Learn the difference between real hunger and emotional hunger!

If you are one of the people who, when they encounter a bad situation or feel upset, unhappy, tense, or any unpleasant feeling, go directly to the kitchen to eat and suppress your feelings of eating and then feel comfortable, or even feel the emptiness of feelings temporarily filled, then you suffer from emotional eating, which is a psychological condition common to many. Especially in women, and it is one of the reasons for weight gain or the inability to control weight

What is emotional eating

It is eating in large quantities when you are not hungry just because you have encountered a bad situation or feel bad and unpleasant feelings, and in this process you suppress your feelings and distract your mind. Often, when practicing emotional eating, the person tends to eat carbohydrates and high-calorie foods, such as ice cream, biscuits, chocolate and fried potato chips. And pizza and more.

Reasons for emotional eating

Emotional eating results from several reasons, not a single reason, and sometimes several reasons accumulate inside the person and explode in the form of emotional eating. Often these reasons are feelings related to daily life, repressed emotions, or feelings that the person does not know how to deal with, or problems that he does not know how to solve.

• • Increased cortisol:

    The hormone cortisol increases stress, increases heart rate and blood flow to the muscles, which increases appetite and leads to a craving for food for a feeling of comfort. This hormone increases when feeling stressed, tired and pressured.

  • Boredom:

    One of the most common triggers for emotional eating and overeating is having nothing to do. Having nothing to do makes you turn to food to fill that void.

  • Habits:

    Sometimes some of the wrong habits that our parents inherited from us are the reason for emotional eating, such as eating ice cream when feeling frustrated, or making and eating cake when feeling bored, sad, or even happy.

  • Tired:

    When you are tired, you eat without feeling a large amount due to stress.

  • People around:

    Sometimes the presence of a person in your life urges you and builds in you the habit of emotional eating, such as urging you to eat unhealthy food in large quantities, sometimes when leaving the house, or a reward for spending a good and enjoyable day that makes you take this habit and get used to it and apply it to your life without feeling.

How do you differentiate between emotional and binge eating?

Emotional eating is very similar to bulimia, as some people confuse them, but there are some differences. Someone who has emotional eating consumes food in large quantities only when these feelings occur, and he is aware of himself and his behavior. As for bulimia, a person is unable to control the amount of food he eats or over The same and often for a certain period of time and quickly.

Learn about eating disorders and their causes

How to get rid of emotional eating

Bad feelings and tension are not extinguished by eating. When you do this and feel comfortable after eating, know that this is a temporary solution. Eating food is not the solution to problems. On the contrary, it may be a door to a new problem, such as weight gain and diseases. Therefore, look for ways to solve your problems and ways to deal with these feelings directly. For example:

• When you feel stressed: When you feel any unpleasant feelings, look for ways to deal with these feelings and tension, and know the cause of this tension, and the best way to deal with tension. Bad feeling is to exercise, go for a walk, or practice a hobby that makes you indulge in it and focus, or talk to someone else about the cause of this tension or problem and finding a solution to it

• Addressing wrong habits: Review your eating habits and see if you have any kind of emotional eating or wrong habits around food and try to deal with them and fix them. If you cannot do this, seek help from a close or specialized person.

• Be the influencer The presence of conscious people around you increases your awareness, and the presence of unconscious people around you earns you bad habits and ignorance. But sometimes we cannot choose those around us, especially family members. This self-awareness is the most important, and try to be the influencer who changes the bad habits of those around him.

• Fill your time: Try to fill your time with the things you love and the things that benefit you to avoid avoidance of bad feelings and emotional eating

• Not following a strict diet: When you follow a strict diet to solve the problem of weight gain, it will do you harm and make emotional eating worse.

• Deprivation of a certain type of food: Deprivation of a certain type of food leads to excessive eating when emotional eating occurs.

What is the difference between real and emotional hunger?

Emotional hunger or real hunger can be differentiated by the following signs:

In conclusion, we hope that you have become acquainted with the difference between real hunger and emotional hunger, and we invite you to read the following topic: How to burn fat quickly , the causes of constant hunger