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Break the all-or-nothing thinking of
dieters and emotional eaters with strategies that foster normal
eating.
Is stopping emotional eating one of your biggest challenges
to health and fitness? Or is it your attitude about emotional
eating (often the result of dieting) that is causing problems?
Take this simple quiz to gauge your emotional eating attitudes.
If you're like many of the women who come to Green Mountain
at Fox Run, you answered yes to all these questions. But do
you realize that a "yes" answer to the last two
questions may be a bigger obstacle to your health and fitness
than the fact that you do eat emotionally?
Emotional eating is normal. According to Ellyn Satter, MS,
RD, CICSW, normal eating is giving yourself permission to
eat sometimes because you are happy, sad, or bored, or just
because it feels good. Think about it. What could be wrong
with a soothing comfort food like hot cocoa after an afternoon
of cross-country skiing or snowshoeing? Or the emotional pleasure
you get from Valentine's candy from someone special? Or the
comfort of a delicious meal after a stressful week at work?
Believing you should never eat in response to emotions is
a good example of the all-or-nothing thinking of dieters.
When dieters believe they are being "good," they
never eat emotionally. But when they fall off the wagon, they
frequently fall prey to emotional overeating or bingeing.
That's because they think they have failed - in other words,
they emotionally react and turn to food to cope. If, on the
other hand, dieters recognized that it's okay to sometimes
eat emotionally (and eat foods other than diets usually allow),
they would be less likely to emotionally react and turn to
self-defeating behaviors, including more diets and disordered
eating.
Giving yourself permission to enjoy eating on occasions that
have nothing to do with physical hunger is important to avoid
feelings of deprivation. If you eat emotionally to excess,
however, it's important to explore why, and begin to develop
ways to cope that don't involve food. Alternative coping strategies,
including new health and fitness behaviors, are key to stopping
emotional eating in excess, and to help you become a normal
eater.
So enjoy your emotional eating on occasion. It's good for
you! But if you tend to take it to extremes, read more about
stopping emotional eating to discover why you may be doing
so and how you can begin to change that habit.
Here's to happy, healthy eating!
For 37 years, Green
Mountain at Fox Run has developed and refined a life-changing
program exclusively for women seeking permanent strategies
from a healthy weight
loss program. Based on a combination of proven science
and what works in the real world, our innovative non-diet
lifestyle program offers an integrated curriculum of practical,
liveable techniques that helps women take charge of their
eating, their bodies and their health. Our
approach is not focused on just losing weight but on how
to keep it off for a lifetime. Our participants' long-term
weight loss results are among the highest of any program,
as documented in peer-reviewed scientific literature. Learn
more about our fitness
and healthy weight loss spa
©2006 Green Mountain at Fox Run, Ludlow,
Vermont. This information is the property of Green Mountain
at Fox Run. Permission to use single copies for personal,
noncommercial use is authorized. For all other purposes,
please see details.
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