The topic of emotional eating has been coming up a lot in my client sessions lately. Honestly, nearly every single client I work with confesses to feeling like an emotional eater and it's something that soooo many women struggle with, even myself.
I want you to know that if you struggle with emotional eating, you are definitely not alone and you are certainly not without hope!
I use a multi-step approach to help my clients break free from emotional eating.
First, we work on our mindset around food and the role it plays in our life.
Second, we support the body and balance blood sugar using my formula for building the perfect plate. So often I see regrettable eating patterns are a result of mismanaged blood sugar, and learning how to build the perfect plate leaves you feeling calm and in control around food.
We also work on managing stress and cultivating better lifestyle habits that allow us to handle big emotions instead of turning to food to numb out.
Liberating yourself emotional eating is a process, but it's one you can work on and overcome. Have a hunch you might be an emotional eater? See if you can relate to any of these scenarios:
1. You eat when you're not hungry. You may eat when you're bored, stressed, lonely, out of habit, or because you fear you might be hungry in the future. Do your cues to eat come from true hunger or do other things trigger you to eat?
2. Food FOMO. Do you feel pressured to order a cocktail because everyone else has one, or grab a cookie because everyone else at your table is indulging? FOMO stands for "Fear of Missing Out", so you may be inclined to eat something because it's rare or seasonal, like Grandma's apple pie on Thanksgiving.
3. Hiding food. Do you eat in your car, or in secret, or hide wrappers so other people don't see what you eat? You may think you're alone in this one, but I talk to women all the time who hide what they eat because they are embarrassed for people to see and what they would think.
4. You don't ever feel full. Do you keep eating and eating after you finish a meal? When we are emotionally eating we use food as a placeholder and to fill a gap where something is missing.
5. Feeling guilty after eating. Do you feel shame and remorse after you eat "bad" food, or even while you're eating it? Feeling bad about yourself after indulging is a major sign of emotional eating.
Check out my free guides and resources for additional information. As always please feel free to contact me with any questions, I would love to chat!