Why am I eating this?

I recently started a devotional book called "Made to Crave: 60 Days to Craving God, not food". Something that really struck me from the book was the question: "Am I eating this because I need nourishment or because I'm feeling empty spiritually or emotionally?" I've mentioned before that I am an extremely emotional eater. I use food to fill that empty space inside me quite a lot. I've lost weight at different times throughout my life, but I always gained it back. I think there are many reasons for this, but one of them is that I never completely mastered my emotional eating. I'm working on it again now and I think it may be something that I work on for the rest of my life. It's been my strategy for as long as I can remember so it's not going to change overnight. Here's my plan for working on it:

1. Be aware of my feelings. Acknowledge them and accept them. 

2. Ask myself the above question before I eat something outside of a regularly scheduled meal or snack. "Why am I eating this? Am I truly hungry for food or am I trying to fill that empty space inside me?"

3. Deal with my feelings. If I realize I am getting ready to eat something to fill that empty space, then deal with it. That may mean talking about it. That may mean writing about it. That may mean praying about it (or all of the above). But deal with the feeling rather than try to fill it with food. 

4. Continue writing down my food-this simple act makes me so much more aware of what I'm doing. Even if I'm not making great food choices in that moment-writing it down means I"m not ignoring it. 

Tomorrow I'm going to talk about one of the other reasons that I think I've failed at weight loss in the past: "the diet vs. lifestyle" cycle.