Charlotte Roycroft-Davis explains why we eat more in winter: evolutionary urges to store energy, dopamine hits from comfort foods, and emotional hunger masking as physical hunger. Breaking the cycle means spotting your triggers and swapping food for other comforts.
Do you eat more and your habits change when the weather gets colder and we go from summertime to autumn? Do you seek comfort in food and lose control? Well, there's a really good reason this happens, and I'm here to help you understand more about what's going on in your head so that you can deal with it and stop being stuck in the same cycle year after year after year. This behavior cycle is such a big reason people spend their lives yo-yo dieting, and then they start blaming themselves for the fat around their middle and everywhere else for that matter. But it's just not good because then all sorts of horrible things happen. They get stressed and they stop believing that they can lose weight. Then that makes them feel really bad. And I know all this because I've been there too. So if this sounds familiar, it doesn't need to be the way you live your life at all. It is possible to break this cycle, and I'm here to tell you how. You see, as we go through our lives, our brains learn to behave in a certain way, and they respond to stimulus. From birth, we're programmed to respond to certain things, such as the sweet smell of our mother's milk. We're constantly changing our state of mind because of the things that happen around us. It can be what we see, what we hear, taste, smell, or feel. Gradually, these responses form a habit, and when the habit is repeated enough times, it becomes an unconscious or automatic action. This is why so many of us fall into the trap of eating more when we get to autumn. It's an automatic thing. So what can be done about it? Well, here are some things that you should know, and they should help you to get through. So what is emotional eating, and how do you know it's happening? Look, we've all done it. We've munched mindlessly to take the edge off something that stressed us or made us feel unhappy. That's because food can be a quick fix, releasing soothing dopamine into the brain and temporarily making us feel better. You see, we're creatures of pleasure. We love feeling good, and our brains move towards pleasure and away from pain, so that the temptation of curling up on the sofa and eating donuts and chocolates when we're unhappy, or when it's cold and wet outside, can be far more appealing than going to the gym or for a run. But the trouble starts when the urge to use food to feel good becomes a hardwired habit that's just really hard to stop. And when the season changes and gets colder, comfort eating can go into overdrive. We've evolved with a subconscious urge to eat energy-dense food and store fat during the colder months. Having fewer daylight hours doesn't help either, with 1 in 3 of us suffering from low mood during the winter. But winter blues can be lifted with comforts other than food, and shorter days don't have to lead to bigger waistlines. Emotional eating is never really about food. Food has just become a way of dealing with the emotion. Now, one of the first things I ask when a person has lost control of food is this: Are you an emotional eater? And it's amazing the response I get. A lot of people don't even realize they eat for reasons other than being hungry, and emotional eating is exactly that— eating when you're not hungry, but it's as a result of how you're feeling. And that can be anger, stress, sadness, anxiety, joy, or maybe simply because it's dark and cold outside. Here are a few main differences between emotional and, and physical hunger. Emotional hunger becomes— comes on suddenly. Physical hunger is gradual. You'll feel the need to be satisfied instantly if it's emotional eating, and emotional hunger leads to cravings, especially for food high in fat and sugar. With emotional eating, you won't feel satisfied even with a full bloated stomach. Then, as if all that isn't bad enough, you'll feel guilt and shame and of course the feeling of being powerless. Typical signs include eating in secret, hiding food packaging, buying more food than you need, and just being isolated. And of course there's those inner voices in your head, you know, the ones that say things like, "Go on, it'll make you feel better," or, or you haven't eaten much today, just go on, it won't matter. Those are your emotions talking. The key thing is to be aware that this is happening because your brain goes through a process, and if you can interrupt this process, you can help to stop it. Awareness is the key because emotional hunger can't be filled with food. Eating may feel good in the moment, but the feelings that triggered the eating are still there, and you often feel worse than you did before because of the unnecessary calories you've just consumed. You beat yourself up for messing up and not having more willpower. Then you also stop learning healthier ways to deal with your emotions. You have a harder and harder time controlling your weight, and you just feel increasingly powerless over both food and your feelings. But no matter how powerless you feel, it is possible to make a positive change. You can learn healthier ways to deal with your emotions, avoid triggers, conquer cravings, and finally put a stop to the emotional eating. It's not about being on a constant diet, it's about understanding that emotional hunger can't be filled with food. I hope you really enjoyed my video. I'm on a mission to help stop people from becoming diabetic, and I'd love you to share the help and advice on this video. Type 2 diabetes is a big, big worldwide problem, but it can be reversed. So many people are living with pre-diabetes and they don't even know. If you're at the pre-diabetes stage and you do something to change things before you become diabetic, your blood can go back to being perfectly normal and you prevent the terrible health risks associated with this awful condition. If we can stop just one person becoming diabetic because you've shared this, I'll be very, very happy. If you also hit the subscribe button below, you'll get more video tips from me on how to lose weight, improve your health, health and diminish the risk associated with type 2 diabetes. Thank you so much.
