Entire books have been written about emotional eating and it can quickly become a deep subject if you let it. I believe however that most people overthink it and that the fundamental issue here is to simply realize that people often eat in order to obtain a feeling or in response to a feeling.
In some contexts, this is appropriate, as in a holiday social gathering. In other contexts, it may be inappropriate, as in a binge at home alone in response to a stressful day or event.
In other words, you may be eating for the wrong reasons or dealing with emotions inappropriately by using food. The real "kicker" is that you may not even be aware that you are doing it!
If particular eating behaviors are not serving you in a constructive way and you want to remove this negative emotional connection to food, here are 4 quick tips to stop the negative pattern and change it to something positive:
(1) first you must become aware of it when this negative old pattern is occurring, because such behaviors often happen automatically on the non conscious level. Beliefs about food are also often held on the non-conscious level. Once you have this conscious awareness, then you need to...
(2) interrupt or break the pattern immediately when you realize it's happening -- you could simply say "stop" to yourself and ask yourself "am I eating because I'm hungry and need to fuel my muscles and boost my energy level or am I eating for another reason?"
Then start asking yourself some questions that will generate the positive response you want. They can be simple and straight forward, or they can be blunt and outrageous. Ask yourself, "is it worth it?" or "is eating this going to move me closer to or further away from my goal?"
Personally, I find that playing with the concept that "you are literally what you eat" interrupts the pattern quite well for me. When I ask myself, "If this food is going to become part of my physical cells, do I really want this to become a part of my bicep... or my brain...or my eyeball???", then the answer is almost always a resounding "NO!"
(3) If you're eating for an emotional reason, find alternative and more constructive ways (which serve you) to obtain / satisfy that feeling you are after.
(4) establish the right reasons for eating and develop strong neural connections and associations between food and those reasons through repetition/reinforcement.
The 4 beliefs about food that will serve you the best in creating positive associations to healthy foods are:
1. food is for building muscle and other body tissues (good food is "construction material"... i.e. you are what you eat)
2. Food is for energy (good food is fuel)
3. Food is for burning fat (good food in small frequent meals stokes your metabolic furnace like logs thrown on a fire)
4. Food is for creating optimal health (good food contains every nutrient you need for optimal health)
I eat specific (healthy) foods and avoid specific (unhealthy) foods automatically, because I am so strongly connected to the reasons why I eat. The best part is that it's completely automatic behavior - its not difficult, nor does it require will power anymore as it did when I first started, because those beliefs and behaviors are now ingrained at a neural/cellular level.
I believe that anyone can break the negative cycle of emotional eating and reach this point of automatic positive eating behaviors, by identifying negative patterns, stopping them dead in their tracks when you become aware of them, by eating for the right reasons, by finding constructive alternatives for responding to emotions and by changing the way you talk to yourself repeatedly over time.
These may seem like simple ideas, but they are very powerful ideas, and they don't even require any physical effort on your part -- all you have to do is change the way you think!
| 
