The Junk Food Cycle VS Emotional Cycle

We’ve all been there...

An incredibly stress filled day or week. The demands of work feel like a physical weight on your shoulders. On top of that, the events that are going on in the world begin wreaking havoc on your mental health. Your significant other, children (if you have them), or family pull the last bit of energy you said you were going to use for self-care.…. Alas, you are are drained.

To cope, you quickly make your way to get some fast food, cookies, candy, chips, or junk food. Depending on how much stress you’re facing, maybe all of the above.

After binging on all of your, “goodies”, you feel a bit better for a couple of hours.Over time, your brain begins to believe that an easy solution for stress, is by rewarding yourself with these types of foods. So, you continue on medicating your stress in this way.

You’re not alone. It turns out, that millions of people all over the world turn to, “Emotional Eating” to fill their needs, rather than their actual stomach. Unfortunately, emotional eating doesn’t fix emotional problems. In fact, it usually makes you feel worse. Afterward, not only does the original emotional issue remain, but you also feel guilty for overeating.

Occasionally, using food as a pick-me-up, a reward, or as a way to celebrate isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Who doesn’t love an Earthday celebration dinner? What becomes unhealthy, is when eating is your primary emotional coping mechanism— in other words when your first impulse is to open the refrigerator whenever you’re experiencing stressors. You get stuck in an unhealthy cycle where the real feeling or problem is never addressed.

Eating/food addiction and eating disorders are not really about food at all; they are about emotions. Typically, people of marginalized communities tend to adopt cultural values that put them at a higher risk for emotional eating — and also make it more difficult for them to seek and accept help for the problem.

They may use food to numb their emotions or to distract them from life issues. Like a beach ball held under water, emotions that are repressed may resurface with a vengeance, often in another form, such as overeating.

Without proper knowledge on how to find healthy ways to self-soothe, or on what foods to actually eat/why our bodies become trash dumps. We dump unhealthy foods, and substances on our selves in an effort to minimize pain. Only, we are maximizing toxicity.

THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE...

As long as your heart is beating, you still have time to make some very real changes in your life that your future self will thank you for.  It takes 21 days to form a habit.  At the time of reading this article, you can make the choice to start today.

The first step in putting a stop to emotional eating is identifying your personal triggers. What situations, places, or feelings make you reach for the comfort of food? Most emotional eating is linked to unpleasant feelings, but it can also be triggered by positive emotions, such as rewarding yourself for achieving a goal or celebrating a holiday or happy event.

COMMON CAUSES OF EMOTIONAL EATING...

FIND OTHER WAYS TO FEED YOUR FEELINGS...

If you don’t know how to manage your emotions in a way that doesn’t involve food, you won’t be able to control your eating habits for very long. Diets so often fail because they offer logical nutritional advice which only works if you have conscious control over your eating habits. It doesn’t work when emotions hijack the process, demanding an immediate payoff with food.

In order to stop emotional eating, you have to find other ways to fulfill yourself emotionally. It’s not enough to understand the cycle of emotional eating or even to understand your triggers, although that’s a huge first step. You need alternatives to food that you can turn to for emotional fulfillment. 

ALTERNATIVES TO EMOTIONAL EATING...

PAUSE WHEN CRAVINGS HIT & CHECK IN WITH YOURSELF...

Most emotional eaters feel powerless over their food cravings. When the urge to eat hits, it’s all you can think about. You feel an almost unbearable tension that demands to be fed, right now! Because you’ve tried to resist in the past and failed, you believe that your willpower just isn’t up to snuff. But the truth is that you have more power over your cravings than you think. 

TAKE 5 BEFORE YOU GIVE IN TO A CRAVING...

Emotional eating tends to be automatic and virtually mindless. Before you even realize what you’re doing, you’ve reached for a tub of ice cream and polished off half of it. But if you can take a moment to pause and reflect when you’re hit with a craving, you give yourself the opportunity to make a different decision.

• Can you put off eating for five minutes? Or just start with one minute. Don’t tell yourself you can’t give in to the craving; remember, the forbidden is extremely tempting. Just tell yourself to wait.

• While you’re waiting, check in with yourself. How are you feeling? What’s going on emotionally? Even if you end up eating, you’ll have a better understanding of why you did it. This can help you set yourself up for a different response next time.

LEARN TO DIRECT YOUR FEELINGS - EVEN THE BAD ONES...

While it may seem that the core problem is that you’re powerless over food, emotional eating actually stems from feeling powerless over your emotions. You don’t feel capable of dealing with your feelings head on, so you avoid them with food.

Allowing yourself to feel uncomfortable emotions can be scary. You may fear that, like Pandora’s box, once you open the door you won’t be able to shut it. But the truth is that when we don’t obsess over or suppress our emotions, even the most painful and difficult feelings subside relatively quickly and lose their power to control our attention.

To do this you need to become mindful and learn how to stay connected to your moment-to-moment emotional experience. This can enable you to rein in stress and repair emotional problems that often trigger emotional eating.

SUPPORT YOURSELF WITH HEALTHY LIFESTYLE HABITS...

When you’re physically strong, relaxed, and well rested, you’re better able to handle the curveballs that life inevitably throws your way. But when you’re already exhausted and overwhelmed, any little hiccup has the potential to send you off the rails and straight toward the refrigerator. Exercise, sleep, and other healthy lifestyle habits will help you get through difficult times without emotional eating. 

WHY NOT TRY THE #7DAYSEAMOSSCHALLENGE WITH US?...

As we know, our input directly affects our output. For (7) days, we highly recommend drinking two sea moss shakes, and eating raw fruits, and vegetables for your other meals.

Follow your circadian rhythm. Your circadian rhythm helps control your daily schedule for sleep and wakefulness. This rhythm is tied to your 24-hour body clock, and most living things have one. Your circadian rhythm is influenced by outside things like light and dark, as well as other factors. 

Allow your body to rest, and if possible avoid controllable stress factors. Remember: You deserve the love that you unselfishly give to others.  Start loving yourself more than you ever have before, today.

 

DID YOU KNOW? Seamoss contains 92 of the 102 minerals present in the human body!

During the potato famine in Ireland, many individuals turned to Chondrus Crispus that washed up ashore for sustenance. These people were desperate so they ate what ever they could find. Unknowingly by consuming just this sea algae they were supplying themselves with most of the nutrition they needed.

Sea moss is a small sea algae that grows to about 20 cm from a disc shape holdfast which is essentially its anchor. The branches are firm in texture and range in colour from light to dark green, dark red, purple, brown, gold, and white.

The most common colour is off white. Texture, smell and viscosity also vary dependent on the variety and environmental conditions they are harvested in.

Sea moss is full of beneficial minerals and nutrients and is commonly used to create a gel that has a wide array of traditional uses.