Emotional Eating: Eating without being hungry is a bigger problem than it sounds, this process is emotional overeating.
The addition of added sugars, trans fats, and supplements keeps people eating despite satisfying their appetite.
This situation is associated with being overweight since they consume more calories than the body expands daily. For this reason, general health worsens, contributing to the development of chronic pathologies. However, emotional overeating is a condition that can be overcome.
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What Is Emotional Eating And Why Does It Harm You?
As we’ve noted, emotional overeating is eating without feeling hungry simply because the food is full. The main problem is that nutritional requirements exceed, and the abuse of substances harmful to health.
It takes into account that both simple sugars and trans fats have a negative effect on the body, altering the systems’ functioning and metabolism.
Emotional overeating associates with excessively processed industrial foods, which are dangerous. There is evidence that such foods can increase the risk of disease.
It recommends that the diet based on fresh foods, leaving industrial foods for certain times. However, they have the advantage that they are tastier.
How To Overcome Emotional Eating?
We will explain a series of tips that you can put into practice to overcome emotional hunger and thus improve your health.
Go To The Supermarket On A Full Stomach
When we go to the supermarket hungry, the risk of buying sugary foods with little nutritional value increases. Buying them is already harmful because as soon as we start to feel the appetite at home, we turn to them. Their good taste makes it difficult to put them down, even if it feels full.
Increase The Intake Of Fiber In The Diet
Another important tip concerns the proportion of fibre in the diet. According to a study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, this indigestible substance increases the feeling of satiety.
This reduces the risk of snacking between meals and starting to eat sugary or fatty foods that have low nutritional value.
Avoid Distractions During Meals
It is important not to eat while watching television or using electronic devices. Otherwise, you lose the idea of the quantities consumed.
This can cause you to eat more than is necessary for certain foods because they satisfy the taste. But this is not because there is actual physiological hunger, which indicates a need for nutrition.
When eating occurs, it is important to involve all the senses, not forgetting the food consumed.
Do Not Consume Soft Drinks
Regular consumption of sugar can be addictive. This process associates with emotional overfeeding. In this sense, soft drinks characterize by many simple carbohydrates introduced through the liquid.
Its effect on the body will be stronger in a negative sense so that the body may require constant input in the future, consistently above what is needed.
Defeat Emotional Eating
Overcome emotional overeating. The first thing to know about the problem, otherwise you will not be able to proceed to the solution.
From here, we recommend that you put the above tips into practice as they will be effective in the medium term.
Remember that we are talking about an action that directly affects psychological behaviour, so it can sometimes give nutritional coaching or a therapy session. The important thing is that this behaviour does not become permanent at the dietary level.
It is important always to remember that hunger is a feeling that works as a sign of need. As soon as this process disappears, stop eating since the body has realized that basic needs are covered.