How To Stop Bingeing, End Emotional Eating And Avoid Diet Relapse
In a study published in the American Journal Of Clinical Nutrition, Susan Kayman and colleagues set out to discover the difference beteen women who took off weight and kept it off succesfully (maintainers), and those who took off weight but eventually regained it all (relapsers). They found many differences between relapsers and successful maintainers, but one of the differences stood out like a sore thumb…
Relapsers were emotional eaters who lacked skills to respond to and cope with stress and unexpected problems.
While almost all of the women reported stressful
issues or problems, there were major differences
in the way the relapsers and maintainers coped with
their problems.
Very few relapsers used problem-solving or confrontive ways of coping with their problems as compared with maintainers.
Instead, they were more likely to use emotion-focused or escape/avoidance behaviors for coping such as eating more, sleeping more or just wishing the problem would go away.
Relapsers reported using food to make themselves feel better when they were upset. They also attributed weight gain to unexpected or unpredictable stressful life events.
Maintainers, by contrast, confronted their problems directly and looked for alternative ways to cope with them (other than eating)
These included relaxation techniques, meditation, exercise, focusing on productive work, seeking social support, getting professional help, or talking out their feelings with other people they trusted.
This by the way, confirms previous research in the area of addiction recovery which found that a person who has made a successful behavior change will return to a previous negative pattern if a stressful situation occurs and no coping skills have been developed to deal with it.
Another big difference between maintainers and relapsers was conscious awareness (or lack of it)
70% of relapsers ate unconsciously in response to emotions.
Maintainers, on the other hand, were vigilant and conscious of EVERYthing:
- They were conscious of the quantity and type of food they ate
- They were conscious about the amount of activity that they needed personally to maintain their weight
- They consciously worked to “keep in shape” after they reached their initial goal
- They were conscious that they felt uncomfortable in their clothes after they gained even a little weight such as a few pounds after a vacation
- They intentionally wore close-fitting clothes to keep themselves aware of their bodies, which prompted them to exercise more eat less if their clothes felt tighter.
From these findings emerge two of the very first steps that are absolutely necessary for you to end emotional eating and prevent diet relapse:
1. Develop greater conscious awareness
2. Develop alternative behaviors and
coping mechanisms for dealing with stress and emotions
It takes courage to directly confront your problems and strength to overcome them, but you can’t even begin to solve a problem unless you are aware you have one. It all begins with AWAREness.
One of the best ways to increase conscious awareness of your eating habits is to keep a nutrition diary at least once in your life for a period of at least 4-12 weeks.
many people are catching on, as reflected in the popularity of sites like fit day, which lets you log in your daily food intake, while others keep extensive written journals.
People who are struggling with relapse and weight regain, but who refuse to admit that calories are important, who find keeping journals to be too much like work, or who don’t at least find some other way to raise their awareness about what and how much they are eating, are likely to continue to struggle.
Your friend and coach,
Tom Venuto
www.BurnTheFat.com
www.BurnTheFatInnerCircle.com
PS As you can see, based on research in both obesity and psychological journals, and as your own instincts probably have already told you, emotional eating is not a “women’s tabloid magazine” type of topic that can just be brushed over lightly. It is very very real problem, and it affects men as well.
Fortunately, there are numerous real solutions for ending emotional eating. You now have two of the first and most important steps.
If you’d like to learn more, I recently wrote a new ebook called, “THE A.W.A.R.E. Formula: 5 steps to end emotional eating”
It has not been officially released yet, but it will be available available to the public from www.EndEmotionalEating.com within the next few weeks
Pre-publication copies of “5 steps to end emotional eating” are now available as a special bonus with Burn The Fat Inner Circle membership
29 June, 2007 posted in
Comments
Has there been any studies done regarding the affect of stress on the appetite? I'm not denying that I have used food to cope, soothe and/or entertain myself, but I had the adjustable gastric band (LapBand) for 18 months, and my appetite was greatly reduced.
With the band it became much, much easier to differentiate between physical hunger and emotional hunger, and I found my desire to overeat virtually disappeared. There were a few ocassions where I was definitely NOT hungry but still wanted to eat, but they were infinitely more rare than I had expected.
This leads me to believe that my appetite is the biggest problem that I face in my struggle with excess weight - not my emotions. It was such a blessing to finally be relieved of that constant hunger! I experienced the same results with Meridia.
Unfortunately I had to have my LapBand removed due to erosion, and I have regained the 100+ lbs I had lost with the band in the three years since removal.
It is very frustrating.
Posted by: Donali | June 29, 2007 1:40 PM
Donali wrote
Has there been any studies done regarding the affect of stress on the appetite?
Yes, lots of it in the psychological context: People under stress simply eat more:
for example, the Oliver study, "Stress and food Choice" published in the journal "Psychosomatic Medicine in 2000.
this study proposed that stress may affect your health not only through its direct biological effects but also because it changes health behaviors (such as binge eating) that affect your health.
In this study, the researchers found that when stressed, people increased their consumption of sweet, fatty fods.
IN terms of physiological effects of stress directly on appetite: One study from the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology (Stress may add bite to appetite in women: a laboratory study of stress-induced cortisol and eating behavior)
this study suggested that stress may influence eating behavior and they found that high cortisol levels caused subjects to eat more total food and more sweet food.
Another paper was published by Dallman and colleagues in 2003, called Chronic Stress and Obesity was a rat study, which looked at the complex endocrine mechanisms that cause stress eating and they propose that their findings extend to humans.
There is clearly a strong psychological component. in fact these researchers called it a "psychophysiological rsponse" to stress.
Bottom line is, you must develop coping strategies for stress that work for you.
Tom V.
Posted by: tom | June 29, 2007 1:44 PM
Hi Tom,
I am an environmental eater. What are the coping strategies for environmental eaters?
I know the only one my therapist mentioned is don't go near food. That is very difficult to achieve.
Is there anything that works other than avoid the kitchen, the restaurants etc.
Posted by: Cathy | June 29, 2007 3:39 PM
Tom:
I've just read your article regarding stress eating and other peoples comments about stress related eating and weight gain.
My daughter has recently been diagnosed as Type 1 diabetic, Celiac, and lactose intolerant. I have been doing a lot of reading about nutrition. I have read about insulin, being a hormone, acts with other hormones in your body. I saw how fast she lost weight when the insulin wasn't working properly, and I saw how fast she gained it back when insulin was given to her after diagnoses. And I also see how much different stresses effect her blood sugar levels. When she exercises a lot, the blood sugar drops; in contrast, non-physical stress such as crying or emotional stress, causes her blood sugar to go up - sometimes way up. I understand that these variances are also driving her other hormonal levels and glands, such as pituitary, thyroid, etc. I see how her mood just goes down the drain when things are out of wack. I am beginning to understand the severity of bad stress on the body and how much it effects. I also am understanding the importance of good stress - exercise and how it brings all these hormones down and under control.
Anyway - she was diagnosed in January of this year. Almost instantly, I gained 10 pounds after maintaining the same weight rather effortlessly for the last 6 years. How's that for stressed-related response. I know that some of this was my own fault...crying into my ice cream that my daughter can no longer eat. But I also believe that some of this weight gain is due to the internal uncontrolled reactions that my body had to the stress. My hormone levels. My body thinking it was under stress and sending signals to retain food energy. My mind overwhelmed with new information and new worries, just exhausted. My sleep disrupted with thoughts of my daughter bottoming out in her sleep and getting up in the middle of the night to check blood reading. My body reacting again - more stress, more retention of food energy, more fat stored.
The human body is so complicated. Weight gain or loss is not just about eating. In a perfect world, calories in vs. calories burned makes sense. But in a world of stress and worry, theres much more to it that I don't think we really understand yet.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not disagreeing with anything you say, and I think exercise is the most important factor in everyones life - I just think that there's a more complicated system in us that doesn't always respond to a cut and dry answer.
Posted by: Elizabeth | July 2, 2007 10:07 AM