Eating Disorder Resource centre of Ireland
What type of Eater are you?
- Do you find yourself eating when you are not hungry?
- Do you find yourself reaching for food when you get in the door from work, when what you really want to do is unwind?
- Do you eat when you are tired, lonely? Happy ?
If you can answer yes to any of these then you could be an emotional eater. This is when you eat because of how you are feeling as opposed to eating because you are hungry.
Physical hunger and emotional hunger are completely different. When you feel physical hunger this is because the body has given you a signal that it needs energy and triggers hunger so you are then meant to eat to supply the body with the nutrients it needs.
Emotional hunger on the other hand is about eating the food to distract, numb, comfort, soothe, control, punish, reward etc. And is obviously going to lead to excess weight long term. Many emotional eaters are not aware of what they are feeling or why they are driven to eat.
They run on 'automatic pilot' with food and can't seem to stop the urge. It is easy to determine the difference between physical and emotional hunger.
Physical hunger is…
Gradual,
Stomach based,
Not necessarily for a specific food,
Arises due to a physical cue from the body,
Stops when enough food is consumed.
Emotional hunger is…
Sudden,
Begins in the mouth,
Usually for a specific food,
Can be insistent,
Is usually paired with an emotion,
Involves automatic eating,
Doesn't stop when full,
Feels guilt after eating.
There are several types of eaters…
- Boredom eaters,
- Deprivation eaters,
- Binge eaters,
- Depression eaters,
- Stress eaters,
- Pms eaters,
- Emotional eaters,
- Self esteem eaters, and
- Compulsive eaters.
Boredom eaters
As the title sound here a person eats because they have nothing better to do. We all know the drill there's nothing on T.V,Nobody around to talk with, and instead of looking for something to do, or simply relaxing and enjoying the peace, it just seems easier to be entertained by food. It is very easy to lose track of what you are eating when you are bored.
Tips
If you think you are this type of eater then try and do some soul searching. If you were to eat every time you had nothing to do, then it only goes without saying you will have a major weight problem before long. Think about new things that you can take on…. How about embarking on a course…. You may get to meet people on this course who can then become part of your social circle also. There are so many types of courses being held these days that there is no excuse for eating due to boredom. Take up a new hobby, or simply relax and actually enjoy the time-out without feeling you have to be doing something. Western culture seems hell bent of having to do all the time instead of just being!
Also ponder on why the boredom is upsetting you. Do you have to much time to think ? Are you running from something ? If you have a stressful job or hectic social life then you should welcome the time-out to simply chill out and not necessarily feel like you should be doing anything, especially eating !
Deprivation eaters
Feeling deprived is one of the most common reasons why a person chooses to overeat. This could be deprivation of love, company, security, etc. And you are using food to compensate for this emptiness or gap. You may have been deprived of food as a child and now that food is plenty, you feel the need to make up for it. Either way you are using food to cope with an emotion and hence your weight will suffer. You fixate of what you do not have and use food to fill this vacuum. A person who eats due to deprivation is never really satisfied.
Tips
Whatever the deprivation is about, then try and deal with it. If you want love, then you will have to love yourself first before you can expect someone else to love you. If you want company phone someone of arrange to meet up with them. If you are feeling insecure, try and find the source of your insecurity. Is it childhood based? Is it based on lack of awareness of yourself? If so do a personal development course to enhance your self image and then you can feel love and find love. Are your worrying about financial security and eating to cope with the worry?
Whatever the deprivation is about then it needs to be looked into. Most of the reasons are based on lack of self awareness or self knowledge and once challenged , you can develop a better emotional response. You can pamper yourself with non food treats.. Soak in the bath…. Facial…. Sauna…. Give yourself a break from the negative feelings of deprivation.
Binge eaters
The binge eater doesn't actually want to overeat, but feels driven by the urge to do so. A person who eats for reasons other than physical or emotional is technically binge eating. A binge eater needs to identify the food that triggers their binge and eradicate this food from their food plan short term.
If you can control your eating when you are calm and only binge eat when you are upset, then you are not a binge eater. Binge eating episodes can be triggered when you are calm, relaxed, as they are driven by an urge.
A binge can be triggered because you think you have eaten to much. To prevent the urge from developing into a binge you have to break the link between the thought and the binge.
Binges can be triggered by simple thoughts such as …
I hate myself..
I can't stop eating…
Everyone is talking about me…
Nobody likes me…
The urge to binge can be compulsive and very intense, followed by
Misery and feelings of guilt, lack of control and frustration.
Tips
The first thing a person needs to do is to pinpoint the trigger food or trigger situation that causes the binge. Then they need to eradicate it from their food plan short term. Secondly a person needs to break the link between the initial thought and the subsequent binge. Challenge the thought.. What is it about ? Does it have substance? What else could you do with this urge to binge instead? Think about how miserable you are going to feel if you binge. Remember the urge to binge only has the power you have given it. If you have given it this power , then you can take it back.
Depression eater
As the name suggests, depression eaters eat more during times when they feel sad, gloomy, or disappointed. Also they may eat when worried as the food becomes soothing or distracting. Unfortunately food only serves as a short term fix and long term they are left feeling worse, as the worry grows and it becomes a strain on the body. This leads to a physical manifestation in the form of weight, pain, headaches, or stomach upset. All these are an attempt by the body to communicate to you that something is wrong. What you focus on grows stronger, so if you focus on a worry or a stress then this gets stronger. Using food to cope eventually leads to using even more food to cope , and the final outcome is excess weight plus the initial trigger which still exists.
Tips
Obviously facing the worry is the only way to work beyond the food response. My perception on worry is… if you can control something, then you have nothing to worry about, because you can control it. If you can't control something then you have nothing to worry about, because you can never control it. Many worries are about what it's ?, and many never happen. Eating in a bid to deal with them only incurs more worry and stress in the form of physical illness.
Pay attention to the types of food you reach out for as they may give you an indication of what is going on. Most depression eaters crave dairy foods as they mimic antidepressant drugs. Many forms of depression are about anger turned inward and need to be addressed in order to reinterpret and deal with more effectively.
Many start to eat more automatically when the autumn evenings dawn upon us as our hours of sunlight are reduced, and this makes many feel gloomy. This is also known as seasonal affective disorder (sad). A good exercise to do is to write down things that make you glow inside.
Another tip is to take garlic which balances mood swings. Depressed people have also been known to have very low levels of tryptophan in their blood stream. This is an amino acid and can be found in most proteins.
Stress eaters
Stress is a fact of life and is OK in small doses. Stress is your reaction to what is being presented to you and has a direct bearing on how you see yourself. If you have a positive self image , then you feel you can handle more than the person who has a negative self image. The problem is not the situation, event, person etc., but your reaction to it. You need to change your mindset towards the stressor. Different people react to different situations and what someone thinks is a stressor would not phase you. On the other had what stresses you would not phase someone else. Stress from a trauma can trigger overeating. Post traumatic stress disorder can suddenly trigger poor eating habits also.
Tips
Again here you need to change your 'reaction' to a 'response'. A reaction is done without thought, a response is done with thought. When your self image is improved then stress is re-evaluated. When your self esteem is raised, your appetite is lowered. When your appetite is lowered so is your weight. Taking a deep breath and allowing more oxygen into the brain cells is a great way of getting calm and clarity to deal with a situation more effectively.
Tension is a physical manifestation of stress and like all physical illnesses, it is the body's way of telling you something is wrong. As a result of this tension, the chemicals in the brain undergo change, and these changes cause an increase in our cravings for certain foods, especially carbohydrates. Why not use this information more constructively and develop better responses to your stressors.
Another tip is celery, yes celery. It has long been used as a nerve tonic.
Exercise is the best tension management tool there is. (See section on stress and eating)
Pms eater
This is the erratic eater among this group. It's a real dr. Jekkyl and Mr. Hyde scenario. For a few weeks at a time everything is OK, then suddenly the body is transformed into a crazed, bloated irrational, irritable, teary eyed monster!
Some pms eaters are slaves to their cravings, while others feel bloated, sluggish, and tense so the automatic answer lies in the fridge. Before your period serotonin (brain chemical to balance your mood) is in short supply and hence your body then craves carbohydrates to increase serotonin levels. The good news is you can actually control your cravings at this time of the month by eating good carbs like potatoes and pasta, instead of bad carbs like biscuits and cakes.
Tips
You can limit you bloating by limiting your intake of salt. Eating a good diet of fresh fruits, veggie's, whole grains, fish, nuts and seeds can balance your nutritional needs. Avoid refined sugar, fats, salts, and caffeine as they aggravate your symptoms.
Vitamin b complex is really good for the lows you experience. Calcium and magnesium alleviate cramps. Evening primrose oil decreases irritability, swelling, breast tenderness and tiredness.
Remember your serotonin is low about a week before, so your self perception will also follow. Try not to make to many judgement's about yourself or your body at this time. They are not based on rational thinking or reality.
Emotional eater
Again there are several emotions that can trigger an emotional eater to reach for the food. It can be fear, anger, tension, frustration, guilt, shame, loneliness, etc. All these emotions are uncomfortable to the emotional eater, and the only reaction to them is to eat and/or overeat.
Many emotional eaters confuse physical hunger with the emotions they are experiencing and hence they turn to food to deal with them. Anger feels uncomfortable and is often confused with hunger. A person may turn to food to stuff the anger down. Loneliness suggests emptiness and bulky food is then used to fill the gap.
Tips
Again an emotional eater needs to learn emotional discipline. By this I mean a better response to their emotional experiences. Each emotion has an appropriate response, and an emotional eater must be empowered to develop these responses. For instance when you are tired - you sleep, when you are hungry - you eat, when you are angry - you let it out, when you are lonely - you reach out, when you are bored - you do something etc.… an emotional eater eats in response to whatever emotion they are experiencing. They have food connected to most emotions they are experiencing. They need to be made aware of their food/mood connection.
Emotional eaters must identify their feelings and be empowered to realise they are giving valuable information about what is going on within the body. They teach us about ourselves when not ignored. (See section body challenge on your emotional level)
Self-esteem eater
Self esteem eaters use food to feel better about themselves. Eating is done in an attempt to mask pain and just as the eater has dropped enough weight to start receiving compliments, they tend to start putting on the weight again. They eat in response to what they think people want to see in them. They feel they would be more attractive if they were thinner. They end up trapped in a cycle of yo-yo dieting and become more frustrated with their image as each failure ensues.
Tips
Here the eater must evaluate themselves and their habits. They must change their belief system about themselves, food, people etc. And challenge their distorted thoughts. They must make friends with food and see it as a source of fuel for the body, not a source of pain relief. Their pain will be relieved when they challenge the source of the pain - their beliefs.
(See section body challenge on your mental level) remember behaviour matches self image, so if your self image/esteem is poor, negative, etc. Then so will your behaviour. If you see yourself as unfit, fat, stupid, inadequate etc. Then your behaviour will match this image.
Compulsive eater
A compulsive eater is an eater who has a sense that they have lost control over their eating. It is accompanied by a sense of guilt or remorse, and a person may try and deal with this by cutting back, dieting, taking pills or purging. Many lose touch completely with what normal eating consists of. Proper nutritional balance cannot be achieved by dieting.
Many people end up feeling that they are always on a diet or eating anything that isn't nailed down !! There will always be some days when a person is hungrier than others.
Tips
The best way to deal with this is by regulating your body from the on/off eating rituals. Eating little and often balances the blood sugar levels which must be addressed before weight loss can happen.
Balancing blood sugar levels is the single most important factor influencing food cravings and weight control.
Eating little and often achieves this by stabilising the blood sugar levels.
Eating slow releasing foods (see section on nutrition) in order that you have sustained energy throughout the day.
Low cal diets deplete your body of protein so make sure you are getting enough protein in your nutrition plan.
Don't count calories, instead have everything in moderation, and then you won't feel deprived.
See if you can make lifestyle changes to increase activity or make changes where necessary to enhance your eating plan.
Try and stay away from the weighing scales.
Remember scales only belong on a fish !!
If you have to weigh yourself, then do it once a month, using the same scales. This gives you an indication only of what is going on in your body.
A lot of chemical changes must take place before weight loss can happen and the scales will not reflect that this is happening. Try and be patient with your body and it will not disappoint you.
Please note
Not all food cravings are emotional. When the body lacks certain essential minerals, vitamins, and amino acids, food cravings are a signal of energy levels dropping. You may feel depressed and not know why or have a reason.
You crave foods only to replenish these mineral deficiencies and to get energy levels back up. These are usually magnesium, calcium,chromium, vitamin b, vitamin c, and tryptophan. B vitamins play an important role in energy regulation.
Chocolate cravings can stem from an imbalance food plan and or psychological issues.
(See foods in the section on nutrition that contain these vitamins and minerals.)
Suzanne Horgan director & founder Certified Trainer in Practitioner Skills for Eating Disorders and Obesity Contact Us today..........info@eatingdisorders.ie