The Life Ledger

Fitness is a way of life.

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I graduated from my Optifast program and I thought I was hard-core. I didn’t crave sweets, chocolate, chips, any of that crap I used to unconsciously stuff my face with. I identified my trigger foods (like Chex Mix) and removed them from the house. I practiced being aware of my food choices including what, when and how much. I thought I was hard-core.

And then came yesterday.

I see now, there are going to be times in my life when - no matter what I do, no matter how much awareness I practice, no matter how much I talk to myself, no matter how strongly I have shifted my old behaviors - I am going to stumble. I am going to eat “bad” foods. I am going to mis-gauge portion sizes. I will have channel-surfing days, potato-chip days and second-helping days. And apparently, I will still occasionally seek comfort in food.

Fortunately, just being aware of my emotional eating, even if I don’t stop it, is enough to minimize the impact. When you stumble, the trick is to do it consciously, minimize the impact during the fact, then prevent it from becoming a habit afterward. Here’s 5 tips I used to turn a crisis into a learning experience.

1. Recognize you are responding to an emotional need or impulse.
   Choice is power. You exercise power over a situation by choosing your response instead of allowing something to happen to you. “I can’t believe I just ate that chocolate bar” sets you up for disappointment, shame and embarassment - you are so out-of-control that you couldn’t even make yourself not eat one chocolate bar! “I chose to eat that chocolate bar” removes the emotional hook - it allows you to feel ownership and responsibility without the overwhelming disappointment, and allows you to observe your choice and make changes should you want to choose differently next time. Shed your emotional baggage and empower yourself - recognize the emotional need, make a choice. True success isn’t absolute abstinence - true success is choice.
2. Identify and address the underlying emotional need.
   Of course, we all know - eating comfort food doesn’t help the actual situation. No matter how much fettuccini alfredo you eat, your co-workers will not treat you better and your job won’t be any more satisfying. No matter how many chocolate bars you consume, your teens won’t show you more respect and you won’t win the lottery. Just like alcohol and drugs, any comfort derived from emotional eating is false and temporary. If you choose to indulge in some emotional eating, do some thinking while on your emotional high - identify what is driving you to crave comfort in food, then make a game plan to change or otherwise address that situation.
3. Split your meal into portions.
   Cut your hamburger in half, split your quesedilla into quarters, box half your salad into a to-go box, put half your sushi roll on a separate plate. If you’re still hungry after eating one portion, split the remaining portion in half and eat that. After eating each portion, put your fork down, push the plate away, and pause for a moment. Physically splitting your meal into portions also splits it into choices - each time you eat another portion, you are making a new choice to eat, and with each choice comes the opportunity to access your actual physical hunger.

4. Practice “healthy eating” tips - water, small bites, eat slow, choose healthy foods.
   Use as many “healthy eating” tips as possible to help minimize your caloric intake:

   Cut empty calories - cutting the sour cream, butter, dressing, mayonnaise, free bread/chips/etc and other calorie-filled extras can reduce the overall caloric value of your meal. The sour cream I cut from the burrito I ate yesterday cut 150-ish calories from my meal, and I didn’t miss it. Had I cut the guacamole and chips, I could have cut a further 620 calories without diminishing the emotionally comforting burrito.

   Read the label - reading the exact caloric value and ingredients in the food you’re about to eat can help you find healthier alternatives to the comfort food you’re craving. Today in the grocery store, I figured some Doritos would perfectly complement my mixed-greens salad - makes perfect sense, right? Regular Doritos have 140 calories per 11 chip - and let’s not lie, I’m not going to eat 11 chips, I’ll be lucky to stop at half the bag. I thought the baked ones would be a healthier alternative, but read the ingredients anyway - and put them back when reading MSG figures prominently on the ingredients list. You never know, reading the label may even quash your craving - I walked out with no Doritos.

   Drink water during the meal - this is probably the easiest and best thing you can do to minimize your emotional eating. Ordering water with your meal cuts out beverages with empty calories and helps you reach your daily water intake level. If you take sips during your meal, water will also help you feel full faster and force you to eat slower.

   Eat slowly, take small bites - there’s some lag time after swallowing before your body recognizes fullness, and there’s lag time between your stomach reaching “full” and your mind reaching satiety. Eating slowly and taking small bites helps reduce that lag time, so you feel full and satisfied at the same time you actually are full, so you don’t end up “feeling” full at the end of the meal, but feeling stuffed 20 minutes afterward.

5. Don’t beat yourself up!
   No matter what choices you make or don’t make, no matter what food you eat or how much you consume - don’t beat yourself up over it. Chastising yourself simply invites more emotional baggage, which in turn continues the vicious cycle of emotional eating. Instead, put your energy into identifying and addressing the underlying emotional problem and coming up with a game plan for dealing with the next time you feel the impulse to emotionally eat. Alternatives might be taking a walk, reading a magazine or doing logic problems for 20 minutes, sitting in the grass in a park - something that gives you peace without eating. Each time you decide in favor of your food alternative, you reclaim power over your emotional eating.

Emotional eating doesn’t have to be a falling-off-the-bandwagon event. Rather, view it as an alarm - something in your life is causing enough stress that you crave something physical as satisfaction. Identify and address the underlying stress, and you’ll be one step closer to winning the battle against emotional eating.

Have some tips yourself? I’d love to hear them below.

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