April is Emotional Overeating Awareness Month

Emotional eating is an attempt to manage mood with food and can happen at any age, it is a major cause of overeating, weight gain, and weight regain.

If you are an emotional eater, it’s important to take the time to identify your emotional eating triggers, whether they are feelings, situations, or even certain people or relationships. By getting to the root of your overeating, you can start learning how to respond effectively.

The following tips may help you understand emotional eating and help you prevent it.

• The next time a craving or an urge to overeat strikes, ask yourself why you are eating or why you are feeling hungry This helps you identify the root cause of overeating.

• Keep a food record of what you eat, when you eat, and why you eat. Recognizing what triggers eating can often make it easier to make changes.

• Put off eating for five minutes. Don’t tell yourself you can’t eat. Just tell yourself to wait. While you’re waiting, check in with yourself. How are you feeling? What’s going on emotionally? Even if you end up eating, you’ll have a better understanding of why you ate.