Does your emotional state influence your food intake?

Our emotional state often affects our food intake.

How many of us rush for a sweet snack when faced with emotional difficulty?

Are we really feeding our hunger or are we just feeding our feelings?

Do you recognise the differences between the need to eat and the want to eat?

Emotional food choices are often poor choices which offer instant satisfaction, closely followed by feelings of guilt or regret.

A large part of weight loss involves recognising how impactful emotions are on behaviours.

Tracking eating triggers is the first step to understanding why we eat when we are not hungry.

At times we will opt for a healthy option or, more often than not, the high calorie, high sugar, high fat food options.

So which emotions trigger us?

1. Boredom – leads to mindless eating.

2. Sadness – leads to high calorie, high sugar food intake.

3. Happiness/ Celebrations – celebrating with sweet treats or high calorie beverages, mainly alcohol.

4. Stress – which fuels or prevents eating.

5. Tiredness – which leads to high sugar food consumption. .

What do you turn to when you are happy or sad?