Hunger, Emotional or Physical?
The difference between emotional and physical hunger must be understood before you can begin to recognize whether you are eating emotionally. Once you determine that you are eating emotionally, you can employ a great healthy diet habit to overcome your emotional eating.
What Sounds Good? Comfort Food (pictured above) or a Healthy Meal (pictured below)? Answering this question is a clue to why you are eating!
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EMOTIONAL |
PHYSICAL |
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It hits suddenly and you are starved |
Comes on gradually and progressive |
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Craves specific foods and nothing else sounds good. An apple would not sound great. You would be looking for 4 Cs-candy, cookies, cakes, chips! |
Different foods will satisfy. An apple will taste great. |
|
Mouth and mind tasting the food |
Stomach sensations like knowing, rumbling, emptiness and even pain |
|
Urgent and you must eat right now |
Patient and you need to eat but you can wait |
|
Paired with an upsetting emotion or situation. Maybe your boss yelled at you, your kids are so evil or your spouse is in a bad mood! |
Physical need not emotional. It has been 4 to 5 hours since your last meal, and you might be light headed and low in energy. |
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You might be eating mindlessly with no thought to healthful choices or quantity. No sense of control. |
Deliberate choices and awareness of health and quantity. Control is there. |
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Does not stop when full by overeats to cover painful feelings. |
Stops when full and satisfied. |
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Feels guilt and shame |
Enjoys eating |
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When you check out this list you see that these two types of hunger are quite different and easily recognizable. Most of us eat 20% of the time for physical reasons, so there is much room for improvement. Emotional eating and cravings play a big part in the other 80% of the story.
Great healthy diet habits will enable you to eat when physically prompted, and avoid cravings and emotional eating. This is the greatest lifestyle solution you can add to your life!
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Related Pages
Emotional Eating
- Are YOU an Emotional Eater?
- Physical Hunger Scale
- Emotional and Physical Hunger
- Types of Emotional Eating
- Food Baby Talk
- Identifying Feelings
- Feelings and Food
- Ending Emotional Eating
- Food Cravings
- The Meaning of Food Cravings
- Ending Food Cravings
- How to Control Emotional Eating
- Emotional Eating Tips
- Forbidden Foods
- Sneak Eating
- Emotional Health
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