With two-thirds of Americans being overweight, it’s no
secret that few of us eat for purely physical reasons. After a long, hard day at work, you stop at the gas station on the way home and indulge in a bag of chips or a candy bar. This is emotional eating, according to Linda Spangle, RN, MA, a weight-loss specialist and author of “Life is Hard, Food is Easy: The 5-Steph Plan to Overcome Emotional Eating and Lose Weight on Any Diet.”

Emotional hunger begins outside of the body, and is stimulated by sight, smell, memory or a past experience. It results in reactive eating – oftentimes indulging in the food we crave as a result of those external stimuli. Emotional hunger also leads to experiential eating – or eating to comfort, calm, excite, please or reward. Physical hunger, however, meets a physiological need that begins with an empty, hollow feeling in the stomach. If this hunger is not addressed, a person may feel irritated, tired, even dizzy.

A key to healthy eating is learning how to decipher between physical and emotional food cravings. Here are a few tips to help you determine between the two:

Physical hunger has the following qualities:

• You are physiologically hungry.
• The craving does not go away if you try to wait it out.
• The craving intensifies over time.
• Nothing you do will take away the craving except food.

Emotional hunger has the following qualities:

• You are not physiologically hungry.
• It does go away if you try to wait it out.
• The craving does not intensify over time; the emotion does.
• Doing something else satisfies the real need, and the craving disappears.

In addition to these tips, it’s a good idea to rate your hunger or fullness on a scale from 1 to 10 before every meal or snack by using the scale below.

Hunger/Fullness Rating Scale:

10 – Absolutely, positively stuffed
9 – So full it hurts
8 – Very full and bloated
7 – Starting to feel uncomfortable
6 – Slightly overeaten
5 – Perfectly comfortable
4 – First signals that your body needs food
3 – Strong signals to eat
2 – Very hungry, irritable
1 – Extreme hunger, dizziness

If you are at level 5 or above, you are likely craving a food and your craving is emotional not physical. Your body does not physically need food. If you are at level 3 or 4, your body is telling you it needs food, and your cravings are telling you that you physically need food. If you are at level 1 or 2, your body is too hungry and definitely physically needs food. When you get to this level you are so hungry that you are likely to overeat or eat something that is not healthy.

Having a healthy relationship with food is possible! Now that you know the signals of physical and emotional hunger, you are more likely to differentiate them as they occur. Journaling daily may also help you gain a greater awareness of your eating habits, so you may gain more control over your mind and body. By implementing these steps, you’re already on the path to healthy eating habits and reaching your goal weight. You can do it!

For more tips on emotional eating, contact your local MRC!

Besides deflecting crankiness and fatigue, a restful slumber can work wonders for your overall health and well-being. Studies have also shown that practicing better sleep habits may be instrumental to the success of any weight loss or management plan. Here’s why you need to get a good night’s rest:

» It wards off weight gain. When you consistently skimp on sleep, you might notice you put on a few pounds. A recent study found that men suffering from insomnia had 30 percent lower levels of ghrelin (a hormone that boosts your appetite) at night. That decrease might sound like good news, but it actually creates a hormone imbalance, which might work against your diet, according to the study published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology. If you’ve noticed you have an uncontrollable appetite, this could be why.

» It lowers your risk for high blood pressure. People who have insomnia and sleep five or fewer hours per night are five times more likely to have hypertension than those who get at least six hours of restful sleep, according to a study of 1,741 men and women found published in the journal Sleep. Interestingly, this increased risk is similar to that of people who have sleep-related breathing problems, such as sleep apnea.

» It lowers your risk for diabetes. People who averaged fewer than six hours of sleep per night during the work week were four times more likely to develop abnormal blood sugar levels, a risk factor for diabetes, over a six-year period than those who snoozed six to eight hours. The study, which had more than 1,400 participants, was conducted by the American Heart Association.

To make sure you are getting quality sleep, try following this checklist:

• Go to bed and get up at the same time every day.

• Avoid hitting the snooze button repeatedly.

• Turn on the light and pull the curtains when you get up.

• Exercise more than three hours before bedtime.

• Have fewer than 300 milligrams of caffeine during the day.

• Don’t consume any alcohol at dinner and don’t smoke.

• Before bed, do something that relaxes you.

• Make sure your bedroom is dark when you turn out the lights.

• Set the temperature in your bedroom to a cool 68 degrees.

Call MRC today to lose weight and improve your overall health!