Are You Emotionally Eating to Avoid a Life Change?

One of the most emotional times in your life is when you’re faced with an important change that you either do or don’t want to make. Even if it’s for the better, change is a scary thing at times, especially if what lies beyond it is unknown and you’re not sure what to expect.

Naturally, right around these moments, you’re going to be in an elevated emotional state. You’re going to be more stressed or sadder than you normally would be, making it a target time for emotional eating.

For example, you might be in a bad or unhealthy relationship. You know that you want to end it, but part of you dreads having to. Whether it be retaliation from the other party, ridicule among friends, or loneliness, there are a lot of things that you might be worried about.

It’s easy to get caught up in the short term negatives while ignoring the long term positives. Before a time like this, you’ll probably experience many emotional eating urges.

Jobs are another very common source of stress and stressful situations. If you have a job that you just despise, you’re definitely going to be stressed. The prospect of quitting your job is an intimidating one for sure, and even the thought of accepting a new job is nerve racking.

This is another likely case in which you’ll resort to emotional eating. The problem with emotional eating in these situations is that it involves you ignoring a major decision in your life that needs to be made just because it makes you feel uncomfortable.

Of course it’s more comfortable to be eating a bunch of junk food, but that’s not going to help you make the decisions that you need to – or even carry out the transition from one thing to another after a decision has been made.

There are certain things in our lives that we have to do, even though we hate doing them. These difficult decisions are prime examples of that. Even if you know you want to leave your significant other, you might still dread doing it just because it’s uncomfortable.

However, that’s just the way things go in life, and eating isn’t going to change that. What it can do is permanently damage your health. Even positive life changes, such as a move or marriage, can drive you to eat emotionally because although it’s rooted in happiness, these times are still a source of stress based on an unknown future.

The sooner you learn to stop hiding behind food, the better. It’s a bandage, a temporary solution to a long term problem. You need to be able to face these problems directly if you hope to have a chance at making a positive change for good and protecting your health for longevity.