Are You an Emotional Eater?

Do you ever catch yourself heading for the Ben & Jerry's in the freezer when you've had a bad day? How about running to In-N-Out after work because your boss upset you and you "deserve" a little pick me up? There is a thing called being an "Emotional Eater".... are you one of them?

Women tend to suffer from this more than men do simply because our bodies are made up of a complex system which includes levels of estrogen, progesterone and other hormones. Dramatic changes in hormone levels and fluctuations throughout a woman's lifetime play a significant role in our decision to eat an entire pizza at midnight—really!

I'm not giving women an easy "out" simply because we are women. I am saying that sometimes being sad or happy is a catalyst for us to either devour a bag of chips or eat a granola bar. Men as well suffer from Emotional Eating—just not as much and usually not ruled by their body's chemistry.

Men tend to overeat when they experience a stressful situation with a friend, job insecurity, or financial problems. Men do not tend to "hide" their emotional eating such as women do and aren't as aware or embarrassed by it.

In the thick of being overweight (no pun intended) I was a horrible Emotional Eater. I absolutely loved to sit on my bed when I was sad or feeling sorry for myself that day and eat an entire pound of salami and cheese and then hide the wrappers so my husband wouldn't find it.

When I was happy or things were going well—it didn't always get better. I would just say to myself, "I'm celebrating, I deserve to overeat at this meal." Happy, sad or mad I let myself overeat and justified it all the way up to being 50 pounds overweight.

Obviously there are some people who can be happy or sad and can go through their day without eating all of their kids candy in the pantry but people who are over-eaters simply cannot. Not until of course they come to terms with being overweight and have admitted to themselves that they have a problem. That's always the first step to any addiction, it's the same with food. When you get to the "why", then you begin to really understand and determine why you are doing this to your body. Everybody has a why, what's yours?

When you find your "why", sit down and say, okay, what can I do instead of this? Start thinking of positive steps that you can take to get through that particular emotion that is making you want to eat.

Be cognizant the next time it happens and catch yourself before you start to go into that negative place. Take some deep breaths, take a nice long walk around the block or pick up the phone and call a supportive friend.

Tell your friend that you're in a bad place and explain to what you want to do. Chances are once you've tried doing something positive such as exercise or chatting with a friend, you won't necessarily want to drive to the nearest pizza place.

You'll get through it and the next time won't be so hard. You'll be stronger as a person and develop more competent coping skills in the process.