How to Get a Handle on Emotional Eating

Is Your Relationship with Food Normal?

If you eat for the wrong reasons, the first step to losing weight could be taking control of your mindset about food
By Hollis Templeton
 

You Hide Food—and Its Wrappers

Your friends tell you that you eat like a bird, but you know you’ll go home to a late night snacking session—and bury the wrappers at the bottom of the trash can. Because if nobody sees you, it doesn’t count.

Except it does. Closet eating, a practice classified by pigging out in private and hiding the evidence, is a form of binge eating, Rydin-Gray says. “There are a lot of emotional components to binge eating, and one is certainly shame,” she explains. “People are very ashamed of binging and it’s typically not something they want to do in front of anyone else.”

Since closet binges are often rooted in specific negative emotions, like stress, depression, or loneliness, working with a therapist or eating disorder specialist may be a more effective treatment than an extra hour at the gym.

The Fix: Keep a Diary
A study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry found that therapy methods focused on working through one’s emotional problems are more effective in treating binge eating disorder than behavioral weight loss treatments like diet and exercise regimes.

“It takes self-awareness and courage to experience unpleasant emotions instead of numbing them with food,” Rydin-Gray explains. “Since binging is often driven by some type of hunger, identify what you really need.”

Eat regular meals to avoid becoming overly hungry and keep a log of what you eat and what’s going on around you at the time. “ID your triggers,” Rydin-Gray suggests, “And do it without judging. Be curious and not angry with yourself.”

0 Comments
Keywords:
Related Content