Obesity's Hidden Triggers: The Signs of Emotional Eating

The signs of emotional eating may be staring you in the face but you simply don't recognize them. That's because obesity's hidden triggers are deceptive, insidious and relentless. I know; I've lived with them and have now had to admit this ugly reality. That's the bad news. The good news however is that you don't have to be blind to this for as long as I was. You can escape the grip of emotional eating and begin to lose weight almost immediately. I did escape and am continuing to lose weight.

Before getting here though, I had to learn the signs of emotional eating, how it works in my life and what prompts it to raise its ugly head. That being said and even though I knew that self-examination and self-investigation was necessary to get to the bottom of what was keeping me obese, I wasn't exactly looking forward to doing it. Yes, I wanted to lose weight but I asked myself did I really want to face my demons?

If I was going to "get real" or be honest with myself, I had to admit that to date nothing, I mean NOTHING else had worked; I really had to forge ahead, no matter what.

What I found was eye opening and very surprising. I not only had an emotional eating addiction and participated in binge eating, it was across a few more levels than I even wanted to admit. I thought of abandoning my quest but found that one of my eating triggers was fear of and living through abandonment. What was I to do?

I dug my heels in and began my journey. I read various articles which actually confirmed that indeed I was eating in answer to emotional triggers, most of which I was unaware of. Giving what I was battling a name and definition began my journey back to normalcy; that is, eating from actual physical hunger rather than emotional triggers.

Are you an emotional eater? Don't know how to answer that question? Neither did I until I read the articles listed here as well as other materials. These will, however, be a good place to start. I started with Identifying Emotional Eating: Is your 'hunger' physical or emotional?, then proceeded to Stress and Emotional Eating: What Causes Emotional Eating? and completed my self-examination with The Eight Signs of Emotional Eating. At the end of my reading I had to firmly wrap my head around the fact that I was an emotional eater.

It was unsettling but also freeing. I finally could name what, for so long, had held me back from achieving - completely, successfully and finally - my long desired weight loss goals. Having identified my weight loss roadblock was only the first step in getting to success. I had to then determine exactly what to do about what I'd learned. Some revelations were so challenging that I wanted to protect them, hide them from the light of day and continue to nourish them. They had been, after all, my companions of long-standing years.

The real test; was I actually ready to challenge this beast and conquer it or would I acquiesce to the long-standing grip of this enemy? The decision was mine to make; my journey to wholeness began in earnest.

What about you? Are you ready to find out if emotional eating could be the real reason you're not achieving your weight loss goals? If so, read the articles named above and then come back here for Part III of this weight loss series. Maybe we can journey to success together and get to know each other better. I'd like that!!