Tag Archive for: food mood journal

3 Reasons to Start Journaling to Stop Emotional Eating

Emotional eating is eating for reasons other than hunger, such as using food to cope, numb or deal with a difficult emotion, thought or feeling. It’s usually born out of an unmet need, whether physical- such as fatigue, or emotional – such as sadness or loneliness.

 

For many, food is love, comfort, reward, or a reliable friend that won’t let you down.

 

Emotional eating is not a component of biological hunger, but instead is of emotional hunger. You’re longing for something, you have a void in your life, and you are filling it with food.

 

You may know exactly why you emotionally eat, or perhaps you don’t. Journaling can help you figure it out.

 

Journaling is verbalizing your feelings by writing them down and it’s very beneficial for your emotional well-being and to discover things that might have been buried for years.

 

3 Ways Journaling Can Help with Emotional Eating:

 

  1. Journaling allows you to express and release your feelings. By writing down your emotions, the intensity of those feelings goes from your body onto the paper and diminishes in time. You acknowledge them which enables you to release them.

 

  1. Journaling allows you to slow down and insert that pause, instead of impulsively reacting. This pause makes all the difference between whether your thought leads to impulsive eating or to reflection and consideration of maybe there’s a better path to take in that moment.

 

  1. Journaling replaces food. It can be used in the moment that are you feeling distressed and about to turn to food but instead, you pull out your pen and your note pad and you journal on the following prompt: “What am I feeling right now?” Put a name to your feeling and write it down. Just let your pen do the writing, don’t stop to edit, just write what you are feeling in that very moment. By writing down your feelings, you’re becoming more mindful and aware which is the first step in managing emotional eating.

 

When you turn to the journal during these difficult moments, you break the habit of turning to food automatically to deal with your strong emotions. Instead, you are replacing it with a healthier habit by asking yourself “okay, what do I need. I’ve identified my feelings, now what do I really need to feel better”.

The answer is usually not food. It may lie in connection, self-care, the need for support, to be nurtured. Journaling can help identify the real need.

 

Grab your free copy of: 20 Day Deep Dive Emotional Eating Journaling Prompts

 

 

Writing the Right Way

If you have ever tried dieting in the past, it is likely you have attempted at some point to keep a food journal.  In theory, this is a good way to hold yourself accountable for the food you’re eating, to notice when you may overeat, and to gauge any other patterns and habits that perhaps you weren’t previously aware of.  However like many things associated with dieting, it is hard to sustain in a real life situation for a long period of time.

While journaling can alert you to patterns, it can also cause you to become a little too obsessive over the food you are eating.  It can also create feelings of guilt when you look back to what you ate, or start a pattern of rationalizing about what you ate.  I would like to offer a new spin on the food journal that I think will help you with your intuitive and mindful eating journey.

Instead of chronicling every bite you eat, start journaling how you feel before and after you eat.  Writing down your feelings before you eat something will help you to tune into your hunger level and the reason you are eating.  You will be able to see if you are “famished” and recognize that maybe you waited too long to eat.  The pause to journal these feelings also gives you a moment to make a decision about what you want to eat.  It can help keep you from making an impulsive choice that perhaps is not the best for your health, or not really what you want to be eating at the moment.

If you journal how you feel after you eat, it can help you get a sense of your fullness level.  You will be more aware of whether you ate too much or stopped when you had just enough.  Writing down your feelings after you eat will help you learn the reasons why you might have finished what was on your plate even though you identified you were satisfied way before the plate was empty.

Journaling can definitely be used to help you stay healthy, but you’re better off using it to truly get to know you and your eating habits, rather than just writing down the details of the actual food you put into your mouth.  If you journal properly, you’ll get “write” to fixing some of your unhealthy habits, and be on the right track to wellness!

Your turn to take action: Do you keep a traditional food diary or a food feelings journal?  How does this help you on your journey toward intuitive eating?