You're going about your day when the urge to eat sets in. Sure, you might be physically hungry ... but it's possible that you're seeking a security blanket to alleviate stress. Or perhaps you're just bored. Use "The Broccoli Test" to identify emotional hunger and stop it from ruining your diet.
There's a reason that "comfort food" exists. When you're stressed, your brain seeks ways to alleviate these stressors by eating certain foods, resulting in unwanted calories. If this wasn't bad enough, the act of self-medicating with comfort food also increases your body's propensity to store abdominal fat, leading to a greater risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
By giving into emotional cravings, we just prolong the problem.
Emotionally eating only suppresses feelings. It doesn't change them. It's like an annoying door-to-door salesmen … if we don't answer the door, they'll keep knocking. We might as well answer it sooner rather than later. Until we answer the door, we'll just keep suppressing our emotions.
Do "The Broccoli Test" to help you differentiate between physical and emotional hunger. You may have heard variations of this—the apple test, the fruit test, etc. Basically, what you’re doing is asking yourself if you'd eat a healthier food.
Ask yourself, "would I eat broccoli right now?" If you answer "yes," then you are physically hungry. Go ahead and eat.
If you answer "no," then you're emotionally hungry. You are not actually hungry for food. You are hungry for something else (stress relief, a distraction, a quick escape, etc). The idea is that, when we're physically hungry any food is appealing. If the thought of vegetables doesn't sound appealing, we're not physically hungry.
Helpful, right?