With the dark nights starting to wane, your thoughts might start turning to shedding the layers – of clothing or your weight.
Emotional eating can be a way of suppressing or soothing our emotions, helping us deal with stress, fear, boredom, sadness or loneliness. Life events or daily life can trigger emotions that lead to emotional eating and upset your weight-loss efforts.
Negative associations with food have usually been conditioned by our parents, our environment or our experiences, so the goal is to change your tastes and introduce small habits so that you eat ‘proper’ food, meaning that the calories then take care of themselves.
If you do eat something ‘bad’, do you experience feelings of guilt or shame? Giving yourself permission to eat what you want but in smaller quantities and savouring it (mindful eating) is the key. If that food is not enough to satisfy you, however, then there is usually something else going on emotionally that you may wish to explore.
Our overuse of sugar has also become an addiction. Sugar does not love us or our bodies and yet we use it as a substitute for just that. Sweetness is hardwired into us when we are born but it is when we start to use it as an emotional crutch that it becomes difficult to stop. No amount of chocolate will satisfy your hunger or fill the emptiness if what you really want is a relationship, friendship or human connection.
With 95% of the body’s serotonin living in our guts, and influencing our moods and emotions, a better diet will help us stay healthier with a more positive mindset.
The Bach Flower Remedies are one way in which you can naturally reduce any worries, stress or anxieties around emotional eating. Using the system, Kim will create a personalised mix just for you. There are also essential oils which help to support appetite, metabolism or linked emotions.
For more information or a chat about the positive potential of these therapies, get in touch.
[This article also appears in the Mar/Apr 22 issue of Root and Branch Magazine - subscribe at www.rootandbranchmagazine.co.uk]
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