As a health coach one of the main reasons that clients look me up is to loose weight. My practice is focused around women usually between 25 and 45 who are emotional or stress eaters. When explaining this to someone most people assume that this means people who have an eating disorder. That is not always true. In fact, many people are emotional eaters. Think about it – how many times have you or someone that you know eaten some ice cream because you are sad, had a beer after a stressful day at work, or gotten lost in a bag of chips while watching TV? I have news for you – that’s emotional eating.
For an emotional eater staying accountable is key. This is because they do not eat because of hunger. When a person learns to be held accountable it teaches someone who usually eats because of reasons other than actual hunger to stay in touch with their emotions and check in with their bodies to see why exactly they feel like eating. This is a lesson that can make a profound and lasting, healthy change in their way of life.
One thing that I have picked up on though is that people do not want to disappoint someone else. That’s why having a coach can be so valuable. When people are checking in with their health coach daily or weekly, they think twice about fluctuating from a diet or lifestyle plan.
There are other tools that people can use too: try the buddy system. Having someone there, especially a spouse, girlfriend or boyfriend can really help you to stay on track. Other ways can include getting a food journal, a food tracking application, such as Spark People or My Fitness Pal on your smart phone. Applications such as these are great when on the run. For some reason most of my clients seem to prefer putting their food on an application to sending me an e-mail. These trackers include calories and also your workout schedule.
Whatever your favorite way to stay accountable is, don’t wait to do it. There’s no time like the present to get started.
If you liked this post, please comment or subscribe to it. Have a happy, healthy day 🙂
elementalhealthandwellness 