Easy Weight Loss Tips - I Need Diet Help
Emotional eating can undermine your efforts at losing weight. But the good news is that there are ways you can control your eating habits and stay on track with your weight loss goals.
Our most desperate desires for food often occur when we are emotionally very weak. When we are confronted with difficult problems, stress or just looking to keep busy, we tend to look to food for comfort. But it is wrong to use food continuously try to solve issues we actually need to tackle from the emotional angle, although food may give us a temporary satisfaction.
Emotional eating most times leads to binge eating, especially of fatty, high calorie sweet foods which easily lead to weight gain. Since emotional eating means eating to hide or soothe negative feelings, we are most at risk in moments of sadness, boredom, fear, stress and anger.
Triggers of emotional eating: Major life events and the stress of daily living can start off negative feelings which result in emotional eating and throw out weight loss programme out of balance. Such triggers may include but not limited to illness, loss of income, family problems, relationship problems, financial pressure, loss of a loved one and work related stress. In moments of strong emotions, we tend to resort to impulsive eating - grabbing whatever we can lay our hands on, not minding whether we enjoy it or not. In extreme situations, our emotions can become so tied to our eating habits that we impulsively reach out for any available sweet food whenever we are stressed, without even thinking about it. If you are worried over an event or conflict, you may take eating convenience food as a way of distracting your mind from dealing with the situation.
The end result of emotional eating is always the same. It doesn't matter the emotions that led to it. The emotions come back,sometimes with the burden of guilt about not keeping faith with the weight loss goal. This may then lead to the vicious cycle where our emotions cause us to over eat, we blame ourselves for not keeping to our goal, feel depressed and then eat again.
Here are some tips you can use to control emotional eating and put your weight loss goals back on track.
1. Have a love list: Put the things you love to do in the list and hang it where you can easily see it. You may be so busy caring for others that you don't even remember the things you love. The more you focus on the things you love, the more you will be fulfilled and not have to eat for emotional reasons.
2. Control your stress:You can use meditation, relaxation and yoga to manage stress. With meditation, you can quieten your mind with beautiful words which can bring you energy.
3. Control boredom: Rather than snack when you are not really hungry, you can surf the internet, take a walk, listen to music, play with the kids or just read.
4. Avoid temptation: If you find it hard to resist sweet and comfort foods, don't leave them where you can easily reach them. Avoid going to the grocery store when your emotions are not fully under your control.
5. Enjoy the occasional treat: Spoil yourself once in a while and add variety to curtail your cravings. If you limit your calories too much, you may eat too much of the same things, while avoiding the treats you enjoy. This may lead to increase in your cravings when you are emotionally stressed.
6. Eat healthy snacks: If you have to eat between meals, make it fresh fruits, vegetables (apple, carrot, cucumber) or sugar-free and butter-free pop-corn. These are low-calorie, low-fat snacks.
The reason you really want to lose weight is that you love yourself and you love your body. So, when you break the rule, forgive yourself and start afresh the next day. Learn from the mistake and manage your weight better in future. If you are happy with yourself for making positive changes in your eating habit, you will ultimately achieve your dream weight.
Our most desperate desires for food often occur when we are emotionally very weak. When we are confronted with difficult problems, stress or just looking to keep busy, we tend to look to food for comfort. But it is wrong to use food continuously try to solve issues we actually need to tackle from the emotional angle, although food may give us a temporary satisfaction.
Emotional eating most times leads to binge eating, especially of fatty, high calorie sweet foods which easily lead to weight gain. Since emotional eating means eating to hide or soothe negative feelings, we are most at risk in moments of sadness, boredom, fear, stress and anger.
Triggers of emotional eating: Major life events and the stress of daily living can start off negative feelings which result in emotional eating and throw out weight loss programme out of balance. Such triggers may include but not limited to illness, loss of income, family problems, relationship problems, financial pressure, loss of a loved one and work related stress. In moments of strong emotions, we tend to resort to impulsive eating - grabbing whatever we can lay our hands on, not minding whether we enjoy it or not. In extreme situations, our emotions can become so tied to our eating habits that we impulsively reach out for any available sweet food whenever we are stressed, without even thinking about it. If you are worried over an event or conflict, you may take eating convenience food as a way of distracting your mind from dealing with the situation.
The end result of emotional eating is always the same. It doesn't matter the emotions that led to it. The emotions come back,sometimes with the burden of guilt about not keeping faith with the weight loss goal. This may then lead to the vicious cycle where our emotions cause us to over eat, we blame ourselves for not keeping to our goal, feel depressed and then eat again.
Here are some tips you can use to control emotional eating and put your weight loss goals back on track.
1. Have a love list: Put the things you love to do in the list and hang it where you can easily see it. You may be so busy caring for others that you don't even remember the things you love. The more you focus on the things you love, the more you will be fulfilled and not have to eat for emotional reasons.
2. Control your stress:You can use meditation, relaxation and yoga to manage stress. With meditation, you can quieten your mind with beautiful words which can bring you energy.
3. Control boredom: Rather than snack when you are not really hungry, you can surf the internet, take a walk, listen to music, play with the kids or just read.
4. Avoid temptation: If you find it hard to resist sweet and comfort foods, don't leave them where you can easily reach them. Avoid going to the grocery store when your emotions are not fully under your control.
5. Enjoy the occasional treat: Spoil yourself once in a while and add variety to curtail your cravings. If you limit your calories too much, you may eat too much of the same things, while avoiding the treats you enjoy. This may lead to increase in your cravings when you are emotionally stressed.
6. Eat healthy snacks: If you have to eat between meals, make it fresh fruits, vegetables (apple, carrot, cucumber) or sugar-free and butter-free pop-corn. These are low-calorie, low-fat snacks.
The reason you really want to lose weight is that you love yourself and you love your body. So, when you break the rule, forgive yourself and start afresh the next day. Learn from the mistake and manage your weight better in future. If you are happy with yourself for making positive changes in your eating habit, you will ultimately achieve your dream weight.