{"id":47219,"date":"2016-01-29T07:15:47","date_gmt":"2016-01-29T12:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/?p=47219"},"modified":"2021-11-18T10:22:43","modified_gmt":"2021-11-18T15:22:43","slug":"emotional-eating-weight-loss-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/health\/emotional-eating-weight-loss-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"The Weight Loss Secret 90 Percent of People Are Missing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The
Photo by Nate Mueller<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When Gina Carr wrote down her New Year\u2019s resolutions<\/a>, she was surprised to notice one familiar goal missing from her list: Lose weight. \u201cI\u2019d still like to drop a few pounds, but for the first time in my life, I\u2019m truly convinced I\u2019ll never have a weight problem again,\u201d says the 55-year-old online marketing consultant<\/a> who at 5\u20198\u201d now weighs 155 pounds.<\/p>\n

Carr, who lives in Orlando, credits a vegan lifestyle<\/a> for helping her finally reach a comfortable weight after a 40-year battle that included pre-packaged meals, Atkins and twice-weekly injections of a fertility drug that was supposed to speed up her metabolism. At one point, eight years ago, Carr shed 50 pounds on a program combining whole foods with protein bars<\/a> and shakes<\/a>. Yet, over the last few years, as Carr struggled with the suicide of her 18-year-old son and starting a new business, the weight crept back.<\/p>\n

Though she\u2019d repeatedly tried to help her son with his severe depression, Carr suffered from lingering guilt that triggered binge-eating episodes<\/a>, she recalls. \u201cEach \u2018anniversary\u2019 date of his birthday, adoption and death as well as the holidays were the most difficult,\u201d says Carr, who dealt with her grief and work stress with donuts, pizza, Starbuck\u2019s mochas and red wine. Finally, in August of 2014, when she hit 195 pounds \u2014 and cringed looking at photos of herself on Facebook \u2014 she vowed to get back to a healthy weight.<\/p>\n

The Link Between Weight and Your Emotions<\/strong><\/h3>\n

We all know there\u2019s an emotional component to weight gain and loss<\/a>. Why else would we crave fattening comfort foods over celery sticks when we\u2019re stressed? But according to a recent national survey<\/a>, only 10 percent of people thought that psychological wellbeing was their biggest barrier to weight loss. Instead, some 60 percent of respondents blamed poor food choices and lack of exercise for sabotaging their diets.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat surprised me most was that people didn\u2019t acknowledge that their emotional health<\/a> is part of this puzzle,\u201d says study author Diane Robinson, PhD, a neuropsychologist at U.S. Health Cancer Center at Orlando Health, a hospital network that sponsored the study. \u201cBut if we focus on being emotionally healthy first, everything else can fall into place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overcoming Emotional Eating<\/strong><\/h3>\n

So how did Carr get her health back<\/a> on track? Well, she believes her plant-based diet<\/a> of whole, unprocessed food made her generally feel better. But she also set herself up for long-term success by finding new strategies to cope with her emotional triggers. The most obvious was coming to terms with her son\u2019s death. \u201cI came to accept that blaming myself wouldn\u2019t bring him back,\u201d she says. That psychological shift \u2014\u00a0combined with a strict \u201cno junk\u201d policy \u2014 changed her taste buds and helped her stop bingeing. Plus, she used every weight-loss milestone as motivation to keep going, she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf your mind is saying \u2018I have to have those chips,\u2019 that\u2019s your clue that something else is going on.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Slowly, Carr started to change other areas of her lifestyle. Daily exercise and regular massages<\/a> lowered her stress levels. And now, Carr keeps a log of what she eats and writes down how she\u2019s feeling at the same time. That\u2019s how she made the connection that drinking a lot of coffee made her anxious and more prone to open a bottle of wine as soon as happy hour arrived, she says. \u201cSince I cut out coffee<\/a>, I feel so energized I don\u2019t even want any wine.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the day, when she wants to avoid difficult business tasks by eating, she asks herself: \u201cAm I really hungry?\u201d and drinks some water with apple cider vinegar<\/a>. If she\u2019s still hungry in an hour, she gives herself permission to get a healthy snack<\/a>. \u201cI had to really look hard at why<\/em> I\u2019d been eating all the time,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Need help getting to your happy place when it comes to balancing your emotions \u2014 and your diet? Try these three expert-backed tips to get to the root of your emotional eating, too.<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/strong> Gym Time or Meal Time: What Matters Most for Weight Loss?<\/a><\/p>\n

3 Ways to Put a Stop to Emotional Eating for Good<\/strong><\/h3>\n

1<\/strong>. Pay attention to what you\u2019re craving.
\n<\/strong>\u201cIf your mind is saying \u2018I have to have those chips,\u2019 that\u2019s your clue that something else is going on,\u201d explains Robinson. Are you bored? Aggravated? Need a little carb-y comfort? You\u2019re probably not responding to your body\u2019s pure hunger cues. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing the number of emotions we can attach to food,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/strong> How to Stop Food Cravings in 10 Minutes or Less<\/a><\/p>\n

2. Write it all down.
\n<\/strong>People roll their eyes at Robinson when she suggests keeping a \u201cfood and feelings\u201d journal. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be super serious, but it\u2019s helpful to detect a pattern,\u201d she says. \u201cIf you only order pizza after a grueling meeting with a certain boss, it tells you that you\u2019re angry.\u201d You might be surprised at what your journal reveals.<\/p>\n

3. Commit to making small changes.
\n<\/strong>Maybe it\u2019s substituting water for your lunchtime diet soda<\/a> or taking the stairs to your office once a week. The key, insists Robinson, is to make changes realistic and incremental. \u201cIf you can do one small change a week, by the end of the year, you\u2019ve made 52 changes, and that can transform your life.\u201d You\u2019ll also start to feel better about yourself \u2014 which will help you tackle both your food and fitness goals.<\/p>\n

For Carr, she discovered an emotional need she didn\u2019t even know she had: Social support. After she started regularly attending an interval workout class at her local \u201cY\u201d that started at 5:15 a.m., she and several other participants got into a groove of meeting at the caf\u00e9 afterward. \u201cHaving a sense of community<\/a> is so important because I work from home all day. That class became my main source of friends,\u201d says Carr. In addition, the boost in self-esteem from sticking to her fitness goals \u2014 and seeing her developing biceps \u2014 helps her remain focused. \u201cI finally decided that taking back my health was the best way to honor my son\u2019s memory,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The key to weight loss might have less to do with your exercise habits than what\u2019s going on inside your head. Here\u2019s what you need to know. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,7,18],"tags":[51,282,341,343,285],"class_list":["post-47219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diet-nutrition","category-health","category-weight-loss","tag-food-choices","tag-stress","tag-tax1living-well","tag-tax2exercise","tag-weight-loss"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}