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Emotional Eating – A Holistic Approach for Healthy Eating

Emotional eating (hence the name) is often attributed to and described in terms of pure emotion. However, our emotions and emotional body are intrinsically linked with our physical, mental, and spiritual expression. While there is much information on the subject of emotional eating, we hope to empower the reader with a simple strategy in which to understand and transform current eating habits into balanced instinctive choice. Your health and well-being are truly in your own hands.

What Is Emotional Eating? A New Definition:

By creating a new definition of emotional eating we’re free to feel good about ourselves and relax in the knowledge that our basic instincts are correct and that it's simply the outcome that we're wishing to change. It's important to understand that all eating is emotional and so involves our emotions. However, we want our emotional choices to be in balance with the rest of our aspects. So emotional eating is simply our attempt to bring ourselves into balance using food as a tool.

Why We Choose Food To Balance Ourselves:

Food has always been intrinsic to every culture since the dawn of time and for good reason. It supports life. For most of us, food is easily obtainable, affordable with a wide variety of choices and options. So it makes sense that as "masters" of food we become proficient at using food to regulate ourselves.

For most of us, every single day (each and every day), we make a series of complex decisions on what to consume and when. This complex decision pattern is often so automatic we don't pay much attention to it or give much thought to how we come to our conclusions. What's important to realize however, is that for most of us, the information we are using to make these decisions is inaccurate and therefore results in an unintentional outcome.

The Effect Food Has on Us:

Food affects us on many different levels and in many different ways. From the time we’re born we not only learn that food sustains us but plays an important role in our relationship with ourselves, others, and the world around us. Some of the ways in which we begin learning about food and gathering data to make our own decisions include:

Geographical & Environmental
Certain foods grow in certain geographic locations. While many foods are now available all year round and in any part of the world, food cycles (as nature intended) still relate to the geographic area we live in and the specific environment.

Societal
Different societies around the world consume different foods and prepare them in unique and different ways. When we are born into a society we tend to eat those foods almost exclusively.

Social
Food is often at the center of social activities and at an early age we learn to associate particular foods with particular activities and in turn equate these to particular feelings and emotions.

Emotional
Most of us grow up with special foods called "treats" that are used as rewards. Treats are generally foods that are either expensive, difficult to obtain, or simply appealing to the taste buds (and are not necessarily good for us). Strong unconscious associations are made between these types of foods and emotional states of happiness. Likewise, most of us have been punished by having food withheld, leading to unconscious associations between a lack of food and unhappiness.

Nutritional
Food has the ability to affect our body’s chemistry and hormonal balance. Through years of practice, we've become proficient at changing our body chemistry using food. And in turn our body chemistry affects other functions so that our food consumption actually regulates our mental activity and acuity.

Educational
We're all exposed to a certain amount of food education. In fact most of us generally know what foods are good for us. However very few of us have had access to a sound education in nutrition and the role this plays in overall health.

Our food information comes from a vast selection of assorted information from personal experience, parents, teachers, friends, media, health professionals, government departments, and private industry. Each of these sources may have a specific agenda and may not be accurate (and may even conflict).

Our Personal Food Map

From an early age we begin gathering data and associations on which to build our food habits. By the time we're teenagers, our food habits have often become unconscious, and entrenched. By the time we become adults, we have created our personal, unique food map that automatically guides our selection and consumption of foods. By consciously redesigning our food maps based on intuition, facts, and knowledge, we can shift our food habits so that they are naturally aligned with our overall well-being.

Redesigning Our Food Maps

Changing our personal food maps is an ongoing process. The first step is simply to pay attention and be aware whenever we make decisions concerning food. We can then begin to determine why we make the choices we do and evaluate the reasons (and data) behind those choices. The following are guidelines to help redesign your own food map:

Intuition
We all have the ability to intuitively determine what foods are most appropriate for us. It simply takes patience and a willingness to reconnect with this intuition.

Nature Knows Best
We all instinctually and intuitively know that foods found in nature are generally good for us. Nature provides for us just as it does for every other living thing.

Expert Advice
As with all health and wellness advice it's important that the source “walk the walk” and have a level of wellness that we admire.

So What? I Still Crave Twinkies and They Make Me Feel Good:

We know that we're food masters. We know that we have food maps based on our own unique experience. We know we can change our food maps. So what's missing?

Food technicians have become adept at taking nature's foods and combining them with artificial, often toxic chemicals. The laboratory end-product finds its way onto our supermarket shelf, deceptively marketed as “food”. Such products, both “foods” and “beverages”, are of course “man-made”, certainly not as nature intended. Our supermarket aisles are full of them. These false foods have become a tantalizing distraction aimed at a quick fix for the modern consumer's busy lifestyle. Who ever heard of emotional eating leading to a broccoli binge? Our bodies inherently know how to regulate nature’s foods and, as we know, it becomes an unpleasant experience (even physically difficult) to consume too much of one food. (Note however, that the same can be said for nature's foods. Pushing the body beyond its natural limits can lead to food sensitivities, intolerances and allergies.)

Man-made non-foods and beverages bypass the body’s natural defenses and have a much stronger, unnatural, deleterious effect on our body/brain chemistry than natural foods. In effect, non-foods act more like drugs than food. So it's easy to understand why we might develop cravings and over-indulge. Non-foods, with their faster and more dramatic "pick me up" effect in turn cause a greater "dip", creating the vicious cycle of over-consumption and often excessive weight gain.

How To Switch To Nature’s Foods? And What About My Cravings?

Like any major shift it's important to use your intuition (and if unsure, to take it slowly and seek professional advice where appropriate). Here are some approaches to consider:

1. Replace non-foods with their food equivalents (preferably organic). For example, ice-cream brands containing ingredients that are difficult to pronounce can be easily replaced with an organic equivalent. Because real food costs more, it can also act as a financial incentive for us to consume less.
2. Experiment with nature's foods. Is there is a substitute that satisfies the craving? For example, a craving for fries might be satisfied by a plate of home cooked potatoes, olive oil & salt. Cravings for sweets might be satisfied with maple syrup, honey, dates, fresh fruits (or a combination of these). Seek out fresh locally grown food where possible – it usually tastes better as it's grown according to the season in our geographic location.
3. Experiment with different activities that bring joy and pleasure. If we’re eating food to simply try to balance ourselves (and not because we're hungry) engaging in an activity can be a beneficial substitute.
4. Are you willing to dig deeper? Consciously pay attention to your feelings and memories while eating emotionally. Unconscious food associations can often be changed simply by understanding the underlying cause (and in some cases addressing the underlying issue). The article on conscious habits may also be beneficial.

On a Final Note: