How to stop comforting yourself with food

People often use food as comfort. A depressed woman is twice as likely to binge then a woman who is not depressed. To add insult to injury, after a food binge, a woman is likely to feel intense self-hatred and guilt.

Do you ever find yourself eating when you are not really hungry? Does eating one "comfort" food lead quickly to another? Have you often consumed a whole lot of food and yet not "tasted" a thing? If so you may be eating to stuff your feelings.

In order to break the habit of comforting yourself with food you will need to make the connection between binging and stuffing your feelings. Psychologists, who specialize in counseling binge eaters, suggest ranking your desire to eat on a scale of 1 to 10. Placing a 10 on the scale would be the highest desire to eat comforting foods.

Counseling is helpful but may be expensive and not always an option. You can help yourself by first buying yourself a food journal. Be consistent in writing in your journal and soon you will begin to see patterns. Learning why we do something is the first step to quitting the unwanted behavior.

Each day rank your desire to overeat. Rank yourself 1 if the thought crossed your mind and you overcame it. Rank yourself 5 if you had a really bad time overcoming the urge to binge. Rank yourself 10 if you simply blew it and ate ravenously.

Next write down how you feel emotionally each day and why you felt that way. You might write down "happy" as how you feel and "work day went great" as the reason. If your day was not good you might describe it as "stressed" and the reason as "Boss yelled at me."

Do this religiously for a whole month. By matching your "desire to overeat" scale with your emotions you should begin to learn what the triggers to your binge eating are. You will begin to determine if you were truly hungry or if you were simply comforting yourself through a bad day.

This method of becoming "aware" leads to less and less binging. If you use this method to rate yourself you will find yourself stopping before binging more frequently.

A lot of women stuff problems with food. It helps to take time each day to go into your private "space" and relax by clearing your mind. Finding time for you can be something as simple as taking a nice bubble bath. Take a fragrant candle, light it, and sit down in a nice warm bath. Use this time to pray silently or meditate. You may enjoy having some soft music in the background. This is your private sanctuary from the storms of life. Make it as pleasant as you can. Spend a bit of this time with your eyes closed and visualize yourself looking slim, happy and healthy.

If you have a significant-other, spouse or children let them know that you are going in to take a bath and relax. Set the time of your going into your bath and the time coming out in advance. Write it down and place it where everyone can see it. Make it clear that during this time you don't want to be disturbed.

If you have spent a lifetime using food for comfort it is going to take time to break the habit. Be gentle with yourself. Tell yourself often "I am a work in progress." It won't happen overnight, but before you know it you will find yourself using food as a crutch less often.