you have eaten half and then when you have eaten all of it. If after you’ve eaten everything you still feel hungry or you need desert, try to take your time.
For these tips and more, please watch this short video to learn more about how to identify and solve emotional hunger patterns.