Ice Bath Weight Loss Is There Any Hope for Ending Your Emotional Eating.
Why do you turn to food when you are upset with your spouse, frustrated by bills or anxious about an upcoming event? Food and emotions seem to be two unrelated things but as most people discover food has the ability to calm a bad mood and dampen an unpleasant emotion; it is similar to a drug only it is cheap, readily available and legal and therefore easily abused.
Foods, especially carbohydrates, cause your brain chemistry to change. Food triggers a release of certain neurotransmitters in the brain which ease tension and leave you feeling more peaceful. When you eat you get a temporary reprieve from feeling the uncomfortable feeling.
If you eat ice cream you don't have to feel as sad about not having a date on Friday night.
If you eat a bag of chips you don't have to feel as bored.
If you eat the bag of cookies you don't have to feel so frustrated about the traffic that made you late.
If you have ever used food as a coping mechanism to alleviate an uncomfortable emotion then your brain remembers that it was effective and you will turn to it again unless you have created a plan ahead of time that allows you to handle the emotion without food.
Here are four ways you can put an end to eating for emotional reasons:
1. Override the Emotions
If you have created a big enough goal or motivator for weight loss then you can override your desire to turn to food for comfort. For instance if you have a goal to look good in your swimsuit for your vacation at the beach, you might be able to override your desire to eat pizza on Friday night and have a salad instead. This strategy, when used alone, has two major drawbacks, first it relies on the need for willpower and second once your vacation is over the motivation is gone and you tend to return to your emotional eating habits.
2. Replace Food with a Different Coping Mechanism
This is a strategy that you hear kicked around a lot, find other hobbies or activities that help you deal with your emotion without having the side-effect of weight gain that food has. Common examples are read a book, go for a walk, take a bath and so on. This can be effective but the drawback is that a craving to eat for emotional reasons usually comes on very fast and unless your substitute coping mechanism is immediately available, food can still win out.
3. Shift Your Focus
This is a very effective strategy for dealing with emotional eating and allows you to stop it before it starts. Shifting your focus means that you find a positive desire or thought to focus on that makes you feel good and inspires you to move toward your goal. This can be as simple as creating a wellness vision which is a simple 2 or 3 sentence statement that describes what life will look like, be like, and feel like when you reach your ideal weight. An example would be, "I am walking on the beach with the bright sun warming my shoulders, I feel the water lap at my ankles as I stroll along beside my husband. I feel great in my bathing suit and I am so proud of myself that I could burst with excitement." The more you focus on this vision the more your desire builds and the more likely you are to make it come true. The slight drawback of this strategy is that you must program the positive vision into your mind, this requires repetition, you must focus on it a minimum of 3 times a day for 30 days before it will begin to run through your head on autopilot and positively influence your actions.
4. Release the Negative Emotions
This strategy leads to life-long results when practiced regularly and can end your need for emotional eating. Negative emotions are not attached to you even though that is how you sometimes describe them, "I'm so angry" "I'm sad". Since they are not a physical part of you then you can simply release them or let them go. There are many techniques that can be learned that allow you to let go of unhelpful or negative emotions, a short list of effective methods are The Sedona Method, The Work or Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). All of these can be found on the web. The slight drawback to these techniques is that you must learn them and discipline yourself to use them regularly. This, however, is a small price to pay to rid your life of the discomfort and pain of emotional eating and the unwanted weight gain that comes from it.
You can put an end to emotional eating but you must be willing to learn and apply these strategies. Set aside time right now to develop your plan of action, the short time you invest today will pay you dividends for the rest of your life.
Ice Bath Weight Loss.