How I stopped emotional eating?

After my trauma, a side effect that I didn't plan on was starting to emotionally eat. I had heard of people struggling with this, especially after covid. Looking back, I can see how I had this to some degree. Though it was never a real problem for me. After my trauma, the side effects of me trying to deal with my feelings were unexpected. I found myself having a real problem with emotional eating. Any spare moment that I had, especially when I was dealing with a lot of feelings, I would find myself eating. I felt like I always had to be eating basically. There wasn't a lot I could do to control myself. Before I knew it, I was 5 lbs heavier.

I can honestly say that I was surprised. I am a person that works out every day. So being 5 lbs heavier, and really feeling like it was all fat was a lot for me. So I started to examine myself, my life and how I was feeling in order to figure it out.

Keep a food journal

Keeping track of my eating really helped me to examine my own behaviours. It was because of this that I was able to figure out that I had an eating problem in the first place. At first I would keep track of my eating, then review it at the end of the day. Reviewing it made a big difference for me. There is something powerful about seeing it in front of you. For me, seeing the amount of what I was eating and what I was eating made me reflect on myself.

I learned that either I didn't eat anything, or was way over eating. When I overate, it wasn't things that were good for me. It wasn't like I was overeating on salad or something.

Keep track of your emotions

I then started to keep track of how I was feeling. Just the aspect of tracking things made me more aware of my feelings. It made me aware of how I felt through my eating. What I realized was that there was a pattern. On the days that I was stressed, lonely, sad, I would eat more. A lot of time it was candy and sugar. I would then feel really bad physically, really tired. I would then eat more in order to just keep me going through the day.

Truly what it did was made me aware. I started to consider if I was really hunger when I wanted to eat. Before I would eat, I would consider how I was feeling. If I was really hunger, or if I was sad or angry. It made me more aware of my body and what was happening to me. Being aware is the first step to doing better.

Think before you eat

Being aware made me know how I had to stop deal with my emotions. When I was eating, especially outside of a meal, I would stop and think. I would consider what I was really feeling. This forced me to deal with my feelings. Having a journal, or posting a video, having a place to get out my emotions really helped me to work through them.

Get on an eating plan

Going through this process I could see how easily I wasn't eating. So getting on an eating plan is the best thing you can do to make sure that you eat the right things and get what you need for a day. For me, that was a plan called portion fix, through a streaming company called Bodi. Basically food is divided into food containers, protein, carbs, fruit and vegetable. You get a certain number of containers for a day in each category. What it does is make sure that you eat the right things to make you feel good. The plan can be anything you want. The point is to make sure that you eat, not to go on a diet. It's very easy to stop eating through this, which isn't healthy either.

Keep busy

Find a hobby or something that will keep you busy. When I was feeling lonely or bored, was when my emotional eating would be the worst. So I made sure to keep myself busy. It can be something relaxing like coloring, or puzzles. The point is to have something to do.

There are ways to work through these problems if you have them. To work past it. Being aware will help you work through your emotions.

-T