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Emotional Eating and Weight Loss: What Do You Really Need?

By: Carol Solomon

You can lose weight just by eating when you are hungry and stopping when the hunger signals go away.

If we all ate ONLY when we were hungry, then no one would have any issue with food and weight.

For most people, it's not that simple.

How often are you letting hunger be the guide to your eating?

And how many of your urges to eat are driven by physiological hunger?

When we reach for food, it often has nothing to do with physiological hunger. Many people have lost the ability to feel their body's hunger signals entirely. What's hunger got to do with it?

Eating when hungry should be the simplest and most natural thing in the world.

But it's not.

Next time you have an urge to eat, ask yourself?

Am I hungry?

If yes, great!

Hunger is good.

If no, what ARE you hungry for?

What do you need?

Do you need energy, a lift, a boost in your day to "get through" what you need to do?

Do you need to calm down?

Most people live with a certain amount of stress and anxiety. It can be easily triggered. Your child acts out in school, and you worry about their future and whether you are a good enough parent.

Or you have to make an important presentation at work and you are scared that you won't perform well.

You feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of items on your to-do list and the anxious reality that you will never catch up. You need to know that you can perform well, even under stressful circumstances.

These are all needs – they are just not FOOD needs.

Yes – food can give you temporary comfort.

The problem comes when you start to experience the cost of that action. You may feel miserable and beat yourself up. Worst of all, you are caught in the same vicious cycle . . . . repeating the same pattern over and over again.

Whatever you don't want to face will control you.

If you don't like what you are doing, then you need to replace it with a different habit.

So, when you find yourself reaching for food when you aren't hungry, simply ask yourself – am I hungry?

If no . . . what do I need?

Are you exhausted, and you need to rest . . . but you THINK you have to keep going? A lot of overeating occurs out of exhaustion ("I'm tired and I just want to eat").

Here's another great question:

What is the kindest thing I can do for myself right now?

Then, go do it.

Eating is far more enjoyable when you ARE hungry.

So challenge yourself to wait for the true hunger and get your other needs met more directly. You'll feel a LOT better about yourself.

Does food fulfill more than your physical hunger? How many times do you eat “comfort foods” to distract you from other problems? After you have binged on food, have your other problems gone away? Learn how to replace binge-eating with healthier, longer-lasting alternatives to dealing with your stress.

Get your free 60-minute audio training "6 Powerful Strategies to Lasting Weight Loss" Learn to stop binge eating and turn off the drive to overeat. Carol Solomon, Ph.D. Psychologist and Life Coach tells you how.

Article Source: http://www.positivearticles.com. PositiveArticles.Com does not vouch for or necessarily endorse the contents of this article.


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