How to Manage Emotional Eating?

Many of our behaviors are driven by underlying emotions and an example of this is emotional eating. Perhaps, you’ve found yourself turning to a delicious box of pralines after a stressful day or to a tub of ice cream after a breakup.

These situations represent how sometimes when experiencing uncomfortable emotions, we may use food to soothe our feelings and comfort ourselves. And that is okay and can perfectly fit as part of a healthy relationship with food. After all, food offers pleasurable experiences which can also bring positive memories to mind.

However, emotional eating becomes a problem when food is the one and only way of coping with emotions. That is, every time a person is faced with a life stressor automatically thinking of food as the “solution” to dealing with the emotion. It this case, the pleasurable experience of eating will be taken away and instead, eating becomes associated with feelings of failure, guilt and shame.

Before diving into the strategies to manage emotional eating, let’s explore some of the common triggers which may lead to eating in response to emotions:

• Anxiety: it’s very common to find yourself turning to food to calm yourself in response to feeling anxious or worried.

• Boredom: most people’s lives are significantly busy and stimulating. It’s therefore common to turn to something exciting such as high palatable foods to fill that void in times when there’s nothing going on.

• Loneliness: food can sometimes be seen as a friend when feeling isolated and/or unloved.

• Frustration: turning to food as a way to release anger or upsetness is often common.

• Reward: this can be often seen when people have achieved or finished something, such as a race or project and food is used as the reward. E.g ordering pizza after the last exam of the year.

Recognising your individual emotional eating triggers is the first step to help you manage it. Thereafter, when you find yourself vulnerable to eat in response to a trigger, think about the following:

• What am I feeling right now?

• What do I need right now to deal with this feeling?

This is an opportunity to take time out to check in with yourself and see how you’re feeling both, emotionally and physically and then, to act in accordance with your needs.

After identifying the current feeling which is triggering you to seek for food, it’s time to look for effective strategies to deal with the feeling:

• Self-care: prioritising self-care in times when we’re vulnerable can be extremely valuable. You may be feeling stressed or anxious and a walk in nature is what you need to help you zoom out from an overwhelming situation. Perhaps, what you need is some alone time to be just with yourself, listening to soothing music.

• Support: reaching out for support from a loved one or someone you trust can help you deal with the emotion by getting it out of your chest. Next time you feel lonely or stressed why not try texting a friend or calling them or even asking them to meet for a coffee date!

• Deal directly with the feeling: at the start, sitting with your feelings can be hard and uncomfortable but soon you’ll notice that it’s the most effective way to let the feeling fade away. Many of my clients find journaling their feelings or writing a compassionate letter to themselves very therapeutic tools to deal with emotions.

• Distraction: just as I mentioned before that sitting with your feelings is super effective, this can also get very exhausting at times. Finding pleasurable and joyful activities to separate yourself from the difficult feeling can be really good alternatives to cope. For example, you could read an stimulating book, play a table game with your family, get out for a walk or watch a film.

Now it’s your turn to expand your emotional toolkit to ensure you have an array of coping strategies (not just food) to choose from when faced with a negative feeling. Cultivating self-compassion is also, a key element when navigating emotional eating on removing any senses of guilt that may ensue from this behavior.

Remember that at some point we’ve all used food as an emotional coping tool and doing so with a sense of kindness and respect toward yourself will allow you to enjoy food without a side of guilt.

Navigating emotional eating can be extremely daunting. If you’re currently experiencing difficulties in trying to manage it or want to overcome an emotional eating problem, please get in touch with your registered nutritionist for more information and support.