CONFESSIONS OF AN EMOTIONAL EATER
“I was in a small town where I didn't know anyone so I would sit down in my room and just eat and eat because I didn't have anything else to do and I was always really sad because I thought I was just allowing my life to waste away. That would make me sad and eat more!!”
What is emotional eating? Emotional eating is essentially the act of falsely controlling your emotions (fear, guilt, disgust, stress, etc...) through the act of eating. Most often we are unaware that we are eating to fill a void or consuming certain foods to make ourselves feel better. In fact, there are certain foods that can certainly trigger chemicals or chemicals in our brain that can trigger a "need" to eat more to feel better.
Lately there has been a lot of information about Cortisol in health and science related news. Cortisol is a hormone that is secreted by the adrenal glands. Cortisol, among other things, can assist in maintaining blood pressure, stimulate metabolism and stimulate insulin. Cortisol is also released during stress. When we get stressed our body goes into a so-called “fight or flight” response and releases additional cortisol. When cortisol is released due to this stress it sends a signal to our brain essentially saying, "we better load up on carbs and fats because it’s about to get a little crazy." The desire to consume carbohydrates and fats is our body's way of ensuring that we have the energy to handle the current stress.
The problem with this carb and fat loading to fight stress is that we are usually not actually fighting or “flighting” during these stressful times. In short, we are not burning the extra calories we are consuming; we are stockpiling them as fat. The other problem is that our body's and minds fall into repetitive behaviors. We continue to indulge in these feel good carbohydrates and fats when our body doesn't actually need them. We become prisoners of our emotions.
Read this interesting article on the possible link between Cortisol and weight gain:
"A dry crust eaten in peace is better than a great feast with strife."
Proverbs 17
 |
| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FD_1.jpg |
I find your blog topic very interested. Emotional eating is something that is so common. I look forward to learning more. Great job!
ReplyDelete