I’ve been talking a lot about skin-related beauty, but today I want to touch on a weight issue and it certainly affects our physical appearance.

I’ll put my hand up and admit I put on almost 20 pounds over several years due to comfort eating. I just thought I “loved” pasta, but pasta didn’t love me back — I couldn’t buckle my jeans up without a struggle and my thighs grew a bit too close for comfort. I have a rather petite frame so excess weight truly shows up.

It wasn’t until I discovered the raw food lifestyle that I started thinking about why I ate so much. On the sly, I munched my way through bags of chips in front of the TV, or in public, when I declared myself a “foodie” and indulged in rich gourmet fare.

So it’s no wonder that a few recent health articles in the news caught my attention about binge eating and the connection between food and emotions. Everyone has an intimate relationship with food whether you realize it or not.

How the Food Makers Captured Our Brains addresses the root of overeating, but it doesn’t provide any solutions to solve the problem. An interesting read anyway and it will make you think twice before you reach for a Snickers bar.

The next article that whetted my appetite further was an interview with former tennis champ Monica Seles, Monica Seles Talks About Binge Eating, where she reveals years of struggling with emotional eating and being out of balance. I felt my heart strings tug when she said others noticed her weight gain, “She is so much bigger than she used to be.” Hello, that was me!

I could even relate more when she put on the pounds despite playing tennis for five hours daily. I used to work out almost daily or every other day but I ate badly (bread, pasta, noodles were my toxic friends) and the weight crept on. At 30, I found myself retrenched and was 20 pounds over my ideal weight. I ate for comfort and because I was lonely. I think being an expat in a foreign country had a lot to do with it — I have friends but they are not the same as the best friends you’ve had since you were little; my boyfriend was always far away on business trips; my family was not around. Food became my closest ally.

Honestly I don’t think emotional eating is overly complex. People eat because they are stressed, unloved, have unresolved issues, want to escape etc. There are whole industries that cater to the sport of eating. Look at Nigella Lawson: her food is gorgeous, and the thing is, she always makes her creations ooze with divine comfort and therefore a legitimate reason to indulge. It’s so criminal you have to…

But how do you get from being aware that you binge eat for comfort to not needing to turn to food when things get rough?

You may pooh-pooh at suggestions like “take a hot bath”, or “call a friend”, because they don’t replace that enveloping cocoon-like fullness of refined carbohydrates. They really don’t.

A more immediate solution when I face such a mental crisis is to have healthy alternatives. It doesn’t solve the root of your emotional problem but your waistline will thank you for it.

For the long run, I don’t have a straightforward answer to resolving your issues and my gut-feel is it’s a long, hard road: you have to change the direction of where your mind goes when you are tempted to eat a lot of junk. For example, Monica Seles goes for a walk to readjust her thinking and rationalizes why she needs that particular food she is craving. It is seriously mind over matter. Sounds a little clichéd but do you really want to be controlled by corn chips, cookies, and all manner of faux food?

Photo credits: here, here, and here

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