Eating to feed a feeling, and not a growling stomach, is emotional eating.
Food does more than fill your stomach -- it also satisfies feelings, and when you quench those feelings with food when your stomach isn't growling, that's emotional eating.
Emotional eating is eating for reasons other than hunger. Instead of the physical symptom of hunger initiating the eating, an emotion triggers the eating.
How to Tell the Difference
There are several differences between emotional hunger and physical hunger, according to the University of Texas Counseling and Mental Health Center web site:
1. Emotional hunger comes on suddenly; physical hunger occurs gradually.
2. When you are eating to fill a void that isn't related to an empty stomach, you crave a specific food, such as pizza or ice cream, and only that food will meet your need. When you eat because you are actually hungry, you're open to options.
3. Emotional hunger feels like it needs to be satisfied instantly with the food you crave; physical hunger can wait.
4. Even when you are full, if you're eating to satisfy an emotional need, you're more likely to keep eating. When you're eating because you're hungry, you're more likely to stop when you're full.
5. Emotional eating can leave behind feelings of guilt; eating when you are physically hungry does not.
The first thing you need to do to overcome emotional eating is to recognize it.
Emotional hurts that occurred in your early childhood may be the root of your emotional eating today. Yet, it is not always easy to recognize those hurts in yourself. You may not have a clear memory of when or why or what caused the negative belief about yourself that results in your emotional eating. You may only be aware that every time you talk to your mother on the phone, you need to have a bowl of ice cream afterward. Or that a disagreement with your spouse sends you heading for the potato chips.
The Emotional Weight Loss™ system calls these emotional hurts "negative core drivers." Examples of negative core drivers are: rejection, powerlessness, vulnerability, feeling unlovable or defective, or feeling emotionally deprived.
Negative core drivers and beliefs about our self are not accurate or reliable - they are just plain false! The problem is that our nervous system doesn't believe it and acts accordingly, making the choices that support those false beliefs!
The key is to reset the brain to lose weight and keep the weight off!
The Emotional Weight Loss™ system uses QNRT, Quantum Neurological Reset Therapy, to make these shifts. QNRT is a system of healing that happens from within and recognizes and restores the connection of the brain, the body, and nervous system to remove the blockages so that the body can heal itself.
QNRT combines a unique biofeedback technology with a nervous system relay therapy to neurologically reprogram the brain/relay access points - the places where our body's neurological and emotional programs reside. Simply put, the QNRT process actually "re-wires" the nervous system.
QNRT is non-invasive, requires no prescription, no manipulation, no physiotherapy and no extensive talk therapy.
