Many people are overweight because they eat excessively as an emotional crutch for something missing in their life. There are countless stories of people when dealing with the stress of daily life turning to food as a way to comfort them. They do this as opposed to turning to other individuals or inwards to a solid self-image to assuage their anxieties.

For example, a woman that I know who went through a divorce three years ago put on a tremendous amount of weight after the divorce and she openly admits that she turns to food as a way to comfort herself. Food never judges you nor does it reject you. It is always there as a way to satiate a need that has to be filled somehow. However, emotional eating is an unhealthy way of dealing with the problems of life.

Being overweight or obese because of emotional eating is a much more difficult problem to conquer than simply being overweight because you are eating the wrong types of food. Emotional eating needs to be dealt with by a professional who can uncover the emotional triggers that cause you to eat in this manner. Without an understanding of the underlying emotional issues an emotional eater will find losing weight a difficult process.

Many people deal with the stress of life in healthy ways such as exercise and socializing with friends who are capable of rationally talking them through their problems. Other healthy ways of dealing with stress are seeing a counselor, confiding with a pastor or religious leader, or even joining a self-help group to openly discuss emotional problems that are causing you distress.

If you know that you are one of the people who eat when under stress you need to get a handle on your emotional issues first before you can solve the issue of weight loss. People who eat emotionally are the least likely to adhere to a solid plan of diet and exercise. They are likely to jump ship on their program as soon as something stressful enters their life. Since stress is such an inherent part of current life this means that these individuals will likely fail at weight loss until they can pinpoint the reason why they eat excessively.



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