Conquering Emotional Overeating: One Bride’s Story

Bombshell Bride: At that point what did you do to make the changes you needed to?

Jenn: I researched registered dietitians in my town who specialized in emotional eating and booked an appointment with one. I found someone who I connected with and who taught me about intuitive eating, which completely changed my relationship with food. I had at least six sessions overall with her. I don’t think I could have done it with just a book. I needed someone to be honest with and I needed someone to be accountable to as I relearned how to eat and treat myself.

Bombshell Bride: What was the hardest struggle in learning to eat according to hunger?

Jenn: Not knowing what hunger was! I was so used to eating when I was “supposed to” or not eating when I “wasn’t supposed to” that I was completely out of whack with what real hunger actually felt like. It took me months of monitoring my hunger to figure out when my belly was hungry versus my head and then how to stop eating before I was full. For naturally slender people it’s very intuitive, but after years of dieting, it’s like decoding a foreign language at first.

Bombshell Bride: What helped the most?

Jenn: My dietitian had me keep a hunger log. For the first few weeks, I checked in every hour with my hunger and rated it on a scale from 1 to 10. When I ate, I recorded how full I was before I ate and then how full I was after. Eventually I moved to only recording my hunger when I was eating, and now it’s second nature so I don’t have to use the log.

I also started paying really close attention to what my mind was saying about myself and others. I had a lot of negative self-talk and compared myself a lot to others without even realizing it. I was putting myself down in my head, more than I was even aware. Once I started listening to that inner voice, I kindly told it to hush and focus on what I really love about myself.

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