Sadly, emotional eating can interrupt your healthy eating and prevent you from losing weight on a consistent basis. Too often our efforts to lose weight come unstuck when we indulge in emotional eating. Using these tips and tricks can help you control your emotional eating, stay on your calories loss diet and enjoy long term weight loss.

Know if you are really hungry especially the difference between being physically hungry and just eating out of emotion. If you have been an emotional eater your whole life you might not understand the difference so learn to recognize that when you are really hungry your stomach will growl and you will feel a little weak and tired. That is your body’s way of saying that it needs fuel, so try letting yourself get really hungry before a meal just so that you can feel what it feels like when your body is hungry.

Recognize your emotional eating triggers by keeping a little notebook and a pen with you and write down when you feel like eating and what you want to eat and soon you will start to notice a pattern emerging. Do you always crave fried food after a meeting with your boss instead of meals you would eat on a calories loss diet? Do you want cake the minute you walk in the door after the evening commute or do you need a double cheeseburger at lunch just to get through the afternoon?

Identifying the situations and the times of the day that make you crave certain foods is the key to stopping emotional eating so if you know that you will crave something sweet when you get home to dull the stress of your trip, you can find another way to handle that stress that does not involve food. Maybe you need to listen to music for 15 minutes after you get home, or have a cup of tea with a calories loss snack like low fat cheese on a cracker as you read the newspaper, or maybe a hot shower will help. Find another way to alleviate the stress that makes you want to eat something sweet because dealing with that stress in a healthier way will help you lose weight and manage your stress more effectively.

Stride past comfort food in the grocery store never stopping, to make sure that you do not have any junk food within arm’s reach at home as a temptation. When your emotions rollercoaster next and you find yourself feeling low and in need of chicken and fries, are you as likely to go out to buy it if it is not in the house? Generally the answer is ‘No’ so stock up with as many healthy replacements for the foods that you know you will crave from time to time and you also know are not good for you, then start to satisfy your cravings in healthier ways.

Find other means of comfort instead of food if you feel down, pressured and hyped up, like taking the dog for a walk, going for a bike ride, reading that book you have been dying to start, or meeting with a friend and discuss life over a low fat coffee. There is an endless list of what you can do when you are feeling sad or stressed apart from reaching for the munchies in those places you have always kept them. So start including these alternatives in your life as ‘pick me ups’ and keep on that calories loss diet at the same time.

Stack the shelves that used to store your junk food, with healthy alternatives to use every time you experience one of your cravings and need comfort. In place of those maple syrup pancakes high in calories, keep hummus dip and fresh vegetables, and if you simply must have something sweet, try a fruit salad. It is not a matter of stopping cravings, more a case of satisfying these differently with alternative foods that will in the long term be a way of re-programming your thinking and even your palate as well as accommodating the many foods that you will find on your calories loss diet.

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.