To find out if you may be an emotional eater, answer these questions:
Do you consistently find yourself eating past comfortable fullness without realizing it?
Can any kind of emotion “set you off?” Like boredom, loneliness, sadness, even celebration?
Do you often find yourself eating mindlessly without even tasting what you ate?
Are you disconnected from your hunger and fullness signals?
Do you often start eating, with a clear intention to stop, and then keep going–almost compulsively?
Do you often couple TV or computer time with eating?
Are you uncomfortable in social situations so you find yourself “hiding” in food at parties?
If you are like I was, you can answer “yes” to almost all of these emotional eating questions.
Emotional Regulation
One important element of recovering from emotional eating is learning to regulate your emotions without going to food. Intuitive Eating, the book by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch that spearheaded the whole intuitive eating movement, spends a whole chapter on the topic; but I needed much more. My emotional eating felt very entrenched, like I needed a whole book on the topic (and a whole lifetime to work on it!)
Here are a few methods of growing out of emotional eating that helped me, and that I have found help most of my clients:
Hold Yourself Off From Binges for 10 Minutes
Anytime you notice that you want food, but you’re not biologically hungry (i.e. experiencing hunger signals of some kind) set a timer and give yourself ten full minutes to distract yourself in some way. Walk the dog, visit a neighbor, get out of the house, anything to put space between you and the food. This can begin to break the habit of going to food for comfort.
So much of recovery is about changing habits and altering your brain. If you have been eating emotionally for years, you have a well worn, strong neural pathway that drives you to go to food for all types of emotions. This practice begins to help you break that habit. Remember, you are not powerless over binging or eating for emotions. Deliberate thoughtful actions can absolutely change your unwanted behaviors. They feel bigger than you and powerful. But, I promise you are smarter than them and you can overcome this thing with diligence and concerted effort.
Take Time to Fully Feel Your Emotions
When the urge to binge hits, remember that it could be emotion driven. Give yourself some uninterrupted time to feel the emotions from the inside out. When you can put a name to the emotion and then allow yourself to feel it without judgment, it has a chance to lessen.
Describe to yourself what the emotion feels like, viscerally in your body. Like this, “This is anxiety. I feel a tightness behind my eyes, a churning in my stomach, a pressure in my chest, a heaviness in my legs.” Each persons emotions will manifest differently in their body. This is just an example to help you get started.
Your mind will begin to wander to thoughts like, “I feel anxious because he said something hurtful,” or “I feel this way because something in my life is not going as expected.” These are not present moment descriptions of your feeling. These are thoughts, storylines. You can perpetuate your emotions forever with your mind! Gently pull yourself back to the experience of your feelings in your body. The intensity of emotions dissipates in about two minutes when you give them attention in this way.
Once you have done this a few times through head to toe, you’ll begin to notice a gentle lift in your emotions. They won’t be gone. They’ll just be manageable.
Obviously, this is easier said than done. Especially if you have spent a lifetime avoiding feelings.
When I first started practicing this process, I felt afraid that the emotions would swallow me up, that I would feel intense emotions for hours or days. The beauty of this practice is that it give you control over your emotions. You feel them and you move on.
Journaling
Journaling can be a powerful ally in helping you sort out your emotions. A private place to figure out what you are feeling and why. Rather than a recounting of the day’s events, it proves valuable in helping you gather your thoughts, say things you wouldn’t say to anyone, and clarify actions to take.
I made it a practice to journal every time I felt a “twinge” inside: some uncomfortable emotion I didn’t have words for yet. This helped me get “inwardly organized,” meaning the appropriate emotion came up at the right time and in the right way without baggage from the past. (Using the word “right” in connection with emotions is a bit tricky here, as there really are no right or wrong emotions.) My point is that I sorted out my emotions so that I knew what was what.
Identify the Actual Need
Once you have been practicing my first few suggestions, you’ll begin to notice your patterns. I noticed that I overate when I needed to stand up for myself but stayed quiet. Or, when I was overly tired, or stretched thin from filling my life with too much. It became imperative that I learn to give myself what I truly needed at those times.
I learned to speak up and not be a doormat. Sleep became a priority when I was tired. Instead of trying to push harder to prove myself, I started saying “no” to things. I discovered that I could comfort myself with a fuzzy blanket and a sappy rom-com way better than I ever could with excessive food.
Give Yourself Grace
Remember, it’s not “bad” to eat for emotions. You’re not murdering anyone. It’s a learned coping behavior. Now, you are just ready to learn new more effective coping skills. Habits are not changed by beating yourself up. Give yourself time to practie new skills. It really is a messy trial and error process to find new ways to cope without using food.
Hang in there, keep practicing, and it eventually all comes together!
