By Christopher Emmanuel
How many times a day do you feel like you need to eat? Are you constantly craving food all day long? If you are feeling hungry every moment you might be experiencing physiological emotional stress in your life. There are hundreds of reasons why people overeat. Your appetite can be affected by many emotions such as boredom, depression, happiness, loneliness, or even by medications.
Food is often used as a source of pleasure by some people. These people have experienced previous traumas in life that limit their ability to find sources of pleasure not associated with food. This leads to overeating and obesity. Examine what you find pleasurable, if food is high on your list, consider replacing it with a physical activity.
You might be eating out of habit and with no real direction or thoughts about what you are doing with your face in the fridge. Managing your food consumption can help you have more time to focus on what is important in your life. Feeling good about your body leads to better self-esteem. If you are finding yourself overweight and want to make a change in your weight; make a conscious effort to take note of when you feel hungry and why, throughout the day. Controlling your appetite can be tough. But if you can learn to tame your appetite, you’ll be able to choose healthier foods and even to eat less and lose weight.
Try some of the following tips to curb your appetite.
*Listen to your body. You might be eating when you are bored and have nothing to do. Learn to know when you are truly hungry and when you just want to submit to your appetite. If you aren’t hungry, don’t eat. Learn to listen to your body by keeping a written record of the feelings – both physical and emotional – that accompany your meals.
*Turn your mind off. Feeling overloaded at work can cause you to eat while you are obsessing over what you have to do. Practicing doing one task at a time and make list in order to control your mental overload. Take breaks away from your desk to clear your head and put your tasks in order. If you can avoid it don’t eat in front of your desk. Go for a walk and find a quiet place to enjoy your meal. This will help you to eat less when you are stressed.
*Deal positively with your emotions. When someone says or does something that feels upsetting or hurtful to you, your response might be overeating. Anxieties and emotions can also trigger the desire to eat. If you eat because of feelings and not because of hunger, learn to deal with those feelings. Take some time to write down your feeling and sort through them. Call a friend and explain how you feel. If you find yourself in the kitchen place a note about your feeling on the fridge to remind you not to eat when you feel that way.
*When you do eat, slow down. It takes about 20 minutes for your stomach to communicate to the brain that it (the stomach) is feeling full. So wait 20 minutes before you serve yourself seconds. If you slow down your eating speed, you’ll start feeling full before you can eat a lot of excess food.
*Remember: Out of sight, out of mind. Keep all the temping high-calorie snack foods in an inconvenient place, like a high cupboard that you can’t reach without a stool. If you don’t see the snacks, or can’t simply grab a handful while walking by, you are less likely to begin munching. If you are just grabbing anything out of the refrigerator, make something healthy like cut veggies and leave them in the fridge.
*It’s important where you eat. TV is a favorite pass time especially when you are alone at home and bored. When food commercials are running 200 images per hour into our cerebral cortex it is difficult not to be draw towards the refrigerator. Turn down the volume on commercials and focus on other activities in your house while you wait for the return of your program. Try not to eat in front of the television or the computer, or in the car. You are more likely to overeat when your mind is focused on other things. By paying attention to your emotions is one way you can tame the lion in your belly.
Books by Christopher Emmanuel can be purchased at his Art Gallery in The Sunbreeze Hotel , Art of Touch, Pages Book Store, Black orchid Spa and Sol Spa.
