How to deal with emotional eating? This is by far one of the most common questions I get asked by clients. Luckily, there are some simple and effective ways to bring more awareness to your eating habits and manage emotional eating more effectively.

Most people eat for emotional reasons from time to time. Maybe because they are overwhelmed, bored, or just want to celebrate the end of the work week. Let’s dig a little deeper into what emotional eating is and ways you can manage it. 

What is emotional eating? 

Emotional eating means you eat to fill an emotional need (such as comfort), rather than just a physical need (such as hunger). It can happen with both positive emotions (using food to celebrate a big achievement) and negative emotions (running to the pantry when you feel overwhelmed). 

It’s completely normal and natural to occasionally use food for emotional reasons. However, if this behavior is getting in the way of your health or you feel like you have little control over your eating, then it might be time to make some changes. Get started with these three steps.

Step 1: Start to recognize when and if you are emotional eating.

The easiest way to do this is to ask yourself why you are eating. Are you stressed? Are you hungry? Are you not hungry but still eating? Are you eating to feel better? Are you bored? Are you eating to reward yourself? 

There are some key differences between emotional vs. physical hunger that also make it easy to pinpoint when emotional eating is happening: 

• Emotional hunger tends to be very specific (I have to have that ice cream or candy) while physical hunger is more general (I can eat a sandwich or soup just as long as I am eating something). 
• Emotional hunger often comes on suddenly while physical hunger gradually comes on over time. 
• Emotional hunger often leads to mindless eating (the whole bag of chips is gone before you know it) while physical hunger leads to more mindful eating (you can stop after one serving of chips). 
• Emotional hunger often results in feelings of guilt while physical hunger often results in feeling satisfied. 

Step 2: Identify your triggers.

What is the specific reason you are eating? Hunger? Boredom? Reward? Stress? Everyone has a different reason why they eat and figuring out your reason will help you find a solution. 

I used to emotionally eat at the end of the night. The kids were finally in bed, all the chores were done, and I was exhausted. Instead of resting my body, I would go to the kitchen and get some ice cream or chocolate and peanut butter. I wasn’t hungry. I was tired and using food as a way to decompress. I was also using food to celebrate the fact that I made it through another day as a mom of two small and very active kids. Being aware of this behavior and why it was happening was key to changing it. 

Keeping a food and mood diary is a great way to start figuring out why you are eating the way you are. Keep track of what you ate, how you felt before you ate, how you felt while you were eating, and how you felt after you ate. This helps shed light on what’s going on. Even just a day or two of documenting this information can be extremely eye-opening.

Step 3: Find other ways to feed your feelings.

The key to effectively managing emotional eating is that you need to meet your emotional needs with things other than food. In my example above, I realized I was eating because I was tired, using food to decompress, and also as a way to celebrate the end of the day. Also, as a mom of two small kids, I spend my days taking care of other people. At the end of the day, I desperately needed to spend some taking care of myself and yet I wasn’t doing that when I was zoning out with food.

The solution? I started spending 10-15 minutes after the kids went to bed to focus on me. I either did some yin yoga, took a bath, or simply sat in my bedroom and breathed deeply for several minutes to unwind. This simple practice helped me to connect back to myself, and slowly over time, I felt my cravings for sweets decrease. \

Sometimes emotional cravings are super intense and they aren’t as easy as pinpointing why they are happening. When that is the case, try these couple of tips:

• Take 5. Sometimes a 5-minute break helps to break the intensity of emotional eating cravings. When you suddenly start feeling a craving for something specific, take a 5-minute break and actually set a timer and go somewhere else in the house. Once the timer goes off, see if you still want the thing you were cravings or if you are able to move onto something else.
• Feel your feelings. This is really key to dealing with emotional eating. You need to start connecting to yourself and your feelings instead of trying to use food as a way to disconnect. A therapist is the best person to help you work through your feelings and can be a helpful resource when dealing with emotional eating.

If you struggle with emotional eating, I hope you found some of these practical tips helpful. Remember, emotional eating is a habit and the great thing about habits is that they can change.