As you continue along your intuitive eating journey, there may be times where you feel like emotional eating has made you “fall off the wagon” or a “failure.” Before diving deeper into emotional eating, the most important message to share is that you cannot be unsuccessful at intuitive eating. There is no measure to determine if you’re doing it “right” or “wrong.” In fact, it is diet culture that hallmarks such measures that lead to immense pressure and intense emotion.
I’ve had meetings with clients where they express feelings of “being a failure” or having an unsuccessful week or not doing it “right.” I really want to reiterate, you cannot be unsuccessful along your intuitive eating journey. There is no wrong way to experience your journey because you are just trying to get in touch with yourself, your body, and the trust you hold in your body. This process takes time. Do not put pressure on yourself to enter the beginning of your journey and expect to be able to implement each principle perfectly. Hold compassion & grace for yourself along your journey!
If you possibly ate too much ice cream or deep dove into a container of cookies, take the situation as it is. Remove yourself and take a step back. Look at the situation and ask yourself what was going on during those moments, coming from a place of curiosity instead of criticism. Observe the situation as an opportunity to learn.
Now that we’ve established that you cannot make mistakes along your intuitive eating journey, let’s dive into emotional eating. For a lot of people, food is comfort. It’s what we turn to to self-soothe. It’s what we turn to to comfort ourselves, to make us feel better. Turning to food to make us feel better can become a habit we rely on. Habits are hard to break out of!
Looking at a situation where emotional eating played a part of the experience, think about what you can do about this. Oftentimes, there are other things that we can do but the habit of emotional eating results in a quick response to eat food. You may feel X emotion and immediately eat food. You may feel X emotion and experience a binge. This response hinders you from truly being able to break down the emotion, sit in the moment, and determine what you actually need in the moment. The opportunity to ask yourself two questions, broken down further below, becomes lost with emotional eating.
- What am I feeling right now?
Naming or pinpointing the emotion—fear, anxiety, stress, happiness, or a varying emotion—is the first step.
- What do I need right now?
Sometimes to self-soothe, you may turn to food. Remember, food is meant to be pleasurable and no feelings of shame or guilt should interplay with your eating experience or foods you are craving and eating to honor your hunger. Eating is something you have the right to do. But, if this is a consistent pattern—feeling an emotion and turning to food—take a moment, just thirty seconds, and ask yourself what you need in that moment.
There’s a different playbook you can take next time you experience an intense emotion and want to turn towards food for comfort. Make an attempt to break out of that habit. Here are four things you can do next time this experience arises and you want to cope through emotional eating…
Distraction
Distraction is powerful. Try going for a walk or watching a funny movie. Pulling yourself away from the feeling can be more effective than you think. See if the feeling passes.
Support
Sometimes when we feel a powerful emotion and turn to food, we truly just need someone to talk to. Somebody that we can vent to. Call a friend or maybe even your therapist. Shoot them a text! Take a moment to write down your feeling(s) and what you are experiencing. It’s not always about eating food to force the emotion down but, rather, letting the emotion out to a trusted companion or your handy journal. I challenge you, if you experience an intense, identifiable emotion to write about your feelings, in a stream of consciousness form, it doesn’t have to make sense to anyone but you. Another great option is creating a voice memo in your phone for yourself. Talking it out, getting it out, can be more helpful than you realize. Consider writing a letter, if there is a specific individual constantly triggering you. You don’t even have to send it, you can simply throw it out afterwards.
Sit With the Emotion
Sitting in emotion is not often the first route we turn to, especially if the feeling is uncomfortable. When you sit in and melt into those feelings, instead of trying to jump over them or push them under a rug, the feelings dissipate. Trust yourself that the emotion is going to pass with time. Try to reframe your thinking around the emotion to be more positive as a learning experience. Sitting in the emotion can be daunting, but, alas, really helpful.
Self-Care
Self-care is critical, even in absence of strong emotion. Self-care may be the last thing on your mind when experiencing emotion, at any moment in time. So, you’ve identified the emotion you’re experiencing and you’ve begun to ask yourself what you need. Maybe you need a hug. Or, to go upstairs for half an hour to lay down Or, find a quiet room to listen to soft music. Maybe you need to get rid of the technology in front of you. Or participate in a stroll, or yoga, or any movement you are able to identify that brings you feelings of joy and calmness. Food may not even be what you truly need for handling the emotion.
Remember, navigating emotional eating is a part of everyone’s journey through intuitive eating. Emotional eating is not a sustainable choice for dealing with emotion because the process of eating feels good and is comforting, but think about what happens after ten minutes. The food is gone but you are left with the emotion. Then, you may have added guilt and shame because you ate and didn’t really want to do that.
Emotional eating is a habit and the comfort it brings is short lived. It’s a method of temporarily feeling better. Understand that emotional eating is simply a Band-Aid. Take moments to reflect on how you are feeling and navigate how to deal with the emotion, with kindness, and without food. Build awareness around your emotions and implement one of the four things you learned about today: distraction, support, sitting with the emotion, or self-care. Do not expect perfection in your first moments trying to implement these, these are four things to work upon and add to your intuitive eating toolbox.
If this blog post resonated with you, you can hear more by listening to our Facebook video discussing emotional eating and the four things you can work on to mitigate it! You can listen to our Find Food Freedom® Facebook video here!
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