Want to know the most helpful tips for controlling emotional eating?

These are the insanely good tips you need to know about!

Leaning on food for comfort is something I've always struggled with. When life gets overwhelming and stressful circumstances arise, it can be easy to turn to food to indulge and unwind!

Though comforting at the time, it can become way more of a problem than intended. Leaning on food for anything more than fuel can lead to dangerous declines in our health! For me, that meant leading to almost 100-pound weight gain, pre-diabetic symptoms, and aching knees and back!

This post is all about emotional eating and my top tips to stop it before it starts!

Best Emotional Eating Tips

1. Identify Your Triggers For

Emotional Eating

No matter what we do, we will encounter stressful situations, and
everyone deals with stress in different ways. Here is what is most helpful for overcoming stress eating: identifying triggers.

Here are some questions to ask yourself to help identify your specific triggers:

When are some times emotional eating feels most prevalent for you?
What situations are on your "worst -case scenario" list?
Are there certain relationships or people who seem to drive you to that behavior?
Are there certain seasons of the year that make it harder to remain in control of your eating?
Do certain work-related tasks cause you stress that pushes you over the edge?

Suppose you can find out what activates your mind to overeat. In that case, it will be easier to prevent emotional eating from the start. You will be more prepared for the unexpected with a clearer idea of your triggers. Then you can easily talk yourself down from the temptation to over-indulge!

It's helpful to write down your emotional eating triggers. You can create a list in your phone's notes, on a piece of paper, or wherever works best for you. It's important to have a solid copy to
go back and look at it so that the list is not just in your head.

Sadly, emotional eating usually starts and finishes before you have realized what you've done. If you have a list of triggers and familiarize yourself with them often, you can overcome the temptation to start emotional eating in extremely overwhelming times!

2. Journal or Talk to Someone

I love journaling and recommend it for many things in life, especially when it comes to your health!

Many people swear by getting a macro-counting app or keeping a food journal. Although I think those things are helpful, I am talking about journaling your feelings when you feel tempted to stress eat.

I am an external processor and find it extremely helpful to talk to someone when dealing with stress. Still, there are times when journaling seems more beneficial.

It is good to write down WHAT triggered you, but it is better to write down WHY you think it happened. The root of the trigger is not in the temptation itself; it's in the WHY. One way to properly identify WHY you are doing something is to talk it through, either with someone or with yourself (journaling). You are the only person who can truly identify why you feel compelled to do something.

The only way to overcome something like emotional eating is to understand what brought about the urge (trigger) and to get a grasp on the emotions behind it. Journaling or talking to someone is the best practice for this!

3. Find A Diet That You Can Live With

A diet, by definition, is the kind of food a person habitually eats. Everyone has one, but not everyone is intentional about it. A diet isn't necessarily for losing weight. Up until a few years ago, I chose the Standard American Diet. That seems to be the default for most Americans who aren't intentionally choosing something better.

When you are not intentional with what you are eating daily, it makes it hard to identify what causes you to emotionally eat. We are triggered more often than we realize. However, when we don't have any boundaries set up, we don't recognize what actually transforms our temptations into over-indulgences.

I am speaking from personal experience and overeating most of my adult life. When I decided to choose a different way of eating and became very intentional, it became easier to identify my emotional eating patterns.

Deciding what diet to choose isn't easy. You may have to experiment with different options. If you are consciously choosing a diet, possibly for the first time in your life, then make sure it's something that allows for the flexibility you need. For example, if you're always on the go, then a diet that requires you to only eat at home may not be the one to choose. Choose a diet that fits your lifestyle best. No matter the diet, be intentional with it because that intentionality will give you the most success when it comes to emotional eating.

If you are thoughtful with your diet, you are less likely to over-indulge when you experience stressful situations.

4. Create A Plan

Planning is vital in every aspect of life. Most big businesses and corporations cannot function without planning to some degree.

When it comes to eating, one of the most important parts of life, we often go into it every day without a plan. It has been said that "when you fail to plan, you plan to fail." I have found that is certainly true when it comes to emotional eating.

No matter what diet you choose, you can easily plan what you will eat daily. If meal-prep isn't your thing, that's ok, it's not mine either! An eating plan doesn't have to include meal prep.

Simply sitting down each week and planning out what you will eat can eliminate a lot of stress and, as a result, lower your chances of eating based on feelings. If you planned a spaghetti dinner on Saturday and change your mind, you can switch it to tacos on Tuesday! You aren't entirely bound to your plan. It simply serves as a helpful guide to keep you on track.

Having a plan leaves little room for failure, which is precisely the point!

I've created a FREE printable meal plan to help you start your journey!

5. Schedule Your Guilty Pleasures

You should never deprive yourself. Deprivation leads to overeating and derails you from your progress. It could also be a trigger for emotional eating.

So, instead of swearing off your favorite foods, plan them. When you prepare yourself in advance to have them, you won't feel like you need to over-indulge because you can have them in moderation again in a week or so.

You have one life, and you should enjoy the foods you love guilt-free; they taste better like that anyway!