Diet Doctor Suggests: Ways to Stop Emotional Eating

associatedcontent.com Doctor Dean Anderson, in a column a column recently in Woman's Day Magazine (see references), says that one of the biggest hazards in any diet is succumbing to emotional eating. It's one of the most difficult problems to overcome when trying to lose weight because more often than not, it comes about when people are feeling their weakest and are the most susceptible to the temptation of something they think will make them feel better. But, it's not all bad news, Dr. Anderson, says there are things people can do to head off emotional eating before it occurs.

The most obvious one of course, is to stay grounded. People don't feel the urge to run to the refrigerator to soothe an aching heart if they avoid situations that cause their heart to ache in the first place. Not that it's possible to avoid all heartache, loneliness or despair, but for those that seem to be on a constant roller coaster, dieting is going to be extra challenging. Thus, he suggests looking into taking care of emotional problems before embarking on any new diets. The next thing he suggests is stopping to give yourself a reality check before sliding into a state of denial that allows for binge eating. Reality checks might include reminding yourself that just because you went off your diet for a minute and had a cookie, that doesn't mean the whole thing is off. It is possible to simply acknowledge that one cookie doesn't mean the end of the world, then get back to the diet. Another example is not going off the deep end if they numbers on the scale aren't falling fast enough, or god forbid, go up one day. It's likely taken a lot of time to get all that weight on, and will take at least as long to get it off.

Something else that can help is putting things in perspective, or avoiding making mountains out of molehills. The reality is, life happens. Some days are good, some bad and most of the stuff that goes on is not really all that big of deal. Making it so only sends people to the fridge looking for emotional support. The bottom line is, dieting is a tough slog, and it takes a lot of time, thought and emotional strength to reach preset goals. Despite that, most people can achieve their goals if they will only pump themselves up when they need it, rather than slide down into an emotional abyss where the only thing that looks like it will help, is that perfect food that you've been craving so much.