chilove
02-20-2007, 07:10 PM
Hello all,
I recently posted this in response to another thread and I thought I'd start a new thread about it so more people could see it and benefit from it and to generate more discussion about techniques to deal with emotional eating. It would be great to hear what works for you!
What I've discovered about emotional eating through studying it a great deal and working with clients is that we typically do it to avoid feeling something (anxiety, boredom, sadness, fear, etc) and we do it out of habit (social situations, celebrations, etc). Part of it is that cooked food is very numbing and when we first go raw we often spend a lot of time trying to recapture that numbed out sensation. We feel uncomfortable being fully conscious and present at first. It is hard for us to just "be" with ourselves and our feelings. But if we stick with it and find the courage to be willing to resist the urge to eat we can learn that those feelings are 1) not nearly as horrible as we had feared they might be and 2) actually pass pretty quickly if we would just let ourselves feel them.
Another reason why avoiding cravings and emotional eating is so hard is that these behaviors are driven by how our brains have evolved to reward us for engaging in behaviors that are very important to our species, like eating and reproduction. If these behaviors weren't enjoyable we might not survive as a species, so our brain rewards us with flooding our brain with pleasurable feeling chemicals (dopamine for one) when we engage in them. We are always seeking this chemical reward because it feels so good. The idea is to replace the behavior that is troubling us (emotional eating) with something else that makes us feel good. Make sure that you have many pleasurable experiences in your life. Food is meant to pleasuable, but it shouldn't be the ONLY pleasurable experience in our lives.
Also, cognitive therapy teaches us that changing the way we think about cravings can help a great deal. Many times our thoughts make things much worse for us. We often tend to exagerate and catastrophize things. Here are some common unrealistic beliefs about cravings and some better ways of thinking about them:
Unrealistic Belief:
Cravings are excruciating or unbearable.
Realistic Alternative:
They are uncomfortable, but not unbearable.
Unrealistic Belief:
Cravings are constant.
Realistic Alternative:
Cravings are time limited. They will pass.
Unrealistic Belief:
Cravings force one to use or act.
Realistic Alternative:
I choose to act on the craving. There are many urges I do not act on and I can resist any urge, no matter how strong it is.
Unrealistic Belief:
I'll go crazy if I don't give in.
Realistic Alternative:
I haven't yet and won't. Actually, I will be more emotionally and physically healthy by learning to resist urges.
Emotional eating is largely a learned behavior and CAN be unlearned. It just takes some perserverance and some willingness to do the work. It also requires that we be adults for ourselves and be willing to experience some momentary discomfort when we don't give in to our cravings. Every time we are successful at doing this we realize that we are actually much stronger than we think we are. At the same time we need to be working on issues contributing to our wanting to eat emotionally (is our life working the way we'd like it to? do we need to develop more effective and healthier coping skills?) so that we aren't always having to "white knuckle" it and so that we can reach a place of having a comfortable, balanced relationship with food.
I hope this helps. I do know that conquering (or at the very least succesfully managing) emotional eating IS possible. I know that if I (a former compulsive overeater and junk food addict) can do it, ANYONE can. :-)
All the best,
Audrey
www.rawhealing.com
I recently posted this in response to another thread and I thought I'd start a new thread about it so more people could see it and benefit from it and to generate more discussion about techniques to deal with emotional eating. It would be great to hear what works for you!
What I've discovered about emotional eating through studying it a great deal and working with clients is that we typically do it to avoid feeling something (anxiety, boredom, sadness, fear, etc) and we do it out of habit (social situations, celebrations, etc). Part of it is that cooked food is very numbing and when we first go raw we often spend a lot of time trying to recapture that numbed out sensation. We feel uncomfortable being fully conscious and present at first. It is hard for us to just "be" with ourselves and our feelings. But if we stick with it and find the courage to be willing to resist the urge to eat we can learn that those feelings are 1) not nearly as horrible as we had feared they might be and 2) actually pass pretty quickly if we would just let ourselves feel them.
Another reason why avoiding cravings and emotional eating is so hard is that these behaviors are driven by how our brains have evolved to reward us for engaging in behaviors that are very important to our species, like eating and reproduction. If these behaviors weren't enjoyable we might not survive as a species, so our brain rewards us with flooding our brain with pleasurable feeling chemicals (dopamine for one) when we engage in them. We are always seeking this chemical reward because it feels so good. The idea is to replace the behavior that is troubling us (emotional eating) with something else that makes us feel good. Make sure that you have many pleasurable experiences in your life. Food is meant to pleasuable, but it shouldn't be the ONLY pleasurable experience in our lives.
Also, cognitive therapy teaches us that changing the way we think about cravings can help a great deal. Many times our thoughts make things much worse for us. We often tend to exagerate and catastrophize things. Here are some common unrealistic beliefs about cravings and some better ways of thinking about them:
Unrealistic Belief:
Cravings are excruciating or unbearable.
Realistic Alternative:
They are uncomfortable, but not unbearable.
Unrealistic Belief:
Cravings are constant.
Realistic Alternative:
Cravings are time limited. They will pass.
Unrealistic Belief:
Cravings force one to use or act.
Realistic Alternative:
I choose to act on the craving. There are many urges I do not act on and I can resist any urge, no matter how strong it is.
Unrealistic Belief:
I'll go crazy if I don't give in.
Realistic Alternative:
I haven't yet and won't. Actually, I will be more emotionally and physically healthy by learning to resist urges.
Emotional eating is largely a learned behavior and CAN be unlearned. It just takes some perserverance and some willingness to do the work. It also requires that we be adults for ourselves and be willing to experience some momentary discomfort when we don't give in to our cravings. Every time we are successful at doing this we realize that we are actually much stronger than we think we are. At the same time we need to be working on issues contributing to our wanting to eat emotionally (is our life working the way we'd like it to? do we need to develop more effective and healthier coping skills?) so that we aren't always having to "white knuckle" it and so that we can reach a place of having a comfortable, balanced relationship with food.
I hope this helps. I do know that conquering (or at the very least succesfully managing) emotional eating IS possible. I know that if I (a former compulsive overeater and junk food addict) can do it, ANYONE can. :-)
All the best,
Audrey
www.rawhealing.com