3 reasons to have an emotional eating coach

Coaching is big business now. It is now estimated that there are 100,000 life coaches in the UK. The fastest growing niche in this rapidly expanding field is health coaching. Health coaches use their expertise to assist you to achieve your health and fitness goals. To some people that might be doing more exercise whereas to others it might be starting a healthy eating plan. Coaches tend to focus on the actions required to achieve these goals. They help you clarify what you want and what that will mean to your life. They also help you identify the smaller steps that you will need to take to get there and support you throughout your journey.

However when it comes to eating the focus still seems to be very much on the eating plan itself and less on the impact of emotions on eating behaviour. The role that emotions play still seems to be under-explored by many health coaches. You can have the best healthy eating plan in the world but if you do not possess the necessary skills to manage your emotions they will come along and sabotage your progress when you least expect it. An emotional eating coach is a specialist in helping you to understand your emotional relationship with food. Furthermore he or she will teach you techniques to manage your emotions in order to change your eating patterns. Here are 3 another good reasons to have an emotional eating coach if you want to lose weight and keep it off.

1 Identity specific hot emotions.

An emotional eating coach will be able to help you identify what specific emotions are causing the problem. For some people it might be sadness. For others it might be anger. Perhaps happiness might even be the issue for another individual. Once you know which emotion is the problem the coach can prescribe a more effective solution to dealing with that particular emotion.

2 Uncover hidden patterns and deep rooted associations.

An emotional eating coach will be able to use hypnosis to identify and alter unhelpful or destructive thought patterns and associations. You may not realise it but your overeating may be a symptom of unresolved emotional conflict. Many people have issues related to eating that were formed in childhood and have been silently running in the background outside of your conscious awareness.  Many coaches only touch the surface of these issues whereas an emotional eating coach has the tools to explore these issues in more depth thereby providing a long term solution to the problem.

3 Mental Preparation.

 An emotional eating coach will help you to mentally prepare for high risk situations that will tempt you to deviate from your eating plan. Using a range of psychological techniques, a coach can help you to develop routines and rituals that ensure you don't fall off the wagon.

Khody Damestani MSc BSc (Hons) DIHP is a therapeutic coach, author and lecturer specialising in helping people overcome emotional eating. He sees clients at his private practice in Brighton and runs workshops. For more information contact him at info@khody.co.uk