Why Does Emotional Eating Control Us?
You would like to think of yourself as a logical being. You make rational decisions and try to make sense of this world through an analysis of your experiences. After you make a mistake, you try to learn from it and correct that mistake in future situations.
Sometimes that can be done well, but for some F@$%ing reason when it comes to food, you can’t!
You eat well alllll week and believe this going well, until one damn bite of a cookie, and you turn into a monster. (I know I do)
Now I didn’t get what I was doing wrong either, so I needed to hear from those who understand emotional eating better.
My first great experience was with Alicia Castaneda and she hit a few really good points that I hadn’t thought of. (Check out my podcast conversation with her here).
1) Emotional eating feels good and works
Why we eat emotionally isn’t really the mystery because it works so damn well. You feel sad, bored, angry, depressed, lonely, or whatever you don’t WANT to feel, it can be masked by “These cookies are damn delicious…”
There isn’t a quicker form of immediate gratification in my view, outside of drugs. Even with a TV show or a movie, you want a plot to build, or on Social Media, you’re looking for and waiting for something.
Food is in your mouth and BOOM you feel excited and content with your present moment.
2) There is something beneath that
This wasn’t a shocker, but Alicia made me really ask the question harder. There’s no doubt in my mind if you’re reading this blog, you’ve walked through your kitchen, and opened a fridge, literally due to boredom. Zero hunger.
However, I knew that this was a problem in my past, especially being single and lonely, but now with a partner I was happy and in love, so I couldn’t figure out what I was doing it for. This was a bit of my problem, but it was still foggy.
3) There is Physical Satiety and Mental Satiety
Satiety is meal satisfaction or a feeling of fullness. This statement hit me hard in a good way. I finally recognized that through yo-yo dieting, the feeling of not eating was discontent and the feeling of excessively full was good.
But it’s not good to be excessively full. I would actually feel worse about myself because I ate too much.
So where is the satisfaction?
Recognizing what satiety is both physically and mentally is important. If I’m full do I actually need another bite, even if it says I can on my calorie counter?
The simplest practice I have that helps this is to put food back in the friend if I feel full.
This sounds like nothing special but I’m talking about when I’m eating my meal plan, and this plan will put me in a deficit, but if I feel full of any of the meals, I put it in the fridge and eat them later if I need it. This is a big step for me to walk away from a plate of food I could eat.
Keep your mental and physical satiety on the same page.
4) Mindful Eating
This was a great statement she gave me. She said “Being mindful is paying attention”
I loved this statement because it makes sense to simplify it. Be a part of the food experience rather than shove it in my mouth while binge-watching Netflix.
The major part it helped me with was paying attention when I was binging or emotionally eating. I needed to start asking myself what I was feeling.
Why was I craving? What was I valuing so much from this experience? What could have led me to feel the need to eat and not stop?
More and more information about my emotional state was becoming clear to me this way, and most importantly, I could reflect on the things that would lead to these situations.
In previous years it was due to smoking weed, and this is an appetite stimulant so I’m not surprised but I drastically reduced this. However, I would still have some moments I call ‘splurges’ rather than binges, completely sober.
So, I remained puzzled as to how to better drive my actions.
Then I met Adele Spraggon, and she introduced me to her 4-Step system to create new patterns.
I really enjoyed our conversation on my podcast (Click here), but the interesting lessons came from her book.
1) You don’t Feel – Think – Act but rather we Feel – Act – Think
She completely flipped my mindset on me believing I could ‘out-think’ myself through my emotional landscape.
You want to believe that your logical mind is the one determining your actions and every move. There may be some analytical things you do that take this part of the mind, but the core of the behaviour is driven by the emotional and instinctive subconscious mind.
Think about some irrational and instinctive stupid acts you’ve made in your life. You didn’t mean to do that stupid act to make things worse, but your emotions gave you the best instinct that you had within a moment’s notice.
The present moment requires the quickest reaction possible, so it can’t wait on your conscious thoughts to make the decision.
2) Emotions are physical
This was a game changer for me. I thought emotions were psychological. I want you to appreciate why this is so vital.
You’re scared, what does your body do? It vibrates.
You’re angry? What happens? Vibrations.
You’re sad? You’re Happy? You’re nervous? You’re excited?
These all produce a physical vibration in your body.
Now the fascinating depiction that Adele showed was that this is all sensory input, no different than feeling the temperature of the room on your skin.
And when the room is cold, you feel it but your body adjusts your core temperature, not your conscious mind.
This is the same thing when emotions hit.
3) The subconscious mind is an emotional program/pattern of the past
I didn’t know what the subconscious mind was or if it was a real thing. I thought we could always determine this at a conscious level.
I asked Jason Brooks, performance psychologist, and he said, “Call it whatever you want, it’s your memory of the past, affecting the future actions.”
And Adele calls this a pattern.
You have a situation in your life that makes you feel something impactful.
Scared, lonely, angry, stressed…etc.
This moment has a need to deal with that emotional trigger that’s a physical vibration in the body.
You satisfy that with food that you know tastes good...bad feelings go away for a while.
Need is satisfied and memory is stored.
Next time you have this emotional trigger….Where are the cookies?
This is the real driver.
Why we emotionally eat, again, is not a mystery.
How our emotions drive us is what we need to understand.
So, combing the lessons learned, I encourage you to do to the following.
1) Pay attention – every time you feel the craving, you start eating, and you feel emotions and listen to your body.
2) Emotions are physical – feel the body vibrate. Where is it in the body? What stress causes this reaction?
3) DON’T BE AFRAID OF EMOTIONS - We want to silence them with food. BUT the more you sit with them, you’ll realize you can learn something from them. It’s a need to listen to the problem you have.
4) Practice – This doesn’t solve the problem overnight. This gives you a path to create a new one with work to be put in to reprogram your instincts.
I hope you realize these lessons are huge for me and my clients. We share this journey together.
If you’re reading this because this is something you’re challenged with. I want to help you.
You don’t have to take on these emotions alone.
Book a call with me below and just chat with me. Even just to let me know if this helped you understand your problem just a bit better.
And because you share this challenge of emotional eating like myself, if you click the link below, and put in the subject line of our meeting “Emotional Eating”, I’ll give you the first 4 weeks of online programming and first counseling session totally free.
I want to help people that have battled this like me, so I mean it when I say I want to help you. Don’t hesitate to reach out.
I hope this blog helped you change your perspective even just a bit to start listening to your emotions so you can build a better relationship with them and the food you love.