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Dysfunctional behavior is any behavior that detracts from your emotional, physical, or spiritual well-being or that keeps you from achieving a goal. Conversely, functional behavior, is any behavior that helps you to be happy and healthy and that supports your life goals.

Dysfunctional eating is any kind of eating that detrimentally impacts your health, blocks your energy, or prevents you from achieving your ideal body weight. Functional eating is any kind of eating that helps you to feel healthy and energized and that helps you to achieve and remain at your ideal body weight.

Overweight people frequently engage in several different kinds of dysfunctional eating. To see if your eating is dysfunctional, make note of any of the following statements that describes your behavior pertaining to eating. Each of the common reasons cited for dysfunctional eating is followed by a short statement of fact designed to show that dysfunctional eating never really helps. Just the realization that some thoughts and behaviors are dysfunctional has been enough to help many people to make better choices. To determine if your eating is dysfunctional, you can ask yourself these 15 simple questions. Please make careful note of your responses.

____ 1. I overeat when I am tired.

Overeating never makes you less tired. It actually depletes your energy.

____ 2. I eat when I am sad.

Food is not an anti-depressant and it will never make your problems disappear. In fact, when you overeat because of sadness, it is likely that you will feel sadder after overeating.

____ 3. I eat when I am bored.

Overeating only temporarily fills the void of boredom.

____ 4. I eat when I am angry.

Overeating is no replacement for facing your emotions and productively dealing with your
life. Overeating never solves a problem—it only creates other problems.

____ 5. I eat when I don’t feel appreciated.

No one will ever be more kind to you just because you’ve overeaten.

____ 6. I eat to sabotage my own goals.

Have you examined why you are sabotaging your goals? Are the goals you have set for yourself in line with your highest good–or have you been talked into them? Do you know that you deserve success?

____ 7. I eat when I am fearful.

Eating excessively does not make you safer or less fearful.

____ 8. I eat when pressured to do so by others.

Just say “No, thanks.”

____ 9. I eat to forget about what is happening in my life.

Long after you are done eating, the issues in your life still remain. Overeating can make
your problems bigger and virtually never makes your problems go away.

____ 10. I eat without thinking of the ramifications.

Stop and breathe. Ask yourself if the extra calories and other effects of the food
are worth the ramifications.

____ 11. I eat just because food is present.

Do your best to keep temptation out of your path.

____ 12. I eat because I am drunk/stoned.

Excessive drinking and using drugs are but two more dysfunctional behaviors. Just say, “No.”

____ 13. I eat because I am stressed out.

High calorie, high fat, and sugary foods actually cause stress in your body. The best way to release stress is to exercise, meditate, use self-hypnosis, have fun, and to engage in other appropriate stress coping mechanisms.

____ 14. I eat because of cravings.

Overeating causes more cravings. When you eat the correct amount of nutritious food and drink plenty of water you will find that cravings disappear.

____ 15. I eat to feel comforted.

Any emotional comfort you get from overeating is short-lived and is almost always followed by regret.

If you are like many overweight people, it is possible that you have checked all the statements above as reasons that you sometimes overeat. It may even be that you could add several more reasons for eating dysfunctionally to this list.

Many of us, have very private reasons for sometimes behaving or eating dysfunctionally. You will find that honest self-discovery will help you to take actions to change any dysfunctional eating and behaviors into functional eating and behaviors. When I was designing Fit Fast Weight Loss with my partner, Kevin Reynolds, we knew it was important to include many programs designed to prompt self-discovery that would lead to easy behavior modification. Hypnosis can help you in many ways to understand what makes you tick and what makes you eat. No matter what might be “eating you.” you can decide to give yourself the gift of change.