Dealing With Emotional Eating
Recently I put up a post about how having unmet emotional needs can lead us to try to meet those needs by filling the emotional void with food.
Afterwards, a few people asked how they could deal with this problem as they have identified themselves to be emotional eaters.
The most important thing to realize up front, in my opinion, is that being an emotional eater is not something that you ARE, but something that you DO. And that is good news because it means that it isn’t a part of us like our eye colour, but simply an action (eating) we choose in response to a stimulus (emotion). This means that it isn’t permanent, but can be changed if we choose to do the work.
Two things you can do to begin to deal with this issue:
1) Address the Emotions
As these are the things driving you to want to eat I believe that they are most likely the most important thing to address.
With respect to this part of the solution, you need to spend some serious time determining what emotion drives your eating and where that emotion is coming from.
Are you lonely?
Have you suffered a loss?
Are you struggling with shame/guilt from a childhood trauma/abuse?
Are you holding on to unforgiveness for something that has happened in your past?
Once you determine what that emotion is and where it originated, you need to work to deal with that emotion (either alone or with professional guidance) such that it does not continue to cause that void that you continually feel compelled to fill with food.
2) In the meantime (while you are purposefully dealing with those emotions) you have to realize that since emotional eating is not a part of who you are but merely an ACTION that you do, you can choose to do a different action.
When an emotion arises you do not have to let it control you. In between your emotion and your actions is a space where you get to CHOOSE the action you are going to perform. In this space, you have an opportunity to choose the correct option. It is most certainly not easy to always make the right choice, but the more frequently you do it, the easier it gets.
Again, I want to reiterate that step 2 is going to be a continual struggle for you if you fail to address step 1. If there is a void that needs to be filled emotionally, but it isn’t addressed and your default is to fill that void with food you are continually going to have to be making the difficult decision not to cave in to those emotions. By addressing the root cause of those emotions, you reduce the need to resist the desire to make you eat.
Also, if there is an emotion that you’re battling and it is always causing you to want to eat, chances are that it is affecting more than just your physique and it is likely having an impact on other areas of your life as well.
Food, as delicious as it is, doesn’t hug back. If you’re struggling emotionally, you aren’t going to find your happiness in the fridge. You need to address it properly.