By Sha King | Holistic Nutritionist | Just Sharlene

Eating emotionally well simply means not eating on emotions and becoming a conscious eater. Being mindful and recognizing how you feel when you eat and drink.

The emotionally eating well concept takes into account what you desire for taste and nutrition, and what your body needs in order to work well emotionally and physically.

I have often found people don’t realize how much they are thinking about food and their bodies until they start working on eating emotionally well.

I feel that there are two most important factors to give more thought to when eating, they are:

What we eat (taste)

You need to enjoy what you’re eating or you’ll feel like there’s something missing and that’s the ideal setup for mindless emotional eating and you’ll feel unsatisfied and frustrated with yourself after eating.

The priority has to be self-care, says Nutritionist Sha King, understanding how we eat and drink affects how we think, feel and look.

Our bodies thank us after eating a delicious well-combined nutrient-dense meal by, thinking clearer, feeling better, and simply working better.

Where we eat (nutrition) 

You also need the nutrition to fuel your body properly considering where you are going to eat each day is another factor.

Think about how you feel after eating most holidays. Or maybe you’re just busy at work and you grab what’s available from a fast food restaurant it’s easy, quiets your hunger, but ultimately not where you really want to eat.

There are some known facts about eating out. In most cases, nutrition and food quality are compromised. Maybe we need to consider self-care as eating more of the foods we are cooking at home. I understand it could seem to be a little more effort and less attractive however with the right tools and ideas the kitchen “it” can become your favorite place in your home and not just a “pass-through”.

Start by committing to improve your culinary skills with easy healthy cooking classes and additionally to preparing at least 2-3 of your weekly more nutritious meals at home. Maintaining these concepts helps you to feel good in a well-rounded sense- you’ll feel more capable so you can focus on other things rather than thinking always about what to eat and where to eat.

It reconnects your subconscious MINDSET and conscious TASTE BUDS to improve your relationship with food, so in the long run, you can stop emotional eating, the beginning of the journey to eating emotionally well.