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Emotional Eating
Behind every eater is an emotional human being. We are programmed to want food and to be satisfied by food. Food is also central to our upbringing, and therefore represents different things to each individual depending on the way their parents dealt with eating and particular foods: Food as love, food as reward, food as punishment.
Similarly, we all have an emotionally charged meaning to the way we view our bodies. How we view ourselves if we are overweight, underweight, like what we see, or get attention from others because of our bodies: Body as lovable, sexual, vulnerable, strong. Combined, these make eating and dieting have a huge emotional component driving all the behaviors.
Watch the segment with Gail Saltz & Joy Bauer from TODAY:
The typical emotional story driving difficulties with losing weight are:
1. Food as comfort.
Almost everyone deals with feelings of sadness, anxiety, loneliness, and frustration at times. When a negative feeling is more intense than one can comfortably tolerate, then one will look for a way to make themselves feel better. Food is one of the most common "rescues" to bad moods.
Psychologically, it feels like being nurtured in the way mom gave you food as part of taking care of you and making you feel better. This is why common choices may be those "foods of childhood" like mac-n-cheese, chips, and cookies. Food also provides a more direct positive behavioral feedback by stimulating areas in the brain responsible for satiation.
Solutions to this roadblock to dieting are identifying which negative affect/feeling you struggle with, what tends to set it off, and thinking of several other coping mechanisms that you find soothing, such as writing in a journal, listening to music, taking a warm bath (using other "sensory" stimulators as comfort and distraction).
2. Food as punishment.
When someone is struggling with low self esteem or with guilt, they may use overeating and staying overweight as a means of self punishment. An extreme version of this is binging: When you know full well that eating an entire package of Mallomars will be followed by feeling sick, gaining weight and feeling very badly about it, but you continue to do it anyway, think guilt.
People can feel guilt for all sorts of seemingly nonsensical reasons. You may not even be aware that it is guilt, but rather have a sense of being an undeserving person, or a bad person. Some people experience thoughts like "Why bother," "There is no use," "I will never look good."
The key here is to figure out that you fit here, that there is something unconscious that is making you feel guilty, like a person deserving of punishment. Even if you intellectually know you didn't really do anything terrible, allow yourself to think of the strange ways you may think you are wrong or have done wrong. Then think this over to see if you can change them once you compare them to reality.
3. Fear of success.
This is much bigger than many women realize. If you have lost weight many times and then get increasingly and oddly uncomfortable as the weight comes off, so it somehow magically comes back on, this could be you.
Many women are quietly afraid of getting attention or of having men become interested in them. They are frightened by their own sexual and intimate desires and have dealt with that by staying so heavy they kept others away and don't have to deal with it: Once the pounds come off, the fear of how to handle a man's desire, her own desire, and getting into the game with fears of rejection, too. ("What if he rejects me and I can't say it's because I am fat.")
Sometimes a woman in this boat can really benefit from professional help to understand why she is so afraid of sexuality, her own, and/or a man's. It can relate to a past experience, relationship, or simply the meaning of sexuality has gotten corrupted early in life. Understanding the root of this is key to moving past this roadblock.
What have your experiences with emotional eating been like?
Similarly, we all have an emotionally charged meaning to the way we view our bodies. How we view ourselves if we are overweight, underweight, like what we see, or get attention from others because of our bodies: Body as lovable, sexual, vulnerable, strong. Combined, these make eating and dieting have a huge emotional component driving all the behaviors.
The typical emotional story driving difficulties with losing weight are:
1. Food as comfort.
Almost everyone deals with feelings of sadness, anxiety, loneliness, and frustration at times. When a negative feeling is more intense than one can comfortably tolerate, then one will look for a way to make themselves feel better. Food is one of the most common "rescues" to bad moods.
Psychologically, it feels like being nurtured in the way mom gave you food as part of taking care of you and making you feel better. This is why common choices may be those "foods of childhood" like mac-n-cheese, chips, and cookies. Food also provides a more direct positive behavioral feedback by stimulating areas in the brain responsible for satiation.
Solutions to this roadblock to dieting are identifying which negative affect/feeling you struggle with, what tends to set it off, and thinking of several other coping mechanisms that you find soothing, such as writing in a journal, listening to music, taking a warm bath (using other "sensory" stimulators as comfort and distraction).
2. Food as punishment.
When someone is struggling with low self esteem or with guilt, they may use overeating and staying overweight as a means of self punishment. An extreme version of this is binging: When you know full well that eating an entire package of Mallomars will be followed by feeling sick, gaining weight and feeling very badly about it, but you continue to do it anyway, think guilt.
People can feel guilt for all sorts of seemingly nonsensical reasons. You may not even be aware that it is guilt, but rather have a sense of being an undeserving person, or a bad person. Some people experience thoughts like "Why bother," "There is no use," "I will never look good."
The key here is to figure out that you fit here, that there is something unconscious that is making you feel guilty, like a person deserving of punishment. Even if you intellectually know you didn't really do anything terrible, allow yourself to think of the strange ways you may think you are wrong or have done wrong. Then think this over to see if you can change them once you compare them to reality.
3. Fear of success.
This is much bigger than many women realize. If you have lost weight many times and then get increasingly and oddly uncomfortable as the weight comes off, so it somehow magically comes back on, this could be you.
Many women are quietly afraid of getting attention or of having men become interested in them. They are frightened by their own sexual and intimate desires and have dealt with that by staying so heavy they kept others away and don't have to deal with it: Once the pounds come off, the fear of how to handle a man's desire, her own desire, and getting into the game with fears of rejection, too. ("What if he rejects me and I can't say it's because I am fat.")
Sometimes a woman in this boat can really benefit from professional help to understand why she is so afraid of sexuality, her own, and/or a man's. It can relate to a past experience, relationship, or simply the meaning of sexuality has gotten corrupted early in life. Understanding the root of this is key to moving past this roadblock.
What have your experiences with emotional eating been like?
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Food is the quickest, easiest way to comfort oneself. People have to change their views of food. They need to look at it as fuel for the body and mind. Nothing else. Just like a car, or any other machine, you don't fuel up your car every time you feel down, so why do people do it with their bodies? Just start out with a breakfast, lunch, and early dinner. Think of food as a necessity and nothing else. I blame the advertisers for making society overweight. We're lazy too. Instead of walking like we used to, we drive everywhere. Try washing the floors on your hands and knees for a change, move your body more and eat less the older you get!!
I have a binge eating disorder. I have found a way out that doesn't involve DIETING! I am grateful that my 12 Step recovery program frees me from the bondage that food once had over me...One Day At a Time. Overeaters Anonymous is saving my life today, and is working the same way in thousands of others lives. I find it so sad that today millions of Americans and people all over the world are suffering from this disease of compulsive overeating and think they have no way out. Trying one diet after another...that was my life for years. Now I eat at certain times, I eat certain foods, I attend my OA meetings and I talk with other people who are recovering from this disease. I found out early in my recovery program that my disease is three-fold...physical, emotional, and spiritual. I have given up trying to control my eating. I know that for me to be free from extra food, and extra weight I have to work a 12 step program, and follow my food plan. I am grateful to be lucky to recovery, and not be paying a feel to do so
This news segment and article came on the perfect day, great planning, teachers off from school. I am scheduled tomorrow to be measured and weigh for my new beginning. My community college of employment is starting a losing weight club. My intention is to use this article as a reminding awareness source for me to convert my emotional eating to activity of satisfaction in the moment....I hope. I quit smoking 35 years ago by getting busy for 5 minute intervals...this is what I have to do when I want to reach for not healthy comfort food...get busy, even if I have to clean a drawer for 5 minutes. Thank you.
I wish we could obliterate the word 'dieting'....what does it mean? Change the way you eat for awhile to lose a few pounds...then what? What happens when the diet stops working, or it works, but once you stop 'dieting', what happens then? It's all about a lifestyle change. Change your views on what you eat, when you eat and how you eat and do it for the rest of your life! Plain and simple.
I wonder why the Today Show has so many chefs and food and recipe segments and then brings in people to make you lose weight. As some one who loves to eat AND cook, I think this is counter productive.
I struggled with sugar addiction for years, finding out that once I started eating, I couldn't stop. I found such freedom when I gave up sugar for good last year. I wrote about my ten tips for giving up sugar here on my blog, firstourselves.com:
http://www.firstourselves.com/first_ourselves/2008/01/how-to-give-up.html
To anyone who has ever suffered from overeating or sugar addiction, I offer encouragement that you can heal your relationship with food.
Best,
Karly Pitman
www.firstourselves.com
People who try to lose weight should eat more (frequently) not less. Because they are âafraidâ of food they tend to starve themselves and then overeat.
Eat frequently, small portions. Youâll be never hungry âas a wolfâ and overall you will eat less food this way⦠Good luck!
---
How often do you feel unwell?
Thatâs too oftenâ¦
http://www.wellnessaid.com
I struggled with sugar addiction for years, but finally gave it up for good. I wrote a book on how I gave up sugar to help others overcome this painful addiction. To serve the highest good of all, I'm giving away an ebook version of my book for free here on my website, firstourselves.com:
http://www.firstourselves.com/first_ourselves/product_ebook-how-to-give-up-sugar_shortform.html
I know how painful food addiction can be, but you can overcome it.
Best,
Karly