Have you ever been asked, “Are you hungry?” and your immediate response was, “I could eat.” I certainly have – so many times, I’ve lost count. I knew I wasn’t hungry and I had probably eaten maybe an hour or two earlier, but the food was there and it probably smelled nice and… since there was room left in my stomach, I thought “why not?”

Before I started my journey, I very rarely even paused to ask myself if I was actually hungry. I just started shoving food in my mouth. I was so used to eating at certain times of day and at certain occasions that I often overlooked the fact that I wasn’t actually hungry. In other words, it was more of a craving than actual hunger – I just wanted to eat something for the sake and pleasure of eating. I wasn’t thinking about the nourishing and healing power of food I was only thinking about the taste and enjoyment of it.

The problem with this kind of thinking – or lack of – is that it places food in the wrong category. It moves it from being a nutritional requirement to “soothing entertainment” to “stress relief.”  While food was definitely designed to have healing properties, using it for “entertainment” is abuse. We frown on others when we learn about their “substance abuse” yet we are just as guilty of “sustenance abuse.”

I didn’t realize how much I was abusing food until I started walking out my health journey. It was such a mental challenge that I started asking myself a lot of questions such as why do I want to eat even when I know I’m not hungry?

I didn’t get all the answers at once, but I started working through it, slowly and as I did that I started getting some answers. I share some of those answers in the attached video. I hope you’ll find it helpful in your quest to get healthy and overcome emotional eating.