Maria's Journey: ten weeks in - what is emotional eating?
Had a good session with Phil. We talked about emotional eating and what I found really interesting was that for someone so slim and who has never had weight loss issues he admitted to being an emotional eater. I was amazed.
The term “emotional eating” immediately conjures for me an overweight person. So I reflected on my relationship with food. The last few years have been particularly stressful with work and family ‘stuff’. Reflecting on what food means to me bring words like pleasure, sharing, fun, gathering, delicious, entertaining, creative, healthy, colour. I generally eat relatively healthy but what I have noticed is that when things stressful I don’t eat, I forget to eat or don’t get hungry, I can go for a few days with just eating lunch at about 3pm and then a meal in the evening or I arrive home to find that I haven’t even had lunch. So when I get emotional or stressed I don’t eat, it’s almost like I can’t eat. I’m so tired when we get to eat that it is usually a take away. Now I don’t mean burgers and fries, I can’t eat that stuff as it contains gluten and dairy, so our take-aways are Thai meat and veggie dishes, but still I am eating fatigued and on a really empty stomach.
Will talk this through with Phil…