I’d like to share my story on a time when I was in danger of Emotional eating disorder to now I’m living a healthy life. As they say, the building process of a house takes a lot of days but its demolition process takes only minutes. Changing your habits from negative to positive can look very difficult but try your best to change. At the end, you will give credits to yourself.

Why did you make that change?

I was working in the corporate world. Quite high up in the position already. When you are at that level, there is a lot of stress. I became more a politician and a social psychologist than anything else. On one hand, I had to manage the expectation from the executive level; on the other hand, I had to make sure the people under me executed on the goals I set and delivered with high quality. Being in the mid to upper management wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be. Gradually, I developed an emotional eating habit. The more I stressed out, the more I ate. Since I was in the office for long hours and didn’t have time to exercise, I became overweight. Not a Victoria Secret angel at all now.

Then one day when I was at work, I fainted for the first time in my life. Paramedics were called and the EKG showed I had heart problems and high blood pressure. I was rushed to the hospital and put through a battery of tests. The heart specialist told me that if i didn’t change my lifestyle and lose weight, it would take years off my life.

I decided right then to take action. I wanted and needed to be healthy for my children and grandchildren. I needed to Overcome Emotional eating disorder.

What was the transition like to overcome emotional eating?

I was eating anything and everything to deal with stress and it was putting me at risk for heart attack, stroke, and diabetes. I knew that I needed help to make the many necessary changes to have a healthy lifestyle, so I chose a commercial weight loss program with individualized support and started my new life.

Through the support of the program I lost 96 lbs. Since losing weight, my blood pressure is now in normal range and I have more energy to enjoy with my family. Support from a personal consultant determination and my family truly helped me change my habits for the better. My weight-loss consultant taught me portion control, gave me a balanced menu plan, and provided tips on how to control hunger and avoid emotional eating. For physical exercise, I now enjoy walking and working out at my local fitness club twice a week.  Today, I says it feels great knowing that I have improved my health. If I am tempted to revert to bad habits, I quickly reminds myself of the doctors dire warning and how hard I worked to accomplish weight loss goals and lead a healthier life.

Top three actions I took to make this change.

1. Seek professional help: I had two experts to help me out throughout this process. One was the weight-loss consultant and the other one was a counselor. Since I had some medical conditions that needed immediate attention, the weight-loss consultant helped me to lose weight fast to the healthy level. However, emotional eating started at the brain level. My counselor helped me to make sure not to overeat again if there was stress. One cool trick he taught me was to chew gum whenever I had the urge to eat. The repetitive chewing motion magically reduced not only my stress, but also my emotional eating. I guess it tricked my brain profoundly.

2. Sense of purpose: My family actually helped me a lot. I want to see my family as long as possible. I knew that if I didn’t overcome my emotional eating habit, I would go to the dead end. My life would be shorten. I don’t want that. That really motivated to change.

3. Discipline: It’s all about the mental game. I wanted to fall back to my old eating habit many many times but I kept reminding my self that I might not see my children as long as I originally anticipated. Just with that reason alone was enough for me to go through this change. I also started to watch what I eat and drink. I don’t drink too much soda anymore. If I do, I buy the smallest possible size.

What lessons did I learn?

I actually had several warning signals before I actually fainted at work. I was lucky that I was saved. Don’t ignore what your body tells you and take the appropriate actions in a timely manner. Also I realize that our food contains a lot of sugar everywhere. Sugar is really a silent killer. Reduce your consumption on those. Lastly, emotional eating is a disorder. Don’t underestimate the danger of this. Start your help from the counselor level. It’ll be very helpful.

I’m sure you may have different experience than I have. Comment below or even better, share your journey of change with others!

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