Why We Eat & Why We Gain Weight

Emotional Hunger

We are creatures of habit. We have amassed lots of habits that have been developed over the years that sometimes become subconscious.

We are not aware of the things we do until we purposely take notice of them. For instance, observing the thought that leads to the action of us reaching for the cookie. What was the thought? Were we feeling upset?, distressed?, depressed?, angry?

If you find you want to reach for the jar of cookies, catch yourself in that moment. Examine your thinking. How are you feeling? What state of mind are you in? What is your mood? Disrupt your pattern by forming a new one.

Rather than indulging your craving, count back slowly from 100. With each number you find yourself wanting the cookies less and less. This is because you are disrupting your usual pattern of behavior and consciously replacing it with a new one. You’ll find that after 100 that cookie won’t be as tempting as it was.

Emotional eating can also extend to happiness too. Childhood habits can see us overindulge for doing something good which can spill into adulthood where we treat ourselves with food for rewards. This is fine as long as it’s periodically.

There are ways to treat yourself other than eating. Why not get your nails or you hair done? Why not treat yourself to a nice hot bath and a facial? Why not have a healthy lunch with the boys or the girls? There are other rewarding ways to treat yourself that are not based around tempting treats. It’s just a matter of thinking a little outside the square and replacing old habits with new and healthier ones.

Boredom Eating

If you find yourself reaching for that tempting delicious high fat food because you have nothing else to do, why not call a friend for a chat? Why not take up a sport and meet up with your friends instead? Guaranteed you’ll have so much fun you won’t even be thinking about junk food.

Mistaken Hunger

It should be a healthy appetite that drives us to eat. When our energy needs replenishing because we’ve depleted our energy stores our appetite signals for us to eat. It is a simple biological reflex. We get hungry, we eat. Sometimes our hunger is more psychological than physical and thinking our body is hungry, we feed it.

If you have eaten your last meal within the past 2 hours more often than not it will be thirst which your body can sometimes interpret as hunger. If you know you have just had your last meal within a short timeframe ago, why not try drinking a glass of water then waiting 30 minutes for the brain to register it. If you are still hungry after this time period then have a light snack.

Sometimes we eat out of boredom. If you find yourself sitting around and instinctively reaching for the fridge or the pantry, catch yourself.

It’s all about replacing bad habits with good ones because that is what will make your weight loss a permanent success. It goes far deeper than losing weight for the sake of it but rather arming you with the tools to make sure you really succeed this time.

Why we need a permanent solution is because we are reprogramming ourselves and our attitude towards our food. Look at this way, it took years to form these habits and it will take a little time to break them and create newer healthier habits in its place.

Nothing is more apparent then when we eliminate all of our favorite foods at once. Our body goes into shock, tries to override our good intentions and sabotages our efforts. Another diet bites the dust simply because we weren’t aware of how we conditioned our bodies over the years.

Our bodies are marvelous pieces of machinery and will stop at nothing to preserve us at all costs. That means that if we drastically reduce our food intake our body will shut down our metabolism to force us to eat. When we do, we binge and gain back all the lost pounds we fought so hard to lose. Don’t hate your body for that, it is just doing what comes naturally.

So how do we get around this? Work in alignment with your body. Introduce changes gradually. Don’t shock your body or it will thwart your best intentions to lose weight.

Medications

There are some medications of which the side effects can be weight gain.

Medications such as some antidepressant drugs can cause you to sleep more and expend less calories making you more susceptible to weight gain. There is also a tendency to snack on more carbohydrate rich foods which also contributes to weight gain.

There are things that you can do to lessen the degree of weight gain experienced by taking these types of medications.

Try to reduce the amount of calories you consume by identifying them in your current diet.

Don’t do anything drastic just eat smaller portions and reduce the amount of carbohydrates you may be consuming, the body needs a balanced diet so don’t be tempted to eliminate carbohydrates completely from your daily eating plan.
Make sure that you get plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, lean protein and whole grains.

Incorporate more exercise into your life to counteract the effect your medication might be having on your weight.

If all else fails, consult your doctor for any alternative medication equivalents without the side effects.