How To Eliminate Emotional Hunger With Nutritional Coaching?
Anxiety and emotions can lead us to open the refrigerator without really being hungry.. Sound familiar? This pattern, known as emotional hunger, can be a barrier to living a healthy life.
In this article, Maite Obradors, founder of Estil de Vida DUO, explains how nutritional coaching can be a vital tool to understand and manage this situation.
How do I know if I am physically or emotionally hungry?
Identifying whether your hunger is physical or emotional is the first step to understanding the root of the problem. Physical hunger develops gradually and can be satisfied with any food. It is felt in the stomach and disappears once you are full.
On the other hand, emotional hunger arises suddenly, is urgent and specificusually craving a particular type of food, like something sweet or salty, and it doesn’t go away even when you’re physically full.
What factors underlie emotional hunger?
Emotional hunger is a complex phenomenon influenced by a variety of psychological, physiological, social and environmental factors. Understanding these factors is important to properly address and manage this type of hunger:
1. Psychological factors
2. Physiological factors
3. Social and environmental factors
How can a nutritional coach help manage emotional hunger?
A nutritional coach uses coaching techniques to provide education, tools and personalized support, helping to identify and manage emotional triggers through:
To effectively combat emotional hunger, it is necessary to adopt a comprehensive approach that involves changes in both eating behavior and the management of emotions and stress. Key tips are summarized here:
Taking into account tips to deal with your relationship with food will not only help you prevent emotional hunger, but will also promote a healthier and more balanced lifestyle.
How to feed our emotions in a healthy way?
Feeding your emotions healthily involves more than just choosing the right foods; it’s about understanding and managing your emotions in a way that doesn’t involve eating. An effective technique is holistic well-being, which considers both your physical and emotional health. Incorporating activities such as sports or meditation that satisfy you emotionally and are not related to food is a good starting point.
A practical example is Ana, a Maite patient who learned to manage her emotional hunger through the personalized nutritional coaching method carried out at Estil de Vida DUO. When she felt the urge to eat impulsively, instead of immediately giving in to that impulse, she would begin with a series of deep breaths. This simple act of conscious breathing helped him calm down, and create a mental space between the impulse and the action of eating. Deep breathing is a technique that activates the parasympathetic nervous system, reducing feelings of stress and anxiety that often trigger emotional hunger.
Nutritional coaching not only changes what you eat, but also how and why you do it, focusing on healthy eating and lifestyle. By understanding the differences between emotional and physical hunger, you can begin to free yourself from the cycles of mindless, uncontrolled eating.
