How to break the cycle of emotional eating
Understanding the complexities of emotional eating and how to break the cycle.
Ever found yourself elbow-deep in a bag of chips after a rough day, wondering how you got there? Emotional eating has a lot to answer for. It's when we use food to comfort ourselves, numb a painful emotion, or distract ourselves from feelings we’d rather avoid. Spoiler alert: it rarely works out well.
The Food Mood Connection
Let's be real; we don't always eat because our stomach is grumbling. Many of us treat food like a best friend—there to comfort, relieve stress, or give ourselves a little reward. Maybe you eat when you're bored, upset or angry, trying to fill a void in your day, or because your life feels like an endless episode of "Groundhog Day." The reasons are as varied as the toppings on pizza.
The Catch-22 of Emotional Eating
Here’s the kicker: emotional eating doesn’t solve emotional problems. In fact, it usually makes things worse. Your original issue still lingers, and now you’ve got a side order of guilt, shame, or frustration. Plus, reaching for that tub of ice cream doesn't help you deal with the original emotion! It’s a double whammy that leaves you feeling even more powerless over both food and feelings.
Why Junk Food?
When we engage in emotional eating, we tend to reach for the highly palatable foods — junk food, sweets, or anything we usually classify as unhealthy. These foods might give a temporary high but often result in a physical crash, headaches, bloating, or just a general feeling of "blah." And if you're putting on weight, that's a whole new set of emotions to deal with, from body image issues to self-doubt.
The Emotional Connection to Food
Food is the life of the party—literally. It’s at the center of celebrations, family gatherings, and even our way of showing love. It’s natural to have an emotional connection to food, which makes it tricky to separate the two. I firmly believe that you can still enjoy all the foods you love and have an emotional connection to food without emotionally overeating; the difference is your intention. When you intention is to simply share a meal with loved ones versus eating to avoid or suppress your emotions, there is a big difference in how you feel after.
Breaking the Cycle
The goal here isn’t to turn you into a robot who eats only for sustenance. Instead, it’s about recognising and dealing with your emotions and making conscious decisions about what, when, and how you eat. Here are two steps to get started:
Recognize and Deal with Emotions: Instead of bypassing your feelings, face them head-on. Notice when you’re experiencing an unpleasant emotion and instead of reaching for food, ask yourself ‘What do I actually need in this moment to feel better?’.
Make Conscious Eating Decisions: Be mindful of what you’re eating, why you’re eating it, and how it makes you feel. Ask yourself if you’re really hungry and if you’re not, check in with why you’re reaching for food.
Emotional Eating: What are the Causes or Triggers?
Identifying your personal triggers for emotional binge eating is crucial. Here are some common culprits to get you thinking about yours:
Unpleasant Emotions: Stress, anger, sadness, anxiety, loneliness, fear.
Daily Stressors: Work, finances, kids, schedules.
Boredom or Emptiness: Eating to pass the time or fill a void.
Relationship Conflicts: Disagreements or tension.
Fatigue: Lack of sleep, exhaustion or too tired to care about food choices.
Major Life Events: Big changes or challenges.
Pleasant Emotions: Joy, excitement (yes, happy feelings can trigger eating too!).
Top Reasons You’re Struggling to Change?
Lack of Self-Awareness: Not realizing how you feel or why; and not realising that when you’re overeating, it’s because you’re avoiding certain emotions.
Difficulty Processing Emotions: You struggle to understand and describe your emotions and don’t have any other coping resources.
Emotional Dysregulation: You swing from highs to lows throughout the day and feel completely out of control.
Coping Without Food
Have you asked yourself, “How do I cope with my emotions without food?”. If you’re drawing a blank, it’s time to explore new strategies. Most people have some unhealthy coping mechanisms—food, alcohol, work, exercise, you name it. But emotional eating gets a bad rap because of our fat-shaming culture, which values appearance over health. This judgmental narrative often becomes your internal narrative and judgements, adding more negative emotions and a harsh inner critic to the mix.
Give Yourself a Break
First things first, stop being so hard on yourself. Everyone has their go-to coping strategy, and yours just happens to be food. You learned at some point that food brought you comfort. Now, it’s time to unlearn that and find healthier ways to cope.
Accept and Replace
Accept that emotional eating has served a purpose. It might not have been the healthiest, but it was helpful in dealing with emotions in the only way you knew how. Now, you can start identifying what your emotional eating was trying to accomplish and replace it with healthier strategies.
3 Steps to Stop Emotional Eating
Awareness of Emotions: Tune into how you feel. Notice what emotions are coming up and accept and acknowledge them.
Understand Your Emotions: What are they telling you? Ask yourself, why is this emotion coming up, what brought this on and what thoughts are attached to this emotion?
Building New Resources: Time to build healthy coping resources. Ask yourself, ‘what do I need in this moment to soothe this emotion’ or ‘what is this emotion telling me that I need?’. The answer could be rest, to cry, call a friend, take a break, play music… anything. The key step, to give yourself what you need and what you identified. This is how you actually cope with your emotions.
Create If and Then Strategies to Help
When your emotions hit and you need alternative strategies to food, have a plan depending no what emotion comes up. Some examples below are, IF:
Sad: Call a friend, play with your dog, look at your favorite photos.
Anxious: Go for a walk, dance to a favorite song, squeeze a stress ball.
Tired: Take a 10-minute rest, wrap up in a blanket, watch a funny youtube video.
Overwhelmed: Do a brain dump, ask for help, take a mental health day.
Angry: Go for a brisk walk, journal, throw a pillow against the wall.
Bored: Find a new hobby, read a book, plan a challenge.
Build a list of if/then scenarios:
If I feel sad, I will call a friend.
If I feel bored, I will listen to a podcast.
If I feel angry, I will go for a walk.
What if You Slip Up?
Recognize it, don’t judge yourself, and learn from it. A slip-up isn’t a failure but an opportunity to adapt for next time.
Remember, emotional eating is a strategy you learned and one you can unlearn. With awareness and compassion, you can find healthier ways to cope with your emotions and enjoy a more balanced relationship with food.
