INCREASED DURING THE PANDEMIC
WHAT ARE EMOTIONAL EATING ATTACKS?
HOW TO CONTROL?
As the world tries to reduce the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us are feeling more and more stressed. We turn to cooking or eating to manage our stress.
So, are we aware of our underlying eating disorder?
Emotional eating is when people feel stressed, sad, lonely or unsuccessful, they tend to eat to suppress these feelings. Since the pandemic conditions we are in expose us to a lot of emotional stress, the number of people who have emotional eating problems has increased considerably. It has increased from a normal rate of 38% to 47%. Almost one in every two people has emotional eating problems.
There are important points that distinguish emotional eating from physical hunger. Emotional eating makes you feel the need to eat even if you are full, it appears suddenly and contains the desire to consume more sugar and fat content. This is because such foods activate the ‘reward’ neurotransmitter dopamine and make the person feel better in the moment. However, emotional eating will not solve any problems, and this time it leads to more regret and stress due to the high-calorie foods eaten. In young people, this situation triggers the eating disorder behavior, which is called bulimia nervosa and is known as vomiting. Therefore, we should prevent a possible eating disorder with lifestyle changes.
Create a meal plan that will meet your needs and take care to stick to that order.
One of the ways to deal with emotional eating is to make sure we are not physically hungry. For physical satiety, it is beneficial/sufficient to stick to a regular eating program by eating 3 main meals and 2-3 snacks in which the food groups are evenly distributed.
In many studies, we see that a diet that we call western style, which has high calories, excess fat and simple content, and where vegetables and fruits are consumed very little, triggers depression and anxiety. Therefore, we should often replace our western type of diet with a Mediterranean diet that includes plant food sources such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes and oilseeds.
Give your mind time to catch up with your stomach.
If you’re eating in front of the TV, computer, or other distraction, you may still feel unfulfilled or unaware of what you’re eating when the food on your plate is finished. In this case, it is possible that a desire to eat something will occur again after a short time. Therefore, you should not eat your meals in front of the screen, you should chew your bite 10 to 30 times before swallowing.
Keep a food diary.
Write down what you ate, how much you ate, when you ate, how you felt while eating, and how hungry you were. Over time, you may catch clues that reveal the connection between mood and food. If you think that writing with a pen and paper makes me tired or busy, you can get help from the applications.
Distract yourself.
Sometimes there are times when it’s more helpful to just choose one distraction in the moment, rather than start processing and understanding our emotions right away. Yes, eating is also a distraction technique, and although we often resort to this technique, there are other techniques you can try when we are stressed or upset.
- looking for a loved one
- Painting or filing your nails
- Solve puzzles or Sudoku
- doing mindfulness or relaxation exercises
- Listening to your favorite song and dancing
- take a warm shower
Create a buffer zone.
You have distracted yourself, 10 minutes have passed since you wanted to eat, but your urge to eat still has not passed. At this point, we should put a healthy buffer zone between us and the food or drink we want to eat. For example; It can be beneficial to drink 1 glass of water, drink 1 glass of cinnamon milk, or make ourselves a cheese lettuce sandwich from lettuce with a large volume, or take advantage of cucumbers or carrots that will satisfy us by giving the feeling of giggles.
Eliminate temptations and stay away from triggers.
Having a jar of cookies or a muffin on your counter may seem visually appealing, but studies have shown that visual exposure to high-calorie foods stimulates our brain’s impulse control, increasing our desire to eat and triggering our emotional eating behavior. Therefore, it is best to keep tempting foods such as candy, chips, chocolate, cookies out of sight. At the same time, watching the news and following the agenda in our country and the world increase our emotional stress. Allocating only 15 minutes a day to the agenda topics and reducing the time we are exposed to the news can prevent us from being emotionally triggered.
Be kind to yourself.
Feeling guilty, ashamed, or angry with yourself can perpetuate the cycle of emotional eating. Know that you are not alone as we are all going through tough times. Given the current situation, remind yourself that emotional eating is understandable and that you are doing your best. Remember: the best gift you can give yourself is love and acceptance.
Now, like you; Imagine what you would say to a friend who says she’s eating more than usual in response to the stresses of the pandemic: Would you tell her she’s a terrible person? Well, what do you say instead, would you be kinder? How can you trust him? And what tone of voice do you use? You can use these points as guidelines on how to talk to yourself.
If you need further assistance, do not hesitate to reach out to healthcare professionals.
RECIPE 1: HOME CHIPS and DIPSOS
lavash chips
- 2 pieces of lavash bread – tortilla 200 g
- 3 tablespoons of olive oil 18g
- 2 pinches of cayenne pepper 5g
- 2 pinches of red pepper powder 5g
- 2 pinches of dried mint 5 g
- 2 pinches of dried thyme 5 g
- 2 pinches of garlic powder 5 g
- 1 teaspoon Salt 5g
- 1 teaspoon of Black Pepper 5g
Specification:
Cut the lavash into triangular pieces, add all the spices to the oil, mix, apply on the lavash, bake at 180 degrees for 15 minutes.
DIPSOS
green sauce
- ½ bunch of dill
- ½ bunch of parsley
- ½ bunch of mint
- 1 cucumber
- 6 tablespoons of strained yogurt
- ½ clove of garlic
- 2 teaspoons of salt
Recipe: Wash all the greens and put them in the processor, then add the strained yogurt. Add the garlic and salt at the end and mix until you get a smooth consistency.
hot sauce
- 4 tablespoons of chili paste
- 4 tablespoons of tomato paste
- 2 tomatoes
- 1 tablespoon of olive oil
- ½ clove of garlic
- 10 whole walnuts
- ½ cup of hot water
Recipe: First, fry the garlic with oil in the pan for one minute, add the tomato and pepper paste, fry a little more. Let the mixture rest for 10 minutes. Add the grated tomatoes, water and walnuts to the sauce.
Avocado dipping sauce
- ripe avocado
- labneh cheese
- Tomatoes
- ½ clove of garlic
- 1 sprig of chopped dill
- Lemon juice
- lemon zest
- Salt
RECIPE 2 : HOMEMADE DIET SNICKERS
Downstairs:
- 8 dates
- 2 tablespoons of oat flour
- 1 tablespoon of unsweetened peanut butter
Mezzanine:
- 4 tablespoons of labneh
- 1 tablespoon of honey
Over:
- 1 pack of dark chocolate
- Crumbled raw almonds or hazelnuts
For the base; We mash the dates kept in hot water, mix them well with oat flour and peanut butter and spread them on the bottom of the bowl. Add the mixture of labneh and honey on it. Finally, we add the melted dark chocolate and crushed almonds on the bain-marie. After keeping it in the refrigerator for half an hour and slicing it thinly, our healthy bar is ready to eat with coffee.
