7 Rules To Stop Emotional Eating At Night

By Jackie Wicks, PEERtrainer co-founder


3.    You can’t eat anywhere but sitting down at kitchen, dining room table. 

TV dinners became the must have in the 50’s.  I remember my father-in-law telling me about his first experience when TV dinners came out.  His mother put them in the oven, with all the tin foil and they all sat around the TV with trays and she came over and plopped the foil dinner in front of each of them and they all went “oooohhhhh”.  He has a huge smile on his face as he tells me the story and remembers every detail of what was on the TV and what he ate. 

I’m sure it was a relief to mothers everywhere!!  I’m a mom and I know what it takes to have to have a sensible dinner on the table every single night after I’ve worked and the last thing I feel like doing is cooking.   And for some of you, eating with the TV on might be a cozy memory of being surrounded by the deep love of your family or the only time of the day you weren’t fighting with your sister.  

But I’m telling you that eating in front of the TV, (and you already know this) leads to mindless snacking that never ends.  Never ever ends.  I have a strange reason for why I never ate in front of the TV:  it was a rule in our house to only eat in the kitchen or dining room because my mom didn’t want crumbs anywhere else in the house.  The fear of bugs and the thought of a stray crumb going behind the sofa or bedroom was way too much for my mom to deal with so eating anywhere else in the house was a big NO.  So I guess I’m lucky in that respect because that was never a habit that had the chance to be formed. 

I’m asking you to make a rule for yourself.  If you’re only eating sitting down in the kitchen or the dining room table, you’re mindful of what you’re eating.   You’ve prepared something.  The “Mindless’ part of the equation doesn’t have a chance to form a deep grove.

Next Page: Rule #4

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