Emotional Eating and Your Heathy Thin Mentality

I know that many people feel frustrated and say to themselves, “I am an emotional eater, I eat to comfort myself etc, so I could never have a thin mentality.”

Instead of berating yourself for "eating emotionally," say to yourself, as soon as I am hungry, I can comfort myself with food.   Do you see the difference?

I eat food to take care of myself, comfort myself, nourish myself, warm myself, all the time!  

When I am hungry!  

That is the way it is supposed to be.  I prepare myself something I like or buy something extra special or “expensive,”  if I am having a bad day in some way.  I use my next hunger opportunity to “eat emotionally.”

So, stop thinking that you have to disconnect eating from that nice cozy feeling of providing your body with some lovely food.  Naturally thin people love food too, and for example, may say to themselves, “This has been a really lousy day at work, I am going to go out for a nice dinner and glass of wine.”  There is nothing wrong with that.

It is a problem, however, when you do this without respect for your hunger.  And remember, hunger is always right around the corner.  You will be hungry several times every day.  So no pouting about not eating RIGHT NOW.  Just calm down and wait a little little bit!  That food you want to enjoy will be more satisfying, and you will feel happy that you waited.

You are re-training yourself, remember!  So even if you just delay eating a little while, that is still progress.  And while you are eating, just keep asking yourself, “Could I be done for now?”  That “for now” part is important so that you really remember that just because you are going to stop eating at that moment, another eating opportunity will arrive really soon!

Understand that nurturing yourself with food may feel like emotional eating.  But as long as you wait for hunger, it is just taking care of yourself.  And if you don't think you can wait for hunger,  just give yourself a chance.  

You may surprise yourself!   You won’t do it all the time at first. But do it once.  The first time is the hardest.  But once your body begins to get into a rhythm, where hunger is connected with eating, over and over, everything gets easier.