Emotional Eating "De Stress Before You Eat"

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They attempt to figure out why we eat when we're stressed and theorize it might have something to do with the fight or flight. How silly is that? The answer is that different types of stress leads to different emotions. The brain has two primary directives:
1. Survival
2. Pleasure seeking

When we dealt with stress as a baby and were frustrated about anything, the bottle was the answer. As children whenever we were stressed with upset with school and came home crying, cookies and milk was the answer. Thus we were programed that food helped us survive.

Whenever we had a birthday, holiday, special occasion(and there are about six to ten every year in every family) there was the eustress of family and wall-to-wall food. When dad took you for a Sunday ride the eustress of enjoying the family together was stopping at Dairy Queen or Friendly's.

Thus we're conditioned since childhood to relate food with distress (bad stress) and food with eustress (good stress).

The answer to solving the emotional eating is to solve your stress before being around food. Wow, you'd have to be some sort of machine or cybernaught to do that.

Back to observing--I hope you begin to share your experiences in this blog as the first step to any real change is observation rather than jumping in, expending a lot of energy and ending up with disappointment.

I had my one egg breakfast with toast and two pieces of bacon. I noticed a sense of apprehension for my plans for the day.

For dinner I observed tiredness and a sense of accomplishment for the afternoon's events. My significant other prepared a northern Chinese style dinner with rice, eggs, potatoes. I had one helping and a piece of water melon after a nap for desert after which I noticed an incredible urge for ice cream. I observed a feeling of tiredness or hangover from my nap and chose to take it straight and instead of ice cream drank a cup of coffee.

Please take an opportunity to share your observations. Remember there is no right or wrong, good or bad with your feelings and emotions or what you do or do not consume.

Want to get a head start on the emotional battle? You can purchase the best book, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) ever written about emotional eating now for only $14.95.