Emotional eating isn’t solved by willpower… We need to dig into the root cause: the emotions themselves.
Food isn’t just food.
Food is memories and pleasure and comfort… and yes, food can also be a way to cope with overwhelming emotions.
Stress, anxiety and depression are running rampant in our fast-paced society, and alongside this there has been an uptick in emotional eating, especially binge eating. It’s a way to numb down and regulate the emotions you don’t want to feel.
Unfortunately, turning to food to regulate emotions only provides temporary relief: it’s a bandaid on a bullet hole. The guilt and shame that inevitably follows just perpetuates a vicious cycle of negative emotions, which further reinforce the need to seek solace in food. It’s a cycle that traps you and erodes your self-esteem, filling you with helplessness and despair.
Food is intricately intwined with our emotional experiences. Were you rewarded with food after you did something good as a child? Were you praised for being a ‘good eater’? Was food given as a source of comfort when you were upset? You can see how you tie food and emotion together right from when you’re a wee tot.
Plus, these early experiences are reinforced by societal norms. Binge eating ice cream after a bad breakup, getting a muffin as a reward for going to the gym, reaching for a glass of wine after a long day…
Combine this with the fact that you may not have been taught how to properly process your emotions without using food. A lot of my clients were sent to their room to ‘calm down’ as a child. They never had a safe space to feel their emotions and they made the connection between feeling big feelings and being sent away from their parents. This all contributes to an immense fear of allowing yourself to feel your emotions.
Does any of that ring true for you?
Other dietitians will advise that you distinguish between physical hunger and emotional hunger, but that doesn’t actually solve anything.
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that I believe in giving yourself unconditional permission to binge eat… while you’re working on other ways to process your emotions.
Putting a whole heap of pressure on yourself to withstand the overwhelming urge to eat to numb down emotions, is only going to make things worse. Plus, it’s often all mixed up with physical hunger anyway, as so often my clients will compensate for a binge by starving themselves beforehand or afterwards.
So, what are you meant to do when you become overwhelmed with emotion that you’re afraid to feel?
- You start by naming what you’re feeling.
- And then you seek out a safe space to allow yourself to feel that emotion. It’s a super scary thought, but often the fear of the emotion is worse than the actual feeling.
- And then you big picture your whole life. Are you getting enough sleep? Do you have supportive friends and family? Do you get time to pursue things that you enjoy? All of the little things add up. We are far more resilient when our basic needs are met!
If you’d like more guidance, I’d love to introduce you to my new mini-course, Beating Binge Eating. Because everything you think you know about binge eating, everything you’ve been taught, is wrong.
Other people eat anything they like without fear, guilt or weight gain. But you’re stuck in a vicious binge eating cycle and traditional advice is not going to help you. There’s a secret way to beat binge eating for good, with no willpower needed! And I break it all down in 5 short video lessons.
Whether you want personal food freedom, or you’re a health professional wanting to journey alongside your clients, this 5-part mini-course will change your whole approach to binge eating in less than an hour.
And the best part? It’s just $27!
When you next binge eat, you’ll kick yourself if you didn’t invest just $27 (USD) and less than an hour of your time in this life-changing mini-course.