Emotional eating is one of the greatest challenges in any calories loss diet because with the best of intentions, we can easily sabotage our efforts by uncontrolled binging brought about by our day to day emotional ups and downs. To manage our eating and to continue to enjoy a gradual weight loss, we need to be aware of and to some degree manage our emotions. The tips below will assist you to do this as you re-shape your body.

Learn how to determine whether what you feel is hunger or just a learned emotional response. The real physical signs of hunger can include a rumbling tummy or perhaps feeling lethargic and weak so if you have experienced emotional responses to eating across many years, you may eat before feeling truly hungry and not recognize these symptoms easily. Allow yourself to get genuinely hungry before eating so that you can become familiar with what this feels like and more accurately pin point when you should eat to provide the fuel your body needs.

Identify what causes your emotional eating by recording when, what and why you feel like eating and take notice of the pattern of your eating behaviors. Do you crave sweet foods when you are feeling down or under pressure and can anything on your calories loss menu satisfy this need? Have you conditioned yourself to a coke and candy as a pick me up at the end of the day or is hot chocolate and a cookie to sooth you before you head off to bed?

Deciding on the events and the times when you are likely to resort to daily emotional eating is the key to controlling your response to the stressors in your life that lead you to out of control eating. Plan what food you will eat or what you will do the next time you feel distressed or under pressure and replace eating with other behaviours that will help relieve your stress. Taking a brisk walk or even an exercise class or eating an apple, some low fat yoghurt or other foods from your calories loss menu, getting a friend to massage your neck or even meditating are all healthier ways to manage the pressures in your life and still lose weight.

Do not buy comfort food because if it is not in the house, you will not eat it; it is just that simple. When you are feeling blue and you want something sweet or something fried as a comfort, if it is not in the house are you really going to take the time to drive to the store and buy this comfort food or go to the fast food restaurant to get something? Most people will not most of the time, so if you are craving something and you do not have it in the house you will look for a substitute rather than going out to buy whatever it is you are craving.

Do not use food as comfort and instead of reaching for the ice cream when you are depressed or lonely, find other ways to comfort yourself. Call a friend, take a hot bubble bath, treat yourself to a manicure, write in a journal to try and discover what is making you sad or lonely. There are hundreds of ways you can comfort yourself besides reaching for food so learn to use other things to get you through a tough day and this leaves room for you to continue to eat calories loss meals when you need to.

Keep healthy food in the house because if you have healthy snacks in the house you can use those as a substitute for comfort food when a craving hits. Instead of candy bars, keep granola bars in the cupboard and instead of chips, keep popcorn or sliced veggies or other calories loss foods around because making healthy substitutions for the foods you crave is a very practical way to deal with emotional eating. After all, cravings happen but eating healthy snacks in place of the high fat, high calorie comfort food is a practical and responsible way to deal with food cravings when they happen.

Always allow 30 minutes to pass after your craving registers before you take any action. Time yourself to make sure that you do not eat anything for the full extent of this time. You should eat half of what you craved at the end of half an hour if you still want it but it is often the case that cravings disappear in that time especially of you have replaced them with another activity.

Replace your cravings with those activities you enjoy doing and that along with your calories loss eating plan will help to burn fat so you can lose those extra pounds. The additional benefit of exercise is that when you swim, jog, play ice hockey or work out at the gym, your brain releases endorphins and serotonin and this gives you a sense of euphoria that replaces feelings of sadness or frustration. So instead of reaching for the ice cream carton or the cookie jar when you are next under pressure or feeling low, ‘get down and boogie’ doing whatever activity you enjoy most, knowing that your weight loss and your emotional well being will improve as a result.