Are you an emotional overeater?

Do you often find yourself sitting on the sofa, stuffing yourself with pizza and mulling over a rough day? Or is chocolate the first thing you reach for when you're feeling down? Have you ever felt so happy about being at a party that you threw your diet to the wind and ate an entire cake? If you answered yes to any of the above, you may be an emotional overeater.

Emotional overeaters have a problem with weight management because their eating patterns are ruled by their emotions. Emotional eaters tend to eat for reasons other than physical hunger, turning to food when they are stressed, upset, anxious or excited. The result is a loss of control over what they eat and excessive calorie consumption. This cycle results in weight gain and depression, which leads to more eating, creating a self-perpetuating cycle.

We're all emotional eaters to some extent. We live in a food-orientated society where eating is an integral part of celebrations and a fundamental aspect of family life. But how much emotional eating is too much? Simply put, when it interferes with your health and happiness.

Traditional dieting strategies don't work for emotional eaters, because the psychological aspects of weight management aren't fully addressed by most diet plans. Many programmes don't deal with self-sabotage and the real reasons we throw ourselves off track.

In his book Fattitudes, American clinical psychiatrist Dr Jeffrey R Wilbert addresses the problem of diet sabotage and emotional overeating. He describes the need to discover the hidden emotional triggers that drive us to eat, and to understand the 'food-feelings' connection that makes balanced eating so difficult.

Dr Wilbert believes you can find new ways to manage your lifestyle so that you consciously choose healthy food and regular exercise. He explains that only through addressing the emotional side of overeating, can you free yourself of old habits and manage your weight. For example, if you tend to eat when you are stressed, you will continue to do so unless you address what is causing the stress.

The following tips from fellow iVillagers may help you to hesitate before pigging out:

Conquer the craving:

'I give in to the little devil on my shoulder and allow myself a favourite biscuit or a few chips, but I eat healthy snacks like yoghurt, fruit and veg. If I fill up on healthy food, I'm not likely to be as hungry for the other. The biscuit is really just the cherry on the yogurt, so to speak.' --Eva

'I've found that I'm sensitive to sugar and white flour, as they cause my insulin level to fluctuate and alter my moods. Cutting down on these foods decreases my need to eat.' --Ellen