Do you eat when you are bored, lonely or sad? Do you use food as a reward? Do you eat when you feel stressed?

Most people confuse emotional hunger, which has nothing to do with food, with physical hunger.

Eating when you’re physically hungry is not what generally causes weight gain. Eating when you are not physically hungry is what generally causes weight gain.

The key is eating only when you are truly physically hungry.

Remember the solution is not in the fridge.

Reaching for food whenever you are feeling angry, sad, depressed, frightened, hurt, lonely or bored will not solve the problem. You only feel better for a moment because you are actually distracting yourself. As soon as the last biscuit or piece of chocolate is gone so is the feeling of comfort. Then you feel guilty because you have eaten. Now you have two negative emotions to contend with and that’s plain greedy. No double dipping on the negative emotions!

When you reach for food while feeling emotional you are in effect attempting to sweep the food under the emotional rug of comfort eating.

TOP TEN TIPS

1. Be aware of whether you are physically hungry or emotionally hungry. Look down to your right hip and tune into the feeling in your stomach. Ask yourself if you are physically hungry or not.

2. If your tummy is not saying give me food then drink a glass of water and see what happens.

3. Rather than hiding from the feeling take a little me time out and go for a walk or have a hot bath and listen to some relaxing music.

4. Set up a support network so you have a few different people who will talk you through the feeling rather than reaching for food.

5. If you are feeling angry exercise it off. Burn up some nervous tension with some loud music and dance it off. Do some push ups and sit ups and burn some fat. Go to the gym and work out.

6. Join a Yoga, Pilates or Tai Chi class so you can unwind and relax and stretch away stress and problems.

7. You need to build “me” time into your day. You need to commit to practicing relaxation techniques daily.

8. Use Time Line Therapy to dump all your emotional baggage. Disc two in the Think Slim program is designed to support you in dumping emotional baggage. Go to the therapies page and check out Time Line Therapy.

9. Repeat the following extract from The Think Slim Secret Key whenever you feel a negative emotion sneaking up on you.

I am the most important person in the world.

And how shall I treat the most important person in the world. I shall treat myself with love and respect. In the past I may have abused my body.

The old me when upset, tired or angry may have reached for some sweet as an emotional crutch. I now realise that these comfort foods never really made me feel better. The more I ate them the more I craved. In effect I was sweeping my feelings under the rug of emotional eating.

The negative emotion of anger doesn’t serve me in any way. In the past I may have punished myself by overeating when I was in fact angry. No longer will I be weighed down by angry thoughts. From this moment forward if I begin to think angry thoughts or feel angry I will take three slow deep breaths. With every outward breath I will repeat in my mind these three words. ‘Let it go.’

I am the most important person in the world.