4 Key Steps To Stop Emotional Eating
June 6, 2014I got on the scale this week after noticing that my clothes were feeling (and looking) tighter than I am comfortable with, and realized that I had slid right past my safety zone into new (or more truthfully, old) territory. I've been traveling a lot for work, and as a result, the self-care routines (or strategies) that I normally use to meet my needs when I am facing stress, loneliness, and fatigue, were less available to me than they are when I am at home.
As a result, I've defaulted to my pre-WLS go-to or quick fix strategy (using food) to (temporarily) change my mood and energy level so I could feel better in the moment, but ultimately, worse for hours afterwards! This, my friends, is the familiar landscape of emotional eating.
This internal call to change or manipulate how we feel in the moment by using food, only to regret and pay for that choice for the rest of the day, can become so circular that we begin to believe that we can't control our actions or our responses to food.
We need to test the truth of the belief that we have no control over our actions round food. Is there any evidence out there that tells you that you are able to control (or make other choices) about what you do or don't put into your mouth?
If you answered yes, than challenge yourself to see this as a wake-up call, and you get to choose how you answer it: with food, or with an entirely different response.
Nobody is perfect (except for my dog). The key isn't perfection, or even believing that it is possible to never engage in emotional eating again. The key is to respond differently when and if you do engage in emotional eating.
The key is to get up and use the tools you need to stop the runaway train in your head, because that train always leads to scolding, blaming, and ultimately, more emotional eating. It only takes you further away from what you really want which is to understand what you are doing, own it, and make some choices that feel better to you so you can support your health and weight loss goals.
Simply put, your beliefs and the actions you take based on your beliefs make the difference between regaining weight, or regaining control by getting the information you need to reverse the cycle of emotional eating.
So, this week, after recognizing my flirtation with emotional eating, I did what I ask my clients to do. I sat down and answered 4-key questions designed to clarify the main things that contribute to emotional eating, and identify other actions that can be taken instead to get back to a weight loss consciousness.
Below are the 4-key questions you can ask yourself when faced with the same dilemma:
1.) What am I experiencing at home or at work that could be contributing to my emotional eating? (Be as specific as possible.)
2.) What needs am I trying to meet (i.e., relief, comfort, belonging, pleasure) through reaching for food?
3.) Have I identified and developed strategies (unrelated to food) that meet those same needs AND support my weight loss?
4.) Create a list of alternative strategies that I am willing to try this week to support shifting my energy from emotional eating to practicing self-care instead.
(*Remember: actions need to be doable, realistic, and have a date and amount of time attached to them. The more concrete and simple your requests of yourself are, the more likely you are to actually do them.)
Only when we stop judging ourselves, and instead, give ourselves the space to notice and step away from the momentary relief we get from emotional eating, can we see the whole picture of wrinkles and dimples, and consider what we would like to do from there.
 | ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jill Temkin, founder, Living Thin Within: has an MA in Psychology and is a Registered Addiction Specialist, with 30 years of experience working in the mental health and addiction fields. Jill established Living Thin Within in response to her own journey for support after WLS. Her mission is to help women thrive in their new bodies by learning how to sustain health and happiness from within.Read more articles by Jill Temkin! |
