Ahhh, emotional eating. The dreaded and demonized behavior that everyone seems to think is the worst kind of eating. Right?
Seriously, when was the last time you heard someone even talk about eating to a fullness so uncomfortable just to drown out emotional discomfort? Or when has a friend ever shared a story about them eating after a hard day at work without the sentence, “I know I shouldn’t,” following? We are constantly told that eating is bad, so why would emotional eating be any different?
Ugh.
In the Moxie Mind office, we talk about emotional eating like the coping skill that it is: useful.
And the reason why we can start to approach the idea of emotional eating with a bit more neutrality is because of science: The common causes behind emotional eating are a lot more primal than you might think.
EMOTIONS ARE COMPLICATED AND FOOD CAN BE SIMPLE
Just like we all need to eat, we all need to feel our feels. Maybe you like to use food to feel those feels, or maybe food helps to numb out a bit from intense emotions. However your emotional eating manifests, it is usually a really helpful coping mechanism. At some point in your life you may have learned (either directly or indirectly) that food can help you to deal with hard sh*t or happy sh*t or anything-in-between-sh*t. And honestly, that’s pretty cool that you learned to take care of yourself in that way. Now, is food always the best way to cope with your emotions? Likely not. Is it the only tool to have in your toolbox of coping skills? Nah, you could use some more. But is it one option of many that you could mindfully use to feel better? Hell yes!
FOOD IS A BASIC BIOLOGICAL NEED
This hardly needs explaining, but it does need some normalizing in the culture we live in (i.e. diet culture). Dieting or limiting certain “bad” foods can signal to your body that you’re in survival and starvation mode. If we don’t eat enough to meet our daily energy needs, our bodies are soooo smart that they urge us to play catch up. Sometimes this plays out as eating more at the end of the day, eating past fullness at meals and/or snacks, or results in us craving certain types of foods like those higher in fat or carbohydrates. There is nothing bad about this. In fact, it is inherently good that our bodies try to protect us in this way, otherwise we are prone to starvation, illness, and malnutrition.
PENDULUM SWINGS ARE NATURAL, BUT NOT HEALTHY
Imagine a pendulum swinging side to side. Now image if you put it a little further to one side. It keeps rocking further and further on either side, right? The same happens when we lean into any form of restriction. You might think that new diet will help you get your willpower just right this time, but what you’re actually doing is dialing the pendulum back to release a bit further than before. Because what’s on the other side of telling yourself you “can’t” or “shouldn’t” have something? Strong, intense desire to do just the opposite. It’s a basic psychological response: Take something away and watch yourself want it back - badly. And if we sprinkle in what we know about physiological needs from above, we’ve gotten ourselves in quite the pickle both mentally and physically.
IT’S NOT YOUR WILLPOWER, IT’S YOUR FOOD LABELS
No, I don’t mean the nutrition facts panel. If you’ve been on a diet or tried to change your food or exercise in some way, you know that at some point you hit a mental wall and just *cannot* sustain the rigidity. This doesn’t mean you have no willpower, it just means that you’re giving too much of your power away. Think about it: What if you’re not addicted to pizza instead of salad, you’ve just assigned a higher morality to the salad, thus making the pizza hold a certain alluring power over you. Like if you could just out-will the desire for pizza, you too could be “good” like the salad. Listen, friends. Food morality helps nobody but the diet industry companies trying to convince you that you’d be less miserable on their latest pill or supplement or trendy food list. There’s nothing wrong with you, it’s just time to reframe the way you think about foods.
So, now what?
Here are my top three tips for starting to break the cycle of emotional eating (like, today):
GIVE YOURSELF PERMISSION to stop judging the ways you take care of yourself. And while you’re at it, give yourself permission to do something really kind for sweet ol’ you. Maybe choose a soothing way to comfort yourself, like a warm blanket, a hot shower, a fragrant candle, or a soothing food.
EXAMINE YOUR FOOD RULES. On a piece of paper, make a list with one header called “Foods I Actually Like” and the other labeled “Foods I Eat Because I Think I ‘Should.’” Which foods feel off limits? What judgements or rules have you put on certain foods? Where did these guidelines come from? How are these serving you? How might they contribute to physical or mental restriction?
FEED YO FINE SELF. This varies in what every body needs for a proper amount of food in a day, but in general it looks like several meals and several snacks. I’m oversimplifying nuances like hunger and fullness, environment and timing, consistency, finances, preferences, social influences, and many more. BUT eating enough to meet your physical demands (which, for the millionth time is NOT 1200 calories/day or less unless you are a pre-pubescent child) is important in not just maintaining normal function of all your organs, but in signaling to your body that you can be trusted to care for it.
As always, these suggestions are best followed with the collaboration of licensed clinicians. Registered Dietitians who specialize in Health At Every Size® can help you recreate a healthy relationship with food, and mental health professionals can help you to find additional coping mechanisms.
My hope for all of us is that we may live in a world where we know freedom of all kinds, including food freedom. If you or someone you know is struggling with emotional eating or their relationship with food and body, reach out. There is support waiting for you.
You’re normal, I promise.
Questions about what’s here or what this means for you? Reach out! You know I love geeking out over this or being a friendly face to confide in.
Send me an email or find me on social media to stay in touch. Want to learn more about what it’s like to work with a dietitian who specializes in disordered eating? Schedule your free discovery call to chat about nutrition therapy or yoga!