Why Emotional Eating Occurs and How to Stop It

Emotional eating: What is it?

Not all of the time do we eat to sate our physical hunger. Many of us also use food as a form of solace, stress relief, or self-care. And when we do, we frequently turn to fast food, candy, and other nourishing but harmful meals. You might order a pizza if you're bored or lonely, reach for an ice cream cone when you're depressed, or stop at the drive-through after a trying day at the office.

Emotional eating is the practise of consuming food to alleviate emotional distress rather than to satisfy hunger. Emotional issues cannot, unfortunately, be resolved by emotional eating. Actually, it frequently worsens your mood. The initial emotional issue persists after that, and you also feel regret for over eating

Do you tend to consume your emotions?

Do you eat more frequently while you're under stress?

If you're not hungry, do you eat, or do you wait until you're full?

If you're upset, angry, bored, anxious, etc., do you eat to make yourself feel better?

Do you feed yourself as a reward?

Do you frequently overindulge when you're eating?

Do you feel protected when you eat? Do you consider food to be a friend?

Do you ever feel helpless or in control when it comes to food?

The cycle of emotional eating

It's not always a negative thing to use food as a pick-me-up, a reward, or to celebrate. However, if eating is your main coping strategy—if your first reaction is to open the refrigerator anytime you're anxious, unhappy, angry, lonely, tired, or bored—you become trapped in a negative cycle where the true issue or sensation is never addressed.

You cannot satiate emotional hunger with food. Even while eating may feel nice in the moment, the emotions that caused the cravings are still present. And because of the extra calories you just ate, you frequently feel worse than you did before. You blame yourself for making a mistake and lacking greater determination.

Making matters worse, you stop learning healthier coping mechanisms for your emotions, find it harder and harder to manage your weight, and come to feel helpless in the face of both food and emotions. No matter how helpless you feel in the face of your emotions and your relationship with food, you can still change for the better. You can discover better methods to manage your emotions, stay away from triggers, overcome cravings, and finally stop emotinol eating,

What triggers someone to eat out of emotion?

Almost everything can make someone want to eat. The following are some typical extrinsic causes of emotional eating:

financial worry at job

health problems

relationship difficulties

Emotional eating is more likely among people who follow rigid diets or have a history of dieting.

Additional interior factors include

dependable source

lack of awareness of oneself (realizing how you feel)

alexithymia (lack of ability to understand, interpret, or explain emotions) (lack of ability to understand, process, or describe emotions)

emotional instability (inability to manage emotions)

hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) stress axis reversal (under-active cortisol response to stress)

Emotional eating frequently happens on autopilot. Food is increasingly used as a coping mechanism, which strengthens the habit.

An eating disorder is emotional eating?

An eating disorder is not just emotional eating on its own. It might indicate disturbed eating, which could eventually result in the emergence of an eating disorder.

An example of disordered eating is:

being extremely picky about food, categorising it as "excellent" or "poor"

frequent food restriction or dieting, and frequent emotional eating as opposed to real hunger

irregular mealtimes and excessive food obsession that starts to interfere with your daily life.

Trusted Source

remorse or embarrassment after consuming what you consider to be "unhealthy" foods

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics states that eating disorders are recognised when a person's eating habits match specific requirements. Despite having problematic eating habits, many people do not have eating disorders.

To get help, you don't need to have an eating disorder diagnosis. You should enjoy a healthy relationship with food.

Consult a trained dietician or a mental health professional if you believe you may have disordered eating habits.

Why is food?

There are several causes why why eating becomes a coping mechanism. An emotional hole or sense of emptiness may result from difficult feelings.

Dopamine is released when we eatReliable Source. A brain molecule that makes us feel good is dopamine.

With regard to food, we also form routines and habits. If you always eat when you're anxious, you can unknowingly go for food at the first hint of stress.

Additionally, food is available everywhere and is lawful. Food-related messages and imagery can make you feel more hungry.

Why severe dietary restrictions don't always prevent emotional eating

According to Kilpatrick, there are two key reasons why controlling emotional eating with stringent dietary restrictions doesn't work for most people:

It presumes that your actions are the result of a lack of restraint on your part.

You're combating an emotional issue with food.

"You'd probably have quite a list going by the time you were finished if I asked you about all of the areas of your life where you successfully demonstrate self-control," says Kilpatrick. The truth is that emotional eating frequently has nothing to do with a lack of self-control.

In fact, you most likely have a lot of it! Furthermore, since the goal of food regulations is to promote self-control, it is not surprising that these regulations don't always prevent emotional eating over the long term.

Additionally, the act of eating is typically not the issue when it comes to emotional eating. Recall that humans are natural eaters! Human nature makes us crave comfort food! The painful emotion you are experiencing, which makes you use food as a coping method, is actually the true problem.

"You're more likely to continue battling to overcome emotional eating unless you tackle the underlying feeling that's causing you to eat — in a way that's productive and that genuinely addresses the emotion," says Kilpatrick..

Instead, use these two steps to stop emotional eating.

It can be challenging to process emotions, especially when they are difficult to access or when you are under a lot of stress. As a result, you can use food as a coping mechanism for your emotions.

Kilpatrick continues, "There are actually a lot worse ways to cope than eating when it comes to attempting to deal with emotions. "But it doesn't make emotional eating healthy or productive, for that matter, so it's important to address it," the author says.

The two-step Kilpatrick approach for avoiding emotional eating is as follows:

1. Acknowledge the conduct without passing judgement on it

Recognizing that you're engaging in emotional eating is the first step in treating it.

According to Kilpatrick, "you're already one step closer to overcoming it by realising that the only reason you're eating right now is because of an uncomfortable emotion you're having." You can take this a step further if you have the emotional wherewithal by taking a moment to write down a word or sentence that expresses how you're feeling.

This step can sound easy—almost too easy. But in order to be truly successful, you must accept the conduct without criticising yourself. The challenging work starts here.

"Here, judgement is not helpful to us. In reality, it worsens the situation "According to Kilpatrick "Shame and guilt, which are strong feelings that add to your burden and make it harder to digest what you're feeling, are often accompanied with self-judgement."

Kilpatrick suggests telling yourself: I am a human going through something really stressful, and I'm dealing with it in a very human way when you take the step to realise and acknowledge that you're emotionally eating.

Step 2 is now necessary.

2. Determine an emotional response to your emotional issue.

You need to feel your feeling and come up with a clever way to deal with it if you want to stop stress or emotional eating.

Once you've completed Step 1, consider an alternative coping strategy other than eating, advises Kilpatrick. "It's challenging to acknowledge and deal with unpleasant emotions. Step 2 can be postponed if you need to save yourself from your current state of overwhelm. But ultimately, you want to figure out how to deal with your emotions in a more useful way."

What then is the best remedy for your emotional issue? Well, that depends on you personally as well as the specific emotion you're experiencing.

Kilpatrick offers the following suggestions for handling typical emotions:

Stress management techniques include deep breathing exercises, meditation, or taking a peaceful walk.

Text, call, or video chat with a friend or loved one to combat loneliness

 

If you're feeling sad, make a list of your blessings or watch some comedy.

Avoid boredom by completing an activity, watching a movie, or reading a book

Concerned about anxiety? Speak to a friend, spend time with your pets, or think about consulting a counsellor or therapist.

The only genuine method to permanently stop emotional eating, according to Kilpatrick, is to substitute one of the more beneficial solutions listed above for food. And finally, although though expressing these two things is simple, actually doing them requires effort and may take time. It's okay if you feel like you're moving forward one day but backwards two the next. Be kind to yourself and gentle with yourself.

Although it takes time, it's worthwhile to shift your perspective on emotional eating.

Things to do

Give up dieting. Many of my clients try to stop emotional eating by cutting back on calories or certain foods while following a weight-loss regimen. But using this approach to address eating disorders is unhelpful. Diets rarely work because they're a long-term solution that frequently result in weight gain.

Diets include deprivation from a psychological standpoint. When you know or experience not getting what you want, your desire for it may increase, which may cause you to overeat or binge. Pizza, pasta, or ice cream are on your mind if you're considering abstaining from eating any of these. That focuses attention on what you're consuming rather than why, which is the incorrect thing to do.

Diets ultimately fail because they focus solely on food. They don't address the root causes of your overeating. You are turning away from something else if you are turning to food. Consider what's eating at you rather than dieting.

Break the emotional eating code. Finding the connection between your emotions and your eating is a crucial first step. Make a note of how you were feeling before each time you observe a period of emotional eating to see if you can spot any patterns.

For instance, many people overeat to suppress their feelings. Recall how Arlene overate to the point where her tummy ached? That gave us our first hint as to why she was obsessed with eating doughnuts. I discovered that Arlene had grown up in a family where everyone was expected to constantly be grateful and joyful. She was instructed to "stop whimpering" if she was harmed or upset.
Her parents had made it quite plain that she shouldn't show her emotional distress.

However, they've been instructed they shouldn't express it. Similar to girls, boys grow up with the idea that "boys don't cry," and as men, they struggle to show their emotions.

Many of the people I see grow up believing they are unable to acknowledge or understand their emotions, in part because of these cultural expectations. Emotional eating can let individuals cut themselves off from the outside world and momentarily run away from whatever is hurting them. My patients frequently talk about "zoning out" while they eat, going into a blank condition devoid of feeling or thought. That blankness acts as a momentary pain defence.Emotions are merely responses to circumstances, not defects in character. You won't need to turn to food once you learn a new coping mechanism. Create appropriate outlets for your emotions, such as talking to a close friend or writing in a notebook about how you're feeling. You might also practise encouraging self-talk by telling yourself things like, "I'm doing the best I can." I'm going to be patient with myself at this time because I'm going through a change.

Try using a grounding practise to keep you in the now if you catch yourself daydreaming while you're eating. Look around your surroundings and make a note of one object you can touch, see, hear, and smell as a starting point. If you can, speak them out loud. You can better ground yourself in the present by naming your surroundings with the aid of your senses.

Ask yourself whether there are any particular emotions you wish to avoid. If you tend to eat when you're unhappy, it's important to be interested rather than judgmental and figure out why. There are various causes of emotional eating; I've included a few of the most prevalent ones here. You might, for instance, experience intense loneliness or dissatisfaction, an inner sense of emptiness that you might then represent by metaphorically filling with food. What aspects of your life do you believe you need more of? Which areas do you feel deficient in?

Your responses can assist in determining what is lacking. You can take action to bring about change, regardless of whether your relationship isn't fulfilling or other areas of your life aren't satisfying. This will enable you to stop viewing food as a metaphor for emotional fulfilment.

Others use food as a coping mechanism for helplessness, which is one of the most agonising human situations. Lance Dodes, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, contends that obsessive eating and other addictive behaviours can be used to overcome helplessness. It's easier to feel helpless over food than over the necessities of life, thus feeling powerless about a situation you have no control over is projected onto helplessness over food.

When you feel helpless—at work, in a heated fight, or when your train is canceled—you should:

Recognize your current impotence when it arises, whether at work, during a dispute, or when your train is cancelled. Recognize where you do have a sense of agency and control while accepting the limits of your power to influence your reality. For perspective and comfort, go back on instances in your life when you triumphed against challenges. You'll be less likely to transfer helplessness onto food if you can handle helplessness in other aspects of your life well.

And lastly, it's typical to overeat while bored.

 When you feel like you have nothing to do, you are bored. You may also feel restless and dreary throughout the day. Since boredom encompasses a variety of other emotions, like loneliness, emptiness, and worry, I refer to it as a "umbrella feeling."

Try to modify things to get rid of boredom. Address the underlying need if boredom is masking another tough emotion, such as loneliness. If you're feeling lonely, try calling someone or consider how you may meet new people. Of course, there are instances when boredom cannot just disappear. It's important to respond to oneself in a soothing way, as I discuss below, if there's nothing to do or no one to be with.

Think about whether you are eating to feel better. As infants, when we first experience nursing, we often feel a connection and love. Consider what happens to a baby when they are fed: they feel secure and cherished in the arms of a loving parent. Eating is associated with the early feeling of affection and security, even in adults. It makes obvious that we would resort to food for comfort since it has historically been effective for us.

Because of this, and this may sound a little unusual, I think that, deep down, food actually reflects individuals in our minds. We use the same words for food and love, describing relationships as fulfilling or satisfying, even though we don't consciously think of it that way. We talk of starving for affection or being in need of attention. In our thoughts, eating and relationships go hand in hand.

When compared to food, which for many of us is a reliable, always-available source of comfort, people can be unpredictable, unreliable, and unavailable. Because of this, when we are sad, turning to food rather than others can feel safer and easier. Eating for comfort actually refers to a need to receive care from another person.

Find new ways to comfort yourself. Nearly everyone who overeats emotionally is attempting to calm themselves, even though the specifics vary from person to person. Finding new ways to console yourself—using words rather than food—is the key to transformation. Here are some methods to accomplish that.

Modify how you speak to yourself. Identify your inner critic first. You have no willpower, Arlene scolded herself. You're so filthy. This horrible second-person voice has been used by almost everyone I've ever treated. If you address yourself with the pronoun "you," stop and think about who is actually speaking. It could be the voice of someone who has previously criticised you.

. It could simply be your own internal voice, a position you established to attempt and control your behaviour. Being critical of oneself is never helpful. You feel worse as a result.
I urged Arlene to say, "I am so nasty," but she was unable to because it felt too derogatory. She also became aware of the contemptuous manner her mother had spoken to her when she was talking to herself. She had taken on her mother's critical tone toward her and was now speaking to herself in the same dismissive manner.

When you find yourself criticising yourself, try to say those same things to someone else.

Don't say anything to yourself that you wouldn't say to a friend, child, or loved one. Consider a buddy of yours who is upset with you because she ate too much pizza. Would you say: "That is truly repulsive." How on earth did you manage to eat all of that?

Obviously not. The ideal answer is something like, "I'm very sorry you're angry. That is very difficult. How can I assist? Start behaving toward yourself like you would a friend. In order to achieve just that, I created the acronym VARY:

Validate - Acknowledge and accept your feelings without condemnation or remorse.

Recognize and affirm the significance of your feelings.

Reassure yourself that these feelings won't last forever and make yourself feel at ease.

You are that, by yourself! What do you need to feel better? ask yourself.

Be mindful of your tone when speaking to oneself. Depending on how you say them, the same words might have completely different meanings. Arlene claimed that she tried talking positively to herself, but it didn't work. She was asked to say what she had said once more. She said, in a very flat, slightly irritated voice: "This is troubling. Naturally, it is. It will be alright, too.

She had the impression of repeating data. That explains why she didn't feel better.

I echoed what she had said verbatim, but with a different tone. I answered with warmth and empathy, "This is troubling." Naturally, it is. It will be alright, too.

The same remarks affected her in a very different way. This is due to the fact that a soothing tone might resemble a verbal hug.

Look for food alternatives. Many people use food as a way to meet bodily demands, such as eating to wake up when they're sleepy or to relax when they're uptight. If this describes you, think about what else you might need before grabbing for food.

For instance, you should rest if you are exhausted. To give your body and mind a chance to recover, take a 10-minute nap. If you're tense, sip some herbal tea or engage in a relaxing activity like progressive muscle relaxation. Tighten your arms, then your tummy, then your legs to do this. Keep your muscles tensed up and make fists. Hold that strain for at least 15 seconds, if not longer. then let go.

Sense that? Most likely, you're feeling more at ease. This workout is designed to help you relax both your body and mind. For a six-minute progressive muscle-relaxation practise, see the Links and Books section below.

You might wish to look for fresh goodies for yourself as well. In our society, food is used as a kind of praise. For example, we go out to dinner to celebrate milestones like birthdays and anniversaries. A common parental rule is "No dessert until you finish your dinner." It seems sense that so many of us turn to food to celebrate or spread joy.

There is nothing improper, of course, about a congratulatory cake or dessert. But if you discover that you frequently use food as a reward or that you depend on it substantially, it might be worthwhile to think about other options, such as watching a funny TV show, giving yourself a manicure, going for a walk, or reading a "guilty pleasure" beach book.

Important information: How to stop emotional eating

You're turning away from something else if you use food to alter how you feel. Instead of dieting, pay attention to what is making you hungry.

We all have emotions and conflicts hidden in our unconscious thoughts that influence our behaviour, including our eating, in addition to what we are consciously aware of. Even if the cause of our overeating isn't always clear, addressing the root cause will help you permanently stop emotional eating.

Emotional eating is a coping mechanism for dealing with conflict, particular physical states, or emotions.

Eating can be an attempt to numb loneliness and inner emptiness or a coping mechanism for boredom and helplessness. It frequently serves as a consolation or reward. It's beneficial to recognise your own unique relationship between eating and emotions.

It's important to alter the way you speak to yourself if you want to reconcile with food. Face your inner critic head-on and begin speaking to yourself with kindness, reassurance, and compassion. You'll be less likely to comfort yourself with food if you soothe yourself with soothing words.

Look for other coping mechanisms. Try a grounding exercise, for instance, to keep your attention in the present, or a gradual muscular relaxation practise for times when you're feeling anxious.