It is no surprise that our mood effects how we eat and what we chose to eat. The term emotional eating comes from our mind's need to comfort ourself. When our bodies are stressed, the hormone cortisol is released making our bodies crave sugary and fatty foods. Accordingly, people who are emotional eaters tend to eat foods that are soft, require little chewing, high in calories, sodium, sugar and saturated fat. If you do find yourself craving such foods when in physical or emotional pain, try eating the below foods instead:
- Foods rich in sulphur: Onions, artichokes, bok choy, garlic, asperigus, animal protein bone marrow/ cartridge
- Tumeric
- Cherries
- Black Tea
Other ways to help curb emotional eating:
- Exercise: releases endorphins which in turn give you a feeling of happiness and satisfaction
Happiness = fight the stress producing hormone, cortisol - Getting out of the house: sometimes it's difficult to not eat when you are 5 feet from your fridge. Getting out to walk the dog, take a hike, even run errands can distract you from feeling the need to emotionally eat
- Write out your feelings: writing out exactly how you are feeling can be very therapeutic, tt brings us awareness while also being cathartic
- Talk to someone: there is a reason you are feeling the need to emotionally eat. Learning the root of the issue can alleviate the reason for the emotional eating