Emotional Eating Food Diary An emotional eating food diary will take some work on your part. You can dismiss it because you don t feel like doing it or you don t think it will help. However, if you choose to write down information about your eating habits, your emotional state and your thoughts at that very moment, you will gain insight into your behavior and be able to change it. Your brain is divided into 3 brains. The most basic and primitive part of your brain doesn t take No for an answer. This is called your Lizard Brain. You probably don t spend a lot of time here, but if you do, you are reacting to the most basic needs a human has survival and protection. The second part of your brain is the Mammalian Brain. This is the brain that tries to comfort you. You spend most of your time here. You are looking for the things that please you the most your comfort zone. Whether it s during times of stress, boredom or emotional crisis, you find a way back to your emotional brain. Your emotional brain does not judge and you like the security it gives you. As much as you want to believe you make logical, rational decisions, you spend a lot less time in the third part of your brain, the Logical Brain. Since we are talking about losing stubborn belly fat, you can probably see that you make irrational decisions when it comes to picking the foods you eat. Are you seriously going to say, I am going to buy that vegetable medley when you clearly had your mind made up that the cheeseburger and fries was what you really wanted?
Logic is thrown out the window when it comes to food choices. The whole idea behind an emotional eating food diary is to determine what you are feeling when you make that decision. You will be able to discover a pattern of behavior that triggers something in your brain that tells you, I need this. When you start recognizing these behaviors, you will be able to make better choices. For example, let s say you really stuck to your game plan at a party. You really ate healthy and you reminded yourself to stay away from the high calorie, high fat foods. But now you go home and you start thinking about all that great tasting food you missed out on. This is the real moment of truth. Do you go to your secret stash because you deprived yourself at the party? It is quite possible you could go on an eating binge and all that hard work amounted to nothing. These are precisely the times when you have to recognize you moments of weakness. What if you secret stash started to become healthier? This would be a great start, wouldn t it? For example, let s say you love peanut butter and chocolate. Chances are you may indulge yourself with Reese s Peanut Butter Cups, right? And quite possibly, you have a stash of peanut butter cups all over the house. It s a no brainer you will begin eating them. Let s say you eat 2 of them. Oh what the heck, might as well eat 4 of them! Here s what you ll be eating:
At the very least, you will eat 210 calories of complete junk food. And you will take in 12 grams of fat and 19 grams of sugar. But let s say you are trying to make better choices. Is there anything out there that can rival the taste of a Reese s Peanut Butter Cup? That s a hard one to say because we all have our own preferences. Before your moment of emotional crisis, you remembered to replace all your peanut butter cups with Special K Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein Meal Bars. I am not advocating for Special K, but at least you are reducing the calories, fat and sugar compared to a Reese s Peanut Butter Cup. Do you see how you can start training yourself to make better choices? The point is not to be satisfied with the Special K Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein Meal Bars. Keep moving to a better alternative. Why do it this way? It is going to be pretty hard to give up everything all at once. Instead, try establishing a healthier baseline over time.
For every food product you dearly love, try to substitute them for better choices one by one. Over time, you will be able to condition yourself in times of emotional crisis to eat healthier and healthier choices. The only way this is going to work is if you keep a food journal for a month. Yes, it is a lot of work, but what is the alternative? You will never make progress unless you overcome your emotional eating. Please copy this page and begin using it to record your daily progress. If you decide it s not worth your time, what else are you going to do? If you re miserable, find out what you re doing and correct the problem. It s not as hard as you think. To make more copies, set your printer to print page 6 of this document.
Daily Notes Emotional Eating Day Of The Week: Meal (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner Or Snack): Food Eaten & Amount (Be Honest): Your Emotional State (Bored, Stressed Out, Depressed, etc.) Reason Why You Chose The Food You Did (Convenience, Didn t want to cook, Craved junk food, Family gathering or event, etc.) Did you stop yourself during an emotional crisis or at least slow down the binge eating? (Explain)