Activity One: Awareness
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Questions
1. How hard is it for you to see emotional eating in your life? Is it very visible? If so, describe the instances you’ve got in mind. Do you think instances like this are the main obstacle to you losing weight? If it’s not so visible, why do you think you have trouble eating less and exercising more?
Its not hard for me to see it-I can see it but I hide it from others. Its visible by the amount of dishes in my sink☺ and my photos. I see myself eating more when I am upset about something and haven’t been able to, or cant express myself or discuss problems with whom it concerns, Its more visible when I am anxious too.
2. Do you have trouble differentiating between emotional hunger and physical hunger? Describe a time when you may have mistaken emotional hunger for physical hunger. What was happening at the time to make you emotionally hungry? Why didn’t you deal with it directly, instead of using food?
I have some trouble telling them apart. For the most part my physical hunger manifests by stomach growls and a gnawing feeling there as well. My physical hunger seems like it can be satisfied but the other not as easy. Usually I don’t deal directly because it would hurt and alienate some of these people. I’d like to get it over with but often have to weight (ha), wait for better time. In some cases I could even lose my job.
3. Examine your hunger whenever it arises. Try to use the six distinctions (below). Do you feel emotionally hungry more often than physically hungry? Do you always give into the emotional hunger or do you sometimes find another way to satisfy it without food?
I feel emotionally hungry more often.I don’t always give in to the emotional hunger, but do so a lot, Reading books, crocheting, sighing/deep breathing, and praying helps if I catch myself.0 -
Please post answers to the bellow questions to the group (or you can keep them private if you prefer).
Questions
1. How hard is it for you to see emotional eating in your life? Is it very visible? If so, describe the instances you’ve got in mind. Do you think instances like this are the main obstacle to you losing weight? If it’s not so visible, why do you think you have trouble eating less and exercising more?
Now most times, I do know that I'm not hungry and just "need/want" to eat anything and everything. Today I've been battling just turning off my mind and fully engage in a pig-out binge. I've Not caved, mostly because I'm in a 6-week challenge and have an obligation to my team members.
2. Do you have trouble differentiating between emotional hunger and physical hunger? Describe a time when you may have mistaken emotional hunger for physical hunger. What was happening at the time to make you emotionally hungry? Why didn’t you deal with it directly, instead of using food?
Earlier today, I really thought I was physically hungry. Later I realized it was tired. I didn't sleep well last night and I'm exhausted. Also experiencing a bit of sabotage from my daughter for the first time. :-(
3. Examine your hunger whenever it arises. Try to use the six distinctions (below). Do you feel emotionally hungry more often than physically hungry? Do you always give into the emotional hunger or do you sometimes find another way to satisfy it without food?
Most the time (now) I'm more physically hungry than emotionally. Triggers for me are eating out, feeling like I'm upsetting my daughter, tired, not feeling well, bored.0 -
I Know when it's emotional eating. Almost every night when I feel lonely, or sad, or hopeless... I use food to comfort me, to help me go to sleep, to not think, to escape reality, and this is the reason why I've gained so much weight and is so hard to lose it. I know when is physical hunger but the problem is that I continue eating even if the hunger is gone. And though I know it's emotional hunger, I don't know how to deal with it. The only way is learning to deal wit the emptiness, the pain, the loneliness, but it's just so much easier to reach out to food and mute all those other feelings. Even if it is temporarily.0
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1. How hard is it for you to see emotional eating in your life? Is it very visible? If so, describe the instances you’ve got in mind. Do you think instances like this are the main obstacle to you losing weight? If it’s not so visible, why do you think you have trouble eating less and exercising more?
I think my emotional eating is very visible. I use sweets to calm me down or dull me so much I can just fall asleep. After a particularly stressful day at work, while I am driving home, I will dream about what junk food I can stop and get to eat. I know it is just to sedate myself. I can't always figure out what emotion or feeling I am trying to bury. I also do this after a party. I do great at resisting over-eating during the party, then as soon as I get home I eat crap and rehash all the dumb things I said or did.
Yes, this is definitely my main obstacle to lose weight. I work out a lot and enjoy it. I just can't get my eating under control.
2. Do you have trouble differentiating between emotional hunger and physical hunger? Describe a time when you may have mistaken emotional hunger for physical hunger. What was happening at the time to make you emotionally hungry? Why didn’t you deal with it directly, instead of using food?
I didn't realize it until I read the distinctions but I don't ever experience physical hunger. I mistake emotional hunger for physical all the time at work. I get stressed, feel inadequate, worried and then realize I need to go eat. Why don't I deal with it directly? I don't know. Maybe eating is an excuse to walk away from work and do something else. In essence, take a break, maybe like a smoker going out for a cigarette.
3. Examine your hunger whenever it arises. Try to use the six distinctions (below). Do you feel emotionally hungry more often than physically hungry? Do you always give into the emotional hunger or do you sometimes find another way to satisfy it without food?
I am going to try and wait until I am physical hungry tomorrow at work. See if I can tell the difference.
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This is my first week! starting this with question 1. Will get to 2 and 3 later on.
1. How hard is it for you to see emotional eating in your life? Is it very visible? If so, describe the instances you’ve got in mind.
- It is visible to me. I know when it happens or is going to happen. I get this feeling. I am specifically seeking comfort. Usually it is something that throws me off balance that will start it. It is typically someone visiting who eats at all kinds of random times, i get annoyed with them being around, and they somehow trigger me because I feel a lack of control over the situation. I know I need to get more comfortable with not always being control. This is an issue I've had all my life. I've established all these times I do things (sort of an OCD thing I do) and then when visitors come and wake up at 9, eat breakfast at 11, they are not hungry at 12 which is my "scheduled" time and I'm usually starving by then. i've been up since 7 with my child, ate breakfast and i'm starving by the time it's 12. it throws me off, i get annoyed/emotional, sometimes that leads to an extra meal when they get hungry again at 3pm, which makes me say "oh forget it" and then i give into all kinds of stuff i shouldn't have. I dont' even try to get back on track at that point. i say "well, i'll try tomorrow" and so it goes.
Do you think instances like this are the main obstacle to you losing weight?
-Yes. I keep saying I"ll try again tomorrow, when everyone is gone and I have more control over what I'm doing. but sure enough i make it just a few days and then something else happens that throws me into chaos. Or I will see somethign we got at the store and think "i need to at least try that right now" when really i don't. it will continue to be there. i just can't not eat it. i know that I can not eat it, but something is powerful about new food.
If it’s not so visible, why do you think you have trouble eating less and exercising more?
-The eating less I have trouble with because I am so hungry all the time when my schedule is thrown off and i'm not comfortable with the feeling of hunger.0 -
Part 2:
2. Do you have trouble differentiating between emotional hunger and physical hunger? Describe a time when you may have mistaken emotional hunger for physical hunger. What was happening at the time to make you emotionally hungry? Why didn’t you deal with it directly, instead of using food?
Yes I think I do. sometimes i am so hungry in the evening that i think i'm having physical hunger. and maybe i am. but i don't stop eating and wait an hour. this is what i need to start doing. i get so physically hungry that i just eat more because i think i still feel hungry. but i'm not hungry. why dont' i deal with it directly, because i'm lazy is the short answer. i don't want to deal with it. i want to push it out of my mind. and i figure if i eat more then i'll be worrying about that and not the actual problem. the thing is that food never solved anything and never will solve anything. physical hunger means i can just eat a normal sized portion and move on. but if it's emotional hunger it will never be quenched with food. i will just feel worse for doing that (overeating) and nothing will really get resolved.
oh i skipped whas was happening at the time - usually somethign i dont' want to deal with. i want to escape. even if there isn't an actual problem it's more about the feeling of escaping... the thought "well wouldnt' this taste good" but of course it woudl but soon that will be over and the escape is over. so the escape needs to actually be something else. you can't escape forever, just as you can't eat forever. you couldn't physically handle that.0 -
Final part (3):
3. Examine your hunger whenever it arises. Try to use the six distinctions (below). Do you feel emotionally hungry more often than physically hungry? Do you always give into the emotional hunger or do you sometimes find another way to satisfy it without food?
Physical hunger is slow building, can wait, you can stop eating, open to all food, don't feel guilty, physical need.
Emotional comes on slow, demands immediately, hard time stopping, specific foods (cravings), guilt, triggered by some emotional event.
- My task is to do this tonight. I do try to come up with other ways to satisfy emotional eating but I know I do need to try harder. Some days I feel like I'm just physically hunger, other days emotions get the best of me and some days it's a combination of both. I do need to ask myself the six distinctions more often. That would definitely help!0
