Healthy Habits: Overcoming Emotional Eating

Bad Habit: Eat to Feel Better

My husband says he's a stress eater, but over the years I've caught myself eating when I felt...

Really Frustrated

Really Tired
Really Depressed
Really Happy
or Really wanting to Celebrate.

My subconscious was sure that if I had an extreme emotion... there must be a food to go with that!

The foods that accompanied these emotional highs and lows were ALWAYS high in fat and sugar.

And I've definitely learned that eating, does NOT make me feel better for long.

In the short term, the VERY short-term, there is pleasure, 

followed by LONG-term guilt, & self-loathing.

Then the guilt and self-loathing lead to some extremely low emotions, which had me looking to sugar to make me feel better. It was a vicious downward spiral.

Among the many diet books I've read over the years, I also happened to read Dr. Phil McGraw's: The Ultimate Weight Loss Solution.
Maybe not surprisingly, when it comes to discussing the psychology of overeating, this famous psychologist had a lot of good insights.

I don't think I could do justice to what I learned from this book without quoting whole chapters. In fact, this is one weight loss book that I would actually recommend, because it addresses your THINKING not simply your eating habits. And I don't think it's possible to experience lasting change without changing our thoughts.

Proverbs 23:7, "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he."

What we think about ourselves, our worthiness for happiness, our ability to deal with problems and stress all have a huge impact on our lives. This book is good at getting you to look at your thought patterns & filters, self-talk, stress levels, emotional baggage, motivations for weight-loss and what you do to self-sabotage. Dr. Phil has 7 Keys to weight loss. One key deals with food. One key deals with exercise. The other FIVE keys are about thoughts, emotions, environment, impulse control & social support.

He includes quizzes in many chapters to help you "self-diagnose" and then he challenges you to change the thought habits that are holding you back from the happiness you want in life.

In the chapter regarding emotional eating, he says there are 6 steps to regaining emotional control in your life.

1. Take ownership for your reactions: "Whatever the situation you choose your reaction. No matter what the circumstances, your interpretation of those events is of your own choosing. The events in you daily life have only the meaning you assign them... If your response is counterproductive, test your perceptions more often and become more accountable to how you react to the stress and problems in your life. Stop being overly sensitive to the negatives while filtering out the positives. Maintain an active, ongoing awareness of your reactions, and recognize where your outlook is distorted so that you can make adjustments."
2. Resolve, rather than react to, life's problems: "Take a problem-solving approach to emotion-provoking events. Commit to resolving rather than enduring the problems that contribute to your stress, anxiety, or depression... Stop living reactively and begin to choose the right attitude and the right behavior to get the right results. Remember it is ACTION - not reaction - that gets meaningful constructive results."
3. Decelerate your thinking: "Changing your emotional response, and the unwanted eating behavior that flows from it, requires slowing down, listening carefully to your thinking, evaluating you reactions and altering those reactions... Be sure to write your thoughts down. Writing them helps you appraise them more objectively and allows you to get some distance from them." *Instead of turning to the cupboards for comfort, turn to a journal and write down what happened... write what you think about it... evaluate what your thinking... and then write what you'll DO to deal with the real problem. At that point, either take action or take a nap to clear your head and then look at the problem with fresh eyes. ;D
4. Challenge and restructure you automatic thoughts: "Once you identify what's going on in your mind, work to change it. You can reprogram you automatic thoughts and better manage your emotional life. Ask yourself: Are these thoughts really true? Do they serve my best interests? Do they advance and protect my health? Do they help me achieve my goals? Next rewrite your internal dialogue. When walking through an emotional minefield, as you know you will, say to yourself, "I have the power to choose my perceptions and reactions, and I will exercise this power of choice in every circumstance, every day of my life." *These are the best quotes I recite to myself when my mind thinks of eating because of extreme emotions. "If hunger is NOT the problem, then food is NOT the answer!"..."Eat for Fuel Not for FUN!"
5. Gain emotional closure: "Maintaining anger, hurt, vengeance, hatred and other negative emotional burdens eats away at your body, as it does your soul...what makes these emotions so powerful is that they change who you are. They change what you do and contaminate what you give... Heaps of unfinished emotional business can crush your self-control, and you will self-medicate with food again and again... You must insist on getting closure. Closure means you don't carry the problem or the pain. You address the issue, then you slam shut the book and put it away." At this point he discusses the power of forgiveness, both forgiving those who have wronged us and forgiving ourselves and our own mistakes. Forgiveness is a powerful healer, and it's absolutely necessary to redirect destructive behavior to positive behavior.
6. Coping without food: "Carve out time in your life for tension reducing activities... When your nerve cells become agitated by anxiety or depression, it's not easy to quiet them down. Sure, you can do it quickly by resorting to chemical means such as drugs, alcohol, or high-calorie comfort-foods, but those are devastatingly counterproductive and will cause you to close the door to other positive alternatives including: working out, relaxation exercises such as deep breathing, yoga, mediation, writing in a journal or listening to music." *I am not kidding when I tell you that I have completely gotten rid of frustration based food-cravings with a few deep breaths. It surprises me by it's effectiveness every time, but it really works!