Tips For Combating Emotional Eating

Hey, Gang! Jill here 🙂

Just wanted to pop in super quick and talk to you about yesterday’s virtual book crew. One of the things we got to talking about was emotional eating and how we numb ourselves in many ways with food. And I thought what a great topic to talk about today being Wellness Wednesday.

How many of us are an emotional eater? I know I am. And many of us don’t even realize when we’re doing it. So I thought maybe just going over a couple of things and maybe just what emotional eating is. 

 

And you know, a lot of times that’s the reason why diets don’t work. Emotional eating is when we use food to make ourselves feel better. I mean how many times have you just gone and grabbed something because you just don’t know what it is that you’re feeling but yet you need something. And there’s a lot of triggers to it.

And one could just be boredom. We don’t’ necessarily like that state of being so we trick our body into thinking we are hungry when in fact, all we are is bored. Lots of times we turn to comfort foods during bad or different times. But why?

A lot of times it’s about thinking back to what that childhood memory was like for you. For example, mashed potatoes or lasagna…cookies, ice cream. What was that feeling that you had when you were eating those foods? And so what you’re trying to recreate in those low times in our lives is that sense of feeling good or whatever you felt when you originally first started eating those comfort foods.

So again, the brain is tricking us. You know another

You know another way that we often go into emotional eating is that need and desire to feel loved. Sugar, salts, high carbs, fats—they trigger responses in the brain like an opioid substance would like heroin or cocaine.

Chocolate is a great example. We go to that food because the food itself triggers temporary feelings of how we would feel if we were actually feeling loved in that particular moment. Same thing with stress eating. Sugars, high carbs–they make us feel energized because they spike our sugar. So they get us revved and prepared to deal with whatever we’re stressing about at the moment only to find out that 5-10 minutes down the road it hasn’t helped with that stress.

So what are some of the things that we can do to counteract that emotional eating?

Because you can have the absolute best intentions in the world to eat healthy. But if you’re an emotional eater, no matter what diet you’re following, it’s going to fail when those triggers come up again—unless you become aware of them and are mindful of them.

When I’m’ working with my clients one of the things I always try to stress is that emotional eating is probably the biggest downfall that we can have. Because you go super gung-ho. And let’s say you do go and blow it. And then the next thing you know, you’re sitting there with a bowl of ice cream in front of you. And not only then do you feel badly for the feeling that you’re feeling, but now you’re feeling guilty for eating whatever it was. So now you’ve got the double whammy go.

So the thing is that you just want to think about being mindful of when it is you’re eating things and if in fact, you’re actually hungry. Make that mental checklist: 

• Am I bored?
• Am I stressed?
• Am I eating to feel better about myself?
• Am I looking for comfort?

And a lot of times it’s social eating that we’re tricked into eating foods that we normally wouldn’t. Because in a social environment there are certain types of foods that we generally eat.

So start by being mindful and then give yourself what I always call the “5 Minute Test”. If you can, when you’re in that moment when you’re about to grab those Juji Fruits. Take 5 minutes, walk away and if in those 5 minutes you haven’t found something else to satisfy you, then give yourself that permission.

But think about what you’re putting into your body. Are you fueling it with the nutrition that it truly needs? That’s one of the ways that I always try to do it. When I go to make that grocery list. I think about each food group that I put down. What is it giving my body? How am I fueling my body?

Because we are emotional eaters. So by bringing it into the house #1, that’s our first mistake. And yes Moms, with kids we are going to have some of that stuff in the house. But try to find things that you can replace it with. For example, instead of a big bowl of ice cream—I always joke with my husband but I give myself timeouts. I have a space to give myself a time out with some type of positive motivational uplifting reading because I know that the food isn’t going to make me feel better.

So 90% of it is identifying and recognizing when and if you are doing emotional eating. And once you do that, that’s half the battle. A diet is only going to work as long as there isn’t any emotional eating involved. And until you can address that, 90% of the time that’s not going to change. We self-sabotage ourselves all the time. But if we can get control of that and recognize those things and use those couple of tips that I said. Be mindful of what we’re eating. Starting a little journal. And just giving yourself that 5 minutes—that in and of itself will be huge.

So drink your water, eat to fuel your body, eat to fuel that temple and have an awesome day! xoxo