Erik Chopin the Biggest Loser from season 3 who lost 214 pounds has gained half of the weight back. He appeared on CNN's Larry King last night (January 12, 2009) to open up about his weight gain.
When asked how he gained the weight back, he said he lost purpose in his life, fell into a depression and turned to food and stopped exercising. Oprah refers to her struggle with emotional eating as well. It makes sense. Most of us know what to eat and how much to eat but we fall into bouts of binge eating or we make unhealthy food choices anyway. At that point it's not about food - it's about other issues going on for us instead.
Emotional eating is when we use food as a substitute for something else. We use it to relieve or suppress negative emotions. It occurs often when we are dealing with strong emotions like big highs or deep lows or when we experience an increase in stress. Overall unhappiness or loneliness can also cause us to use food to try to heal our pain. It might help for the moment, but long term, it doesn't help.
The good news is that emotional eating can be managed. The Mayo Clinic offers these 7 ways:
- Learn to recognize true hunger
- Know your triggers
- Look elsewhere for comfort
- Don't keep unhealthy foods around
- Snack healthy
- Eat a balanced diet
- Exercise regularly and get adequate rest
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Comments
Spend time with people you love. Do things you love too.
I read the examiner all the time and I find Diane Taylor's articles very informative and a lot of fun...Keep up the good work Diane!
You are what you eat!!!
Your motive for losing weight needs to be yourself. It seems he was motivated in pleasing others. When people stopped giving him those verbal hugs, he was still empty. He needs to learn to feel comfortable in his own skin.
Thank you for the article. The situation seems similar to how I'm using feng shui to clear out my clutter in my home. Clearing clutter is not just about having room to fit in a new computer-it's an emotional process and attachment to things that are no longer working. Truly knowing that I deserve to be happy and light and that it's a learning process makes the getting there less emotionally attached to how I got to the weight I'm at. Thanks again.
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