THE FIRST STEP TO OVERCOMING EMOTIONAL EATING

Chances are you started reading this because you’re in my club.  The ‘members only club’ where we don’t really like to talk about our emotional eating because it’s often something we do when no one is watching. 

There is a long standing joke between my best friend and I who were once roommates. She caught me eating the cold Domino’s pasta (that we specifically left on top of the trash can the night before rather than saving leftovers). I woke up that morning and walked right up to that day-old pasta and started eating it with my bare hands.

Then… she walked in and said “Brit, what are you doing!?” Like a deer in the headlights I said “I don't know why I’m doing this, it's like an alien took over my body.” 

This wasn’t the first time she had caught me and I just laughed it off knowing that she didn’t understand. The interesting thing is that it wasn’t a joke to me. I had these out of body experiences often and couldn’t explain them. As you know, people that don’t have this tendency to emotionally eat; don’t get it. And if you never identified as an emotional eater until reading this, keep listening.

Emotional eating was something I battled for a decade (while dieting) until I figured out what it was called. Then I started digging; trying to figure out why the f*** I would sabotage myself.  Like I said, if this sounds familiar, don’t worry, I’ve got you (spoiler alert, you don’t need more willpower!) 

This awareness started to change everything for me and led me down a path of healing. I’m going to walk you through the steps I took to overcome my emotional eating.. So listen up!

GET TO THE ROOT

First let's dig into where this habit may have begun and then we’ll work together on how to cut that cord and reprogram your unconscious behaviors (the things you do that you don’t even realize you’re doing).

Let’s play a little game… close your eyes and imagine when you were a little kid and got hurt.  Maybe it was a big fall, or maybe it was when your feelings got hurt from someone at school. 

How would your family help you feel better?

For me it was a hug followed by ice cream, lollipops or Taco Bell. My family loved me and didn’t want to see me hurt so a quick fix (for everyone involved) was to suppress the emotion with food, so we could move on and be happy. This method of eating for suppression of emotions or for a reward after an accomplishment has been tried, true and EFFECTIVE for children. 

The downfall is that some of us download those subconscious patterns and abuse them in adulthood. Meaning, that behavior was buried into our subconscious mind and then as an adult it becomes an unhealthy habit that we might not even realize we have.

This childhood pattern is what I find to be the most common but there are many other ways it could show up.

Have you ever eaten so much that you just get lazy and want to lay down and chill? At some point this may have worked to turn off your brain but typically overtime the shame kicks in, which starts the cycle. The cycle reminds of a scene from Austin Powers whose name won’t be mentioned because I refuse to use the other F word. “I [over] eat because I’m unhappy and I’m unhappy because I [over] eat.”

There's another idea out there of how this pattern may show up; that we eat in excess to keep ourselves safe. That means, subconsciously making ourselves “big” because perhaps we feel small. 

Nicole Avena, a neuroscientist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York says “Food becomes a tool for self medication that releases dopamine in the brain, similar to what happens when someone uses a drug of abuse.” Here’s more info on the study of neuroscience around emotional eating.

Is it fair to say that emotional eating (when our body doesn’t need nourishment) could be a way to avoid uncomfortable feelings?

Food is something we all need to survive so it is easy to justify overeating and tell yourself it's okay at the moment. ‘It's better than drugs and alcohol right?’ 

But if you overeat, then experience shame, you begin ‘The Cycle.’ A cycle that will repeat itself over and over again, in which case, it becomes a habit that feels like a permanent blueprint of our identity.

Interrupt the Pattern

The good news is that you can create a new pattern in your mind to break the cycle. What feels logical is to create more willpower. I remember saying to myself 100’s of times “okay, this time is THE time” when jumping back into a new ‘get fit’ plan. Only to quickly hear my ego tell me “ya right, you’ve blown it every time and this is just the way you are.”  

Let me tell you something you might already know; you are an energetic being with infinite potential and one of the most important things you NEED to embody in this lifetime is to FEEL GOOD in order to give the world the gifts that you are here to share.

Alright let's get after it! 

First, you need to get some data on yourself so grab a journal and keep it handy.

The goal here is to get to the root of what you are ignoring emotionally. I used to think my root was boredom, but after journaling A LOT I accepted that I was lonely. I was afraid I’d live alone my whole life and it all boiled down to feeling unworthy. This isn’t a quick fix but an opportunity to get to know yourself and discover the suppressed emotions that you are avoiding.

Start today by answering the following journal prompts:

• What voids do I have in my life? Do I fulfill them with food?

• What am I doing when I eat? Watching TV, chatting, multi-tasking?

• What would happen 1 year from now if I continued on this path of emotional eating. Be brutally honest with yourself. The more you feel it, the more you heal it.

• What would happen 1 year from now if I ate mostly for proper fuel & nourishment? (include how this will affect your confidence, career, relationships etc.)

*The goal is to associate more pleasure than pain and create that evidence because our brain is hardwired to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Things just got mixed up with the whole “here’s a lollipop, stop crying” thing.  

This is part of the rewiring process and is so powerful so take your time and take this seriously. This is how you interrupt the pattern!

With your pleasure centers on point after the last journal prompt, start thinking about the version of you that eats for nourishment and feels confident and alive in their body. 

Write down “I’m the type of person who____” and fill in the blank. Ex. I’m the type of person who plans my meals & listens to my body's needs along the way or says no to _____ most of the time. 

“How we do anything, is how we do everything” 

-Martha Beck

The more you put into this journaling session the more you will benefit so PLEASE for the love of your body and happiness, do it!

If you catch yourself reaching for a snack and question if it is emotional, set a timer for 5 minutes (challenge yourself to wait at least 5 minutes). Take a couple deep breaths and define whether you’re emotionally eating or listening to your body's needs for nourishment. Depending on your mood, I recommend one or both of these to either ground your energy for anxiety or get fresh shot of dopamine to life your spirits.

1. Whip that journal out and free write what’s on your mind.

2. Dance it out.

If you’ve determined you’re about to emotionally eat and journaling or dancing don’t work… try THIS tapping exercise to lower your cortisol (stress hormone) and see how you feel.  

My goal is for you to become an intuitive eater and never question what you put in your body because your needs change day by day and the sooner you can tap into your innate wisdom, the happier you will be. If you feel lost on what to eat and want some guidance, I wrote a 6 week meal plan that has everything laid out for you. It includes shopping lists, recipes, a calendar & a personal development workbook. Grab it HERE.