You’re standing in the kitchen, half-way through your dodgy food choice and you feel out of control. What do you do now?
Ideally, we want to avoid emotional eating, but if you’ve used food in the past you’re likely to find yourself back there again one day. So how do we get better at managing an emotional eating episode in the moment and containing the fallout? This question has come up in my practice a few times over the past month and I’ve figured out this advice in discussions with those clients. These simple reminders seem to help the most:
Be kind
Berating yourself just makes you feel worse and you’re probably eating this way because you feel pretty awful to begin with. Acknowledge that emotional eating is a sign that we are feeling out of sorts on some level and it’s an addictive type of behaviour that is not on the same spectrum as the usual self-care and discipline your sensible adult self is capable of. You are not using food this way because you are lazy and undisciplined. You’re using food this way because you don’t like what you are feeling, and this is a quick and simple – albeit dysfunctional – way to avoid that and to comfort yourself instead. The kindness should continue long after the emotional eating episode as well. Do not compensate by skipping a healthy meal later or punishing yourself at gym. Being starving and exhausted is the perfect way to set yourself up for another round of emotional eating.
Feel it
Grab a box of tissues, sit somewhere comfortable and just let yourself feel whatever comes up. Write it down if you want to. Emotional eating means you are using food to numb out your feelings. If you let those feelings come out then you don’t have to avoid them anymore and some of the tension is released.
Break the spell
Gentle physical distraction is the key here. There are 2 options:
- Take a mental health walk. If just sitting and feeling seems impossible, then take yourself for a stroll. No calorie-burning or step-counting, just go outside at your own pace to see what you can see. Moving your body in a gentle and rhythmic way even for 5 minutes is soothing and gives you something to do that is away from the kitchen.
- Do something with your hands. An alternative to walking is to start doing a manual task with your hands for 10 minutes at a time. This should be something easy and approachable: Fold laundry, chop vegetables for healthy meal prep, tidy out a cupboard, cut your nails, take a shower, sweep the floor, weed your garden, sew on a button. Shifting your focus for a small chunk of time is often enough to break the spell. You don’t have to finish the task, just set your alarm and do something for 10 minutes. You’ll feel distracted and satisfied that you’ve done something vaguely productive.
If you do happen to have a very supportive friend or family member around maybe they can help you through this occasionally, but the reason why I don’t mention seeking company or asking for help as one of the main coping tools here is because while it might help as a distraction sometimes, being dependent on another person doesn’t help you to manage your own feelings long term. This is something that you must learn to do on your own. It’s very hard and very deep work, but it is possible to move forward and get on top of emotional eating.
