Emotional Eating

The Truth About Emotional Eating
And It's All Good!

Dieting and exercise alone will not always provide us with the healthy body and life that
we desire. It is necessary in some situations to explore Why we eat (to give some
thought and reflection to this dynamic of excess or uncontrollable emotional eating.

This process begins with what I term: Emotional Awareness. This is simply becoming
aware of our emotions and feelings and realizing that in many cases we are eating
because we are:
Sad, Bored, Depressed, Angry, Stressed, Freightened, Happy.

Becoming aware is where you begin to change this dynamic.
The next step is challenging emotional eating and changing the dynamics from
Nourishing emotions with food, to Nourishing emotions with experience.

This is a powerful step because when we begin to experience our feelings we no
longer need to eat as an act of resisting or denying our feelings. We learn to get healthy
nourishment and energy from our foods and we learn to get healthy nourishment and
energy from our emotions. It is not necessary to deny or restrict either one. We allow and
accept healthy food into our lives and we allow and accept our emotions into our lives.
This is one of the Key reasons Imagery & Hypnosis exercises are effective with
weight loss. These exercises help us explore, identify, and change ineffective habits
& patterns that are sabotaging our efforts.

Important note: All of our emotions are healthy and worth experiencing. It is just as
important to feel the energy of happiness as it is too feel the energy of sadness. To feel
the energy of stress/anxiety is just as important as feeling content/relaxed. There are no
bad or unhealthy emotions. We get ourselves into struggles when we begin to deny or
resist certain emotions because we think they are bad, not right or we are not suppose
to feel that way. This is just not the case. Every emotion exist to be experienced Every
emotion is a gift of information/learning.

You can begin by taking an inventory of why we eat when we eat. Take a few notes or
journal your answers to the following questions.

I eat when I am feeling___________________.

No blaming or judging or right and wrong.

I eat when I am feeling___________________.

Allow yourself to express honestly how you feel.

What we discover is that many times when we crave food what our being is really asking
us is to nourish our-self with feeling. When we resist an emotion we replace the
nourishment with food. The food is acting as a repressing agent satisfying us
temporarily and holding down our feelings.

Your attraction to food and the habitual reliance upon food for relief of unwanted feelings
is the physical dysfunction of having an unhealthy body that feeds itself food instead of
feeding it the experience of an emotion.

We begin to change this unhealthy, dysfunctional eating dynamic by experiencing or
feeling our emotions. The next time you become aware of yourself wanting to eat and
you sense it is emotionally based stop and ask yourself:

What am I feeling right now? Or
What emotion is present in my being that is trying to express itself? Or
What is causing me to feel (stressed, bored, sad) right now?

The whole idea is to stop the action of eating and replace it with a question about what
am I feeling right now.

This is how you challenge our repression activity of eating. So stay with your
experience. You may find it helpful to take a deep breath or two and ask yourself another
inner feeling question.
Just have the intention to take a curious inventory of what feeling is there with you waiting
to nourish you.
Listen to the inner conversation that is going on in your mind. Tell yourself that it is OK to
feel. “It is my intention to nourish my body with feelings”. “I allow and accept the energy of
(sadness, stress, boredom).

Now just stay mindful with your breathing and experience whatever is there. If it is anger
for example, feel the energy of anger, not the repression action of yelling or slamming
doors.
Resist the urge to splurge on food. This may be uncomfortable at first, and that is OK,
feel this uncomfortableness. This is the transformation of energy that will allow you to
feel and not eat instead.
This is the conversion process from repression (eating) and experiencing your feeling
(nourishing your being). You will begin to notice the release of tension in your body and
your mind. You will notice the lessening of your food compulsion. When you allow
yourself to experience your emotions the craving dwindles more and more because you
are receiving the nourishment you need.

The Audio Program: N atural & Healthy Weight Loss
Is designed to guide you through the Emotional Awareness process and the Experience
of Feeling your emotions. It combines Behavior Change Therapy (just like we have done
here) with Guided Imagery and Hypnotic Suggestion. All designed to enhance and
accelerate learning, change and acceptance in a peaceful, safe and inspiring
environment. It is a complimentary program and not competitive. It will extend and
reinforce your present efforts and make whatever you are already doing more effective.

When You Learn

To Experience Your

Emotions

Your Total Being

With A Different

Energy Than Food

Emotional Eating
And
How To Change