Think about this question first – Can you imagine what life would be like if we loved ourselves as much as we love our food?
Some may think that is silly, but to some this is a normal feeling. I have been working with my clients to improve our self-esteem and self-worth so we can love ourselves and be a happier and healthier person inside and out.
The emotional eating could be from stress, being worried, sad, anxious, or mad. Even happiness can bring on emotion of the attachment to food.
Some questions and answers about whether or not you may be an emotional eater:
1. Do you eat more when you’re feeling stressed?
2. Do you eat when you’re not hungry or when you’re full?
3. Do you eat to feel better (to calm and soothe yourself when you’re sad, mad, bored, anxious, etc.)?
4. Do you reward yourself with food? This one can start with young ones…try to reward kids with non-food items.
5. Do you regularly eat until you’ve stuffed yourself?
6. Does food make you feel safe? Do you feel like food is a friend?
7. Do you feel powerless or out of control around food?
Emotional hunger can be very powerful. As a result, it’s easy to mistake it for physical hunger. But these are the clues you can look for that can help you tell physical and emotional hunger apart.
Emotional hunger vs. Physical hunger |
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Emotional hunger comes on suddenly. | Physical hunger comes on gradually. |
Emotional hunger feels like it needs to be satisfied instantly. | Physical hunger can wait. |
Emotional hunger craves specific comfort foods. | Physical hunger is open to options–lots of things sound good. |
Emotional hunger isn’t satisfied with a full stomach. | Physical hunger stops when you’re full. |
Emotional eating triggers feelings of guilt, powerlessness, and shame. | Eating to satisfy physical hunger doesn’t make you feel bad about yourself. |
If you yes to any of these emotional hunger questions than here are some tips:
Tip 1: Identify your triggers
People eat for many different reasons. The first step to putting a stop to emotional eating is identifying your personal triggers. What situations, places, or feelings make you reach for the comfort of food?
Keep in mind that while most emotional eating is linked to unpleasant feelings, it can also be triggered by positive emotions, such as rewarding yourself for achieving a goal or celebrating a holiday or happy event.
Common causes of emotional eating
- Stress – Ever notice how stress makes you hungry? It’s not just in your mind. When stress is chronic, as it so often is in our chaotic, fast-paced world, it leads to high levels of the stress hormone, cortisol. Cortisol triggers cravings for salty, sweet, and high-fat foods—foods that give you a burst of energy and pleasure. The more uncontrolled stress in your life, the more likely you are to turn to food for emotional relief.
- Stuffing emotions – Eating can be a way to temporarily silence or “stuff down” uncomfortable emotions, including anger, fear, sadness, anxiety, loneliness, resentment, and shame. While you’re numbing yourself with food, you can avoid the emotions you’d rather not feel.
- Boredom or feelings of emptiness – Do you ever eat simply to give yourself something to do, to relieve boredom, or as a way to fill a void in your life? You feel unfulfilled and empty, and food is a way to occupy your mouth and your time. In the moment, it fills you up and distracts you from underlying feelings of purposelessness and dissatisfaction with your life.
- Childhood habits – Think back to your childhood memories of food. Did your parents reward good behavior with ice cream, take you out for pizza when you got a good report card, or serve you sweets when you were feeling sad? These emotionally-based childhood eating habits often carry over into adulthood. Or perhaps some of your eating is driven by nostalgia—for cherishes memories of grilling burgers in the backyard with your dad, baking and eating cookies with your mom, or gathering around the table with your extended family for a home-cooked pasta dinner.
- Social influences – Getting together with other people for a meal is a great way to relieve stress, but it can also lead to overeating. It’s easy to overindulge simply because the food is there or because everyone else is eating. You may also overeat in social situations out of nervousness. Or perhaps your family or circle of friends encourages you to overeat, and it’s easier to go along with the group.
Keep an emotional eating diary:
You probably recognized yourself in at least a few of the previous descriptions. But even so, you’ll want to get even more specific. One of the best ways to identify the patterns behind your emotional eating is to keep track with a food and mood diary.
If you backtrack, you’ll usually find an upsetting event that kicked of the emotional eating cycle. Write it all down in your food and mood diary: what you ate (or wanted to eat), what happened to upset you, how you felt before you ate, what you felt as you were eating, and how you felt afterward.
Over time, you’ll see a pattern emerge. Maybe you always end up gorging yourself after spending time with a critical friend. Or perhaps you stress eat whenever you’re on a deadline or when you attend family functions. Once you identify your emotional eating triggers, the next step is identifying healthier ways to feed your feelings.
Tip 2: Find other ways to feed your feelings
If you don’t know how to manage your emotions in a way that doesn’t involve food, you won’t be able to control your eating habits for very long. Diets so often fail because they offer logical nutritional advice, as if the only thing keeping you from eating right is knowledge. But that kind of advice only works if you have conscious control over your eating habits. It doesn’t work when emotions get in the way of the process, demanding an immediate payoff with food.
In order to stop emotional eating, you have to find other ways to fulfill yourself emotionally. It’s not enough to understand the cycle of emotional eating or even to understand your triggers, although that’s a huge first step. You need alternatives to food that you can turn to for emotional fulfillment.
If you’re depressed or lonely– call someone who always makes you feel better, play with your dog or cat, or look at a favorite photo or cherished memento.
If you’re anxious- expend your nervous energy by dancing to your favorite song, squeezing a stress ball, or taking a brisk walk.
If you’re exhausted— treat yourself with a hot cup of tea, take a bath, light some scented candles, or wrap yourself in a warm blanket.
If you’re bored– read a good book, clean the house, volunteer, explore the outdoors, or turn to an activity you enjoy (craft projects, playing the guitar-musical equipment, workout, play with your children, scrapbooking, etc.). Key point: Do something with your hands.
Recognizing Emotional Eating
The first thing one needs to do to overcome emotional eating is to recognize it. Before you reach for the food, think about it first. Are you hungry or is there an emotional attachment coming with it? If it is an emotional hunger attached, think about what the trigger could be. Tell yourself you are not hungry and you don’t need it. Go fix the situation that made you have that emotional trigger.
Next, you need to learn techniques that help manage emotions besides eating.
Oftentimes when a child is sad, we cheer them up with a sweet treat. This behavior gets reinforced year after year until we are practicing the same behavior as adults. We never learned how to deal with the sad feeling because we always pushed it away with a sweet treat. Learning how to deal with feelings without food is a new skill many of us need to learn.
Lastly an overview of what you can do to help yourself of emotional hunger.
Recognize emotional eating and learn what triggers this behavior in you.
Make a list of things to do when you get the urge to eat and you’re not hungry, and carry it with you.
Try taking a walk, calling a friend, playing cards, cleaning your room, doing laundry, or something productive to take your mind off the cravings — even taking a nap.
When you do get the urge to eat when you’re not hungry, find a comfort food that’s healthy instead of junk food. Comfort foods don’t need to be unhealthy. I have made a few comfort food items on my website under recipes to still get that fill of comfort, but actually they are high in protein and low in fat. Check out the snack category for more healthy options! Hint: The Brownie Protein Bars are amazing!
For some, leaving comfort foods behind when they’re trying to start a healthy lifestyle can be emotionally difficult. The key is moderation, not elimination. I would suggest dividing comfort foods into smaller portions, or putting food in snack baggies. For instance, if you have a large box of crackers, divide it into smaller containers or baggies and the temptation to eat more than one serving can be avoided.
If certain foods are triggers for you, keep those foods out of the house for the time being. The transition of learning what emotional hunger is and physical hunger may take time. So if you feel that it’s best to keep it out of the house, and then do so.
Don’t get down on yourself; this is a long process. This is a learning experience in life so take it as that.
Make sure to balance your meals out so you get everything your body needs. If you are lacking a food group it will also increase your need to fill that void. For instance, if you eat more carb-loaded foods or sugary foods, it will create more cravings for more carbs and sugar. If you can eat a balanced meal, including healthy fats and protein, you will conquer that emotional eating at that time.
Lastly–remember that emotional eating is something that most people do when they’re bored, happy, or sad. It might be a bag of chips or a steak, but whatever the food choice, learning how to control it by using these tips will help.