Emotional eater:

• You eat when you are happy, sad, stressed, overwhelmed, or celebratory.
• Your first thought when you feel heightened emotions is to eat.
• You feel comforted by eating food.
• You tend to feel out of control when you eat because of heightened emotions.

Food is fuel eater:

• You eat solely to fuel your body and give it energy.
• Food is not on your mind most of the day.
• You eat the same types of food most of the time; you don’t sway from the norm.
• You eat consistently throughout the day.

Binge/restricting eater:

• Food is on your mind most of the day, whether that be the desire to not eat or the fear of eating.
• You don’t eat most of the day and save your calories for the end of the day.
• You overexercise to compensate for the calories you consumed.
• You feel out of control around “forbidden” foods.

Diet eater:

• You bounce from diet to diet and tend to feel restricted on what you can or are allowed to eat.
• You may tend to be confused by dietary recommendations or unsure of what is the right thing to eat.
• Most of your day is surrounded by thoughts of food.

Emotional eater:

• When you feel a heightened emotion, do something else to comfort you or solidify your emotional state. Try to retrain your brain to let your first thought be to find comfort by _____(insert comforting activity like snuggling in bed or taking a bath) instead of automatically going to food for comfort.

Food is fuel eater:

• Indulge every once in a while! Enjoy the pleasure of eating something outside of your comfort zone and thoroughly enjoy the food in front of you.

Binge/restrict eater:

• Remind yourself that we need to eat during the day. If you restrict food all day, it makes sense that you’re hungry in the evening and cannot control what/how much you eat. Give yourself permission to eat at least one meal during the day and notice how that can change how you feel at night.

 Diet eater:

• Diets don’t work. They are not sustainable. They leave us deprived, defeated, and hungry. If you are looking to lose weight, try something other than a diet.