You are not eating for health you are overeating for comfort.

Comfort eating often stems from childhood. When you were a child you were told what to eat and what was forbidden. When I was a child I was told to eat up everything on my plate, as there were children starving in Africa and my mother did not want to waste the food, as it was expensive.

When you grow up it can be a great joy to choose food for yourself. You can to eat whatever you like.

We live in a culture of abundance and most of us can buy whatever food we like and so self-discipline is necessary otherwise we will all end up too heavy to get about. The richer you become the more important it is to have self-discipline. The diet industry thrives on bringing out new diets that make great promises but do not work long term. If you cut out vital nutrients or food groups that your body needs you will end up feeling hungry as your body will send signals for you to eat. The major key to weight loss is making gradual changes that your body accepts. Your body does not like sudden change and will fight against dramatic changes. Sending out hungry signals that you will be unable to resist.

There are two main types of comfort eating. One is to fill an emotional void.  Which means no one is taking care of your emotional needs; you are not getting the support you need; or maybe in childhood you got into the habit of using food as a fix to cheer yourself up. For whatever reason, your needs were not being met, so you ate as a substitute for the love you needed. Or maybe you are so busy taking care of everyone else that you forget to ask for what you need. To put a stop to this kind of comfort eating, you need to deal, not with the food issue, but go to the source of the problem. Ask yourself what you need; ask for help and reassurance when you need it; forgive yourself for your failings; be kind to yourself and feed yourself positive messages.

Change what you can and accept what you can’t, the future is all yours.

The other sort of comfort eating stems from plain, simple boredom. Is there nothing more exciting in your life than what is on the television, and what you can eat? You deserve more. You need to get to the source of this as well. What is lacking? Is it your work? Is it being at home alone with the children? Is it the wheel of life that leaves you tired and bored? Make some changes — change your work — help with a charity — take up exercise.  Take up education, only you can decide, but you need something more interesting than the highlight of your day being food.

Regular exercise is a great morale booster. Try a walk or a swim when you feel like a snack coming on. Getting out and about; working toward your goals in life; taking care of your health and keeping busy are all important.

Recognize trigger foods that make you want to eat more and don’t buy them.

Regular comfort eaters need to know that this is something we can all identify with. Share this problem with someone — it’s not a dark secret.  Over eating will not solve your problems, but discussing them is a great step forward.