The latest research is estimating that 75% of over eating comes from emotional eating. Identifying the trap of emotional eating and having the specific steps to escape are essential in learning how to maintain your weight loss.

The Emotional Eating Trap:

Many of us focus our weight loss plans on diet and exercise only; we have no awareness, plan, or tools to work through our emotions which may be contributing to snacks, binges, or over-sized portions. We get excited. We have our new bariatric plan and exercise routine in place and we are feeling great about it. Then BAM, out of nowhere we get an intense urge or impulse to eat a variety of foods that are not on our new meal plan. At the drop of a dime your feelings have instantly changed. In this very moment you are being seduced by a “thought-feeling” state. At this very moment your automatic reaction is to escape the “perceived bad feeling” which many of us are unaware of at the moment it is happening.

Escaping the Trap:

1. Identify the impulse to emotionally eat by asking the question: “Am I physically Hungry?” You will realize you are not physically hungry most of the time.

2. Change your emotional state by doing a quick meditation

Meditation:

1. Close your eyes and begin to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.

2. Think of something you appreciate or you are grateful for. As you think of this person or thing focus your breathing through your heart; breathing in and out. Focus all of your thoughts to this feeling of being grateful for three to five breaths.

3. Now think of something you love about yourself. It can be a physical body part or it can be a personality trait. Continue to focus all your thoughts on something you love about yourself for three to five breaths, focusing on breathing that feeling in and out through your heart.

4. Now think of one kind act someone has done for you. Again as you focus on this thought for three to five breaths, breathe the feelings in and out through your heart.

This meditation only takes a few minutes but will instantly change your feelings or at least neutralize them. This is a plan of self-empowerment that will allow you to escape the “bad feelings” by redirecting your feelings instead of avoiding them by over eating.

If you are interested in not getting caught in the overeating trap again, set up a schedule to do this meditation a few times throughout the day. The more you do this meditation the more you will strengthen your ability to self-regulate. The most important factor in learning how to maintain your weight loss after surgery is being consistent with identifying the impulse to over eat and following through with the meditation.

I'm an emotional eater, thank you for this.

Thanks!

I think we could all benefit from this article !!! Thank you!!!

Thank you for this truly useful tool to help battle the dreaded emotional eating urge!

I will definitely give this a try- emotional eating (bored and mad, usually, LOL), is my downfall.

I'm an emotional eater, thank you for this.

You are welcome! I have a history of emotional/binge eating myself; we need real tools that work

Thank you for taking the time to read the article! If you are new to meditation or guided imagery please be patient with yourself. Training your mind is like training a muscle it will get stronger in time. I started out choosing one thing to focus on for 1 minute. If my mind wandered I just brought it back to the positive thought the was pre-decided. The more you can focus your mind the better the results will be!

-warmest wishes for you all!