Emotional Eating--The Real Holiday Stressor

Emotional eating and losing weight take second place with holiday stress. But the real holiday stress is not the rushing around (not that there isn't any of that) but it's the uncertainty of all your plans working out for the season.

Aside from uncertainty there's certainly the pressure to get things done, anticipation, hurridiness and so on. Uncertainty that all your plans will work out well and everyone including you will be happy as a result of all that you are doing. There's uncertainty that you'll get the right gifts--uncertainty that you'll project a great image at the company Christmas party--uncertainty that you'll even find the gifts you're looking for. There's uncertainty as to how you'll pay for them or what you can afford. Then there's uncertainty as to whether you remembered everything you had on your "to do" list. Will your guests all show up or will they get along?

Unlike hurridness, frustration, anticipation, and the pressure (or anxiety) to get something done that are fleeting feelings, uncertainty is an emotion that lasts 24 hours a day seven days a week until the plans are all finished and the holiday season over.

A closely related emotion is anticipation. It's real easy to be into emotional eating.

Anyway losing weight or experiencing weight loss is but impossible unless these raw emotions are dealt with
Actually anticipation and uncertainty can be lumped together. But the bigger question is, "OK, how can we isolate them and leave emotional eating out of the equation?" Can we actually lose weight over the holidays or should we just put weight loss on the back burner?

Uncertainty, what do you do with it? This is where you will find the weight loss experts totally in the dark as they never even think of that emotion. Sure, ask them what to do with boredom and they are replete with tons of advice such as:

1. have celery to chew on.
2. call a friend.
3. go exercise.
And if they actually thought about uncertainty, they'd probably give the same advice plus maybe things like:

1. Have faith in yourself.
2. Don't worry, everything will work out.
Think about it. Doesn't this all boil down to the same thing, "do something about it?" Escape it, run away from it, convert it to something else.

It all makes perfect sense, right?

Let's look at uncertainty differently. Uncertainty is the result of:

1. Feeling out of control about circumstances.
2. Being unsure of yourself.
3. Being unsure of external events and others.

And if we can not let it be that you're unsure of yourself and others, we will feel uncertain.

As opposed to denying it, trying to escape it, or convert it to something else (any one of which we might eventually do which leads to emotional eating) let's first acknowledge it and how we feel about it.

"I'm feeling uncertain and I dislike it or hate it.

If you can not let it be that you don't have control of everything or are uncertain, you'll do something about it and and since childhood you've been programmed to eat when you're uncertain--emotional eating. Lacking faith in you or not letting go of worry--no you'll grab a comfort food.

When you resist uncertainty this is the answer. Allow yourself to feel uncertainty and it disappears and there will be no need to dilute it with food.

Ok, so let's just experience and feel uncertain. But it's not that easy. We've also been programmed since childhood to avoid uncertainty at all costs. Programs such as:

1. You should be in control.
2. You should trust that everything will work out.
You can make up your own list of beliefs you have about uncertainty. It's these beliefs and attitudes that you have about uncertainty that make it difficult for you to feel and experience uncertainty.

When you permit you to feel and experience uncertainty, guess what? It disappears. However if you resist it and avoid it you'll have to do something about it--emotional eating.

Look at it from another perspective! Now if you can not let it be that you are uncertain and you munch, what are you eating?

Symbolically you are eating the planned event (the thing you lack control over).

Of course ultimately as you feel and experience uncertainty you might call a friend to discuss your worries, find a way to trust in your abilities, or something else but it won't be to escape uncertainty.

You might ask (if the end result is the same) why deal with uncertainty? It's because to be successful with uncertainty, it's important to acknowledge that you are diluting the emotion by emotionally eating your planned events. You then have an opportunity to move beyond "I have an eating problem" to "I have a problem when I'm uncertain of my plans working out as planned"

You are now directed to the stressor itself and can stop blaming your over weight condition on food. Plus when you actually experience uncertainty, it's gone and so is the need to dilute it.