My name is Glenys, and I’m an emotional eater.

Recently life has been a bit stressful, supporting a friend at a terrible time in her life dealing with the mental impact of my ongoing health problem. Also, the mixture of emotions involved in the move towards retirement and all that needs doing in the handover of my business, have affected mand y life. My sleep patterns are completely out of synch and there is the impact of that on my energy levels and a lot of snacking.

I was talking to beloved about all this and it quickly became obvious that he had no idea what emotional eating was all about. He saw the process, but he did not understand the element of ‘comfort’ that comes with this type of eating. This got me thinking because, having not really thought about it, I realised that I assumed that everyone sort of understood the feelings.

If you are like my beloved and don’t understand this issue, I’ll try to explain my experience:

·?????? Real hunger is when your stomach rumbles, emotional eating can happen when my stomach is full, so any diet pill that “Makes you feel full” is useless for me. That is not the trigger that makes me want to eat. Stress, worry, anxiety: they are my triggers.

·?????? Real hunger can be sated by any food. My emotional eating is sated by carbohydrates: Bread, pasta (although this can be too long a wait) and cereals. These are the foods that are my go-to foods to make me feel better.

·?????? Real hunger is not truly triggered by seeing or smelling food. Emotional eating can immediately be triggered by these stimulations. Since I now have a very poor sense of smell it is the seeing of food that can trigger me…and food is everywhere.

My emotional eating is a way of dealing with low moods. Does it work? Not really. It works in the very short term i.e. when I’m actually eating. However, if I do eat, then fairly soon after, and sometimes while I’m eating, my stress or whatever increases because now I have my weight to worry about!

My type of emotional eating fits into what I call ‘mouth hunger’— I need to be eating not because I am hungry but because I am stressed. If you know me at all you will know I love a plan, so this is what I have promised myself I will do: when mouth hunger strikes, I will set my timer (more of that next time) for 20 minutes and then make a decision about eating something. Wish me luck!

If you need some help and support as you start or continue your weight loss story, go to:

https://www.glenyschatterley.uk.com/free-steps-to-success/ ?and download my

7 Stepping Stones to success.

Have fun.