Margaret is a Faithful Finish Lines 2.0 member and Finisher who loves to read and write when she is not teaching. She lived overseas for a number of years and now resides in the Midwest where she serves the community by teaching English as a Second Language.
Is emotional eating preventing you from losing weight? Know the connection between your cravings and your scale, and finally find a solution that works.
When you hear someone talking about comfort food, what comes to mind? Comfort food can be the kind of home-cooked meal that reminds you of your childhood and brings out feelings of nostalgia and happiness when you think of it and eat it.
There is another kind of comfort food, though, that you might turn to when you actually feel like you need comfort — at the end of a long, hard day, or when you have had an argument with your friend, or you are feeling really stressed out, or you are working up the courage to do a task that is distasteful.
I find myself turning to emotional eating at the end of a long day when I have been under a lot of stress and I am finally home, and it is quiet, but I am oh, so tired!
Perhaps a bit of chocolate or that piece of cheesecake in the fridge would be just the thing to make me feel better! I think to myself. Something sweet will give me the energy to keep going. I deserve it after the day I have had!
Do you ever have thoughts like these? Do you find yourself succumbing to emotional eating when you are under stress, or when you have had some bad news, or you are just feeling worn out, tired, bored or unhappy? What about when you are happy or want to celebrate some big achievement?
Emotional eating happens when you allow what you are feeling to decide what you will eat and when you will eat it. You are eating to deal with your emotions rather than because you are hungry.
These emotions can be negative ones like stress, boredom, anger, loneliness, or anxiety — or they can be happy emotions, like the joy you have when you are celebrating a birthday, or how elated you are when you finally finish that big project and turn it in to your boss and you want to reward yourself.
It is not necessarily a bad thing to turn to food for comfort, stress relief, or to reward yourself — but emotional eating (also called stress eating) will definitely have an impact on weight management, especially if you find yourself turning to it often.
It is actually quite common to turn to food during times of stress or emotional upheaval or as a reward for something that is happy or good. Everyone eats in response to their emotions sometimes.
So don’t feel like you are the only one who does it! It can even make you feel better sometimes, such as when you are tired and need a bit of sugar.
More often than not, however, eating does not really help you with the emotions you are experiencing, and if it happens often and you don’t have other ways to cope with your feelings (especially the negative ones), it will end up having an adverse effect on you and your weight loss journey.
If you are trying to lose weight, emotional eating can sabotage your efforts, because it usually leads to over-eating. The food you reach for when you want something to take the edge off your stress or your loneliness is likely going to be high-calorie, sweet and fatty foods, and too many of those kinds of foods are going to give you trouble as you try to lose weight.
The good news is that there are things you can do to deal with this kind of eating, so that you can continue to be successful with your weight loss goals.
Is emotional eating sabotaging your weight loss? Uncover the surprising connection between your cravings and your scale, and finally find a solution that works.
Read on, as this article will explore the connection between emotional eating and weight loss, provide strategies to overcome it, and help you regain control of your relationship with food.
What is Emotional Eating?
Emotional eating is using food to make yourself feel better rather than to fill your stomach because you are hungry. Therefore, it makes sense that emotional hunger is not the same as physical hunger.
While it may not always be easy to tell if you are feeling hungry because of your emotions instead of physically hungry, it is still possible! In an article at HelpGuide.org on emotional eating and how to stop it, there is a useful list of clues to look for to help you tell physical and emotional hunger apart:
- emotional hunger comes on suddenly, and feels overwhelming and urgent
- emotional hunger craves specific comfort foods, and only those foods will do
- emotional hunger often leads to mindless eating, where you aren’t paying attention to what you are eating
- emotional hunger is not satisfied once you are full
- emotional hunger isn’t located in the stomach, it is more a craving in your head that you have to deal with
- emotional hunger can lead to regret, guilt or shame when you realize you have been eating for reasons other than nutrition
Almost anything can serve as an emotional trigger that makes you want to eat in response. Stress is one of the most common emotional eating triggers.
Other common triggers include anxiety, boredom, loneliness, and wanting to avoid uncomfortable emotions like sadness, anger or shame.
The Mood-Food-Weight Loss Cycle
Emotions can trigger food cravings, and these cravings are almost always for something unhealthy. Foods that are high in fat, sugar, and salt are very appealing when you are under stress, or you are struggling with a strong emotion that results in you being in a bad mood or feeling bad about yourself. But those are just the foods that will mess with your weight loss efforts if you end up eating too much of them.
An article by Mayo Clinic staff refers to a mood-food-weight loss cycle. This cycle occurs when something happens to trigger an emotion that affects your mood, and in order to deal with it, you reach for food as a distraction.
Then, because you ate something you weren’t intending to eat or you ate when you weren’t really hungry, you feel guilty about ruining your weight loss efforts.
According to the article, “This can also lead to an unhealthy cycle — your emotions trigger you to overeat, you beat yourself up for getting off your weight-loss track, you feel bad and you overeat again.”
The truth is, eating to help yourself feel better when you are suffering does help you feel better — in the short term. Eating feels good at the time, but the feelings that caused you to want to eat are actually still there, and they will return if you do not learn some other way of coping with them besides food.
The long-term consequence of eating emotionally is that you end up eating unnecessary calories that make your weight loss efforts that much more difficult.
In addition, by not learning healthier ways to deal with your emotions, you will have increasing difficulty controlling your weight and you could find yourself stuck in the cycle.
Positive change is possible, however! Once you are able to recognize the signs of emotional eating, you will be better equipped to learn how to deal with your emotions, avoid the things that trigger you, and take control over your cravings.
Recognizing the Signs of Emotional Eating
Recognizing the signs of emotional eating is important as a first step in figuring out what triggers you to eat emotionally.
The following list from HelpGuide.org gives some questions that might reveal behaviors or thought patterns that indicate you are an emotional eater:
- Do you eat more when you’re feeling stressed?
- Do you eat when you’re not hungry or when you’re full?
- Do you eat to feel better (to calm and soothe yourself when you’re sad, mad, bored, anxious, etc.)?
- Do you reward yourself with food?
- Do you regularly eat until you’ve stuffed yourself?
- Does food make you feel safe? Do you feel like food is a friend?
- Do you feel powerless or out of control around food?
Other questions you might also want to consider include:
- Do you reach for food before you even realize it?
- Do you find it difficult to find something satisfying to eat?
- Do you get a snack in order to put off or delay something you don’t want to do?
- Do you often feel stuffed or overly full?
A helpful way to identify patterns behind your eating if you suspect you are an emotional eater is to keep track of what you eat with a food and mood diary.
Instead of tracking your food like you do when you are counting calories (which can lead to being obsessed with food because you are paying attention to restrictions), you are making notes and observations about the connections between the foods you eat and how you feel both physically and mentally when you eat it.
Some of the things you might keep track of as you journal about your food experience are:
- your level of hunger/fullness when you eat
- what emotions you are feeling when you decide to eat something or what event might have occurred to make you feel like you needed to eat
- what you are eating (or what you wanted to eat)
- how you are feeling about the food you are eating (for instance, does it make you feel guilty when you eat it?)
- how the food you eat makes you feel after eating it.
Over the course of time you will see a pattern emerge. Knowing what this pattern is will help you learn your emotional triggers, which will then help you figure out healthier ways to deal with your feelings.
How Emotional Eating Hinders Weight Loss
Emotional eating will hinder and even sabotage your weight loss efforts because it leads to eating too much, especially too much food that is high calorie, full of fat and sugar. Emotional eating triggers include stress and emotions such as happiness and sadness.
Stress in particular contributes to emotional eating because it releases hormones that can influence emotional eating.
One of these hormones is the hunger hormone ghrelin. Ghrelin is a hormone produced by the stomach that signals your brain when you are hungry. Ghrelin also helps your body store fat and plays a role in controlling how your body releases insulin and processes sugar.
Research has shown that stress can trigger ghrelin or keep it at high levels so that it kicks in when it should not. This means that if you are stressed, your ghrelin levels will rise and make you feel like you are hungry, even if you have just eaten.
Cortisol is another hormone that has an influence on emotional eating. Cortisol increases your appetite and also contributes to the craving of sweets and high fat foods. When you experience chronic stress, your cortisol levels remain high, resulting in an increased desire to eat.
At the same time, the release of cortisol slows down your metabolism, and causes fat to be stored in such a way that it contributes to obesity.
Learning how to deal with chronic stress will go a long way to helping you be more successful in your weight management, because you will be in better control of the things that trigger emotional eating.
Common Emotional Eating Patterns
Some common emotional eating patterns include nighttime eating (eating a lot after dinner and before sleep, or during the night when you have trouble sleeping), and binge eating (consuming a large amount of food in a short amount of time, generally in an out-of-control manner).
Both of these eating patterns are considered eating disorders when they occur consistently, but they can be triggered by emotional eating and stress.
Specific food cravings can occur when you are affected by emotional eating. Foods high in fat, sugar, and salt tend to become more appealing when you are under stress, when you are dealing with a bad mood, or you are struggling with some other negative emotion.
Other foods that you might find yourself craving are spicy foods or foods with a specific texture like crunchiness.
Giving in to these patterns and cravings will have an adverse affect on your weight loss efforts, because you will be taking in more calories than you need.
Emotional Eating and Weight Loss Plateaus
A weight loss plateau can occur in your weight loss journey when the calories you are burning equal the calories you are taking in with your eating. Even if you are eating carefully and mindfully, and getting plenty of exercise, your weight loss slows and levels off.
Such plateaus are also influenced by emotional eating and can even contribute to a cycle that is hard to break — you feel discouraged and frustrated because you have stopped losing weight, so you eat to soothe your emotions which increases your calories so that your weight loss plateau is perpetuated, and on it goes.
Changing things up so your exercise routine is different, or changing the foods you eat while also keeping a food journal to track your eating tendencies can help with breaking out of a plateau, as well as help you avoid emotional eating.
The Power of Community in Overcoming Emotional Eating
One of the emotions that causes many to fall into a habit of emotional eating is a feeling of isolation, loneliness or a sense of not belonging. Therefore, community support is vital in breaking free from the feeling that you are alone in this struggle.
You are not alone! So many others are struggling with emotions and stress that cause them to overeat. By sharing experiences and finding support, you can join with others who understand what you are going through, or who have been where you are now and found a way out by establishing healthy habits and healthy coping mechanisms. They are usually more than happy to share their experiences with you and support you in a way that is inspiring and motivating.
Finding Your Community
Online support groups and forums are a great place to start, because you can find people who are struggling with the same problems you are facing, and it is sometimes easier to start sharing about your struggles when you are not face to face with people you know, in person.
An excellent online community is the one I joined for support in my own weight management. If you are interested in joining a group of women who “get it” and who are loving and caring in their support, consider joining our FFL community – Christian Weight Loss For Women.
Local group therapy and weight loss programs are also an important way to experience support and encouragement as you get to know other women in person, who know what you are talking about when you share with them because they are experiencing the same struggles. Participating together in group activities and programs can be a great source of encouragement and motivation in your weight loss journey.
A network of supportive friends and family is vital to anyone seeking to establish emotional well-being so they can control their emotional eating. Good self-care is important, but having the support of friends and family is also necessary to your encouragement and motivation.
Benefits of Shared Accountability
A great benefit of the kind of shared accountability you receive when in community is being able to better stay on track with your goals. Having someone else to keep you accountable is priceless!
You will also experience more joy as you celebrate successes together, and you can learn from setbacks as you share together about the things that have given you trouble.
Creating a Positive and Encouraging Environment
Communities of women who are working towards the same goals are important because they provide a positive and encouraging environment. Such communities foster a sense of belonging and connection that is one of the best things you can do for yourself as you seek to lose weight and establish healthy eating habits.
Strategies to Overcome Emotional Eating
Do you find yourself reaching for food when you’re stressed, bored, or sad? These are the strategies that will help you overcome emotional eating and develop a healthier relationship with food.
Identifying and Addressing Emotional Triggers
Identifying and addressing emotional triggers is very important. Stress management techniques will help with this, as well as journaling or keeping a food-mood diary, and even therapy if you feel you need the help of professionals.
Changing to healthy snacks when you feel the need to eat can bring you one step closer to managing your emotional eating because it puts you in better control of what you are eating, rather than reaching for the closest sugary snack.
When you have a setback, learn from it! Forgive yourself and start fresh the next day. Try to learn from the experience and make a plan for how to prevent it in the future.
Work at creating healthy coping mechanisms that you can use instead of eating to deal with your emotions, such as reading your Bible, listening to worship music, calling a friend or going for a walk.
Changing Your Relationship with Food
Mindful eating practices can help you change your relationship with food. Eating more slowly, not eating in front of the computer screen or the TV, and paying attention and savoring each bite will help you break free from eating mindlessly, that can lead to eating too much.
Intuitive eating principles will also serve you well to help you gain a better relationship with food. Paying attention to whether you are hungry or full will help you to stop before you eat too much, as well as helping you make better food choices instead of being driven by your cravings.
If you’re looking for a comprehensive guide to tackling emotional eating, you can find practical advice and support in ‘Overcoming Emotional Eating‘ by The Holy Mess.
Healthy Alternatives to Emotional Eating
Establishing healthy alternatives to emotional eating will help you maintain your weight loss goals as you learn better ways to deal with the things that trigger you and make you want to eat.
Exercise is a great alternative and helps with stress. Even just a walk around the block will help you refocus and relieve some stress that might be making you feel like eating.
Participating in a hobby is another healthy alternative, as it can replace a feeling of boredom with one of accomplishment and might even distract you from whatever it is that makes you think you want to eat. Even putting off eating for 5 minutes when you feel a craving will help, but putting it off while getting involved in something fun and constructive is a much better alternative.
Make sure you are creating a supportive environment around yourself so that you have somewhere to turn when you feel the emotions that trigger you to want to eat. Supporting yourself by practicing self-care and good self-esteem is just as important as making sure you are supported by friends, family and support groups.
When to Seek Professional Help
Emotional eating can be a part of a larger issue with disordered eating (such as binge eating disorder) and there’s no shame in reaching out for help.
Eating disorders are serious health conditions that affect both your physical and mental health. These conditions affect how you think about food, eating, weight and shape, body image and your eating behaviors. They generally involve focusing too much on weight, body shape and food, which then lead to dangerous eating behaviors.
With proper treatment, however, you can return to healthier eating habits and learn healthier ways to think about food and your body. Seeking the support of a healthcare professional or dietitian will give you the tools you need to manage emotional eating behaviors and create a new relationship with food.
Additional Tips for Managing Emotional Eating and Weight Loss
It has already been mentioned that building a support system of friends, family, or online communities, as well as keeping a food diary to track your emotions and eating patterns are both good ways to help with managing emotional eating and weight loss.
Another helpful practice is planning your meals and even preparing your meals ahead of time to avoid impulsive choices. It can also help you make more healthy food choices and promotes better portion control.
While it is very common to celebrate achievements with food, it can be beneficial to celebrate in ways that don’t involve food. Instead of eating something to celebrate, why not watch a favorite movie, or go for a walk in the park, get a massage, or allow yourself to buy that book you have been thinking about purchasing. You are still celebrating with a reward that is special, but moving away from the food-related reward will be a strong step away from emotional eating.
FAQs About Emotional Eating and Weight Loss
Can emotions cause weight gain?
Mind-body connection makes it possible for your emotions to affect your physical health, and also for your body to affect how you feel and act. While emotions do not necessarily cause weight gain directly, they can cause you to take part in emotional eating, which often results in gaining weight.
What emotions can hunger cause?
Hunger can lead to negative emotions like anger, irritability, pessimism and aggression, even depression.
Is emotional eating the same as having an eating disorder?
No, it is not the same. On its own, emotional eating isn’t an eating disorder, but it can lead to the development of one. Eating in response to emotional distress is an automatic behavior that can be difficult to control. It’s also considered a characteristic of disordered eating, or eating habits or behaviors that can eventually lead to eating disorders.
Can emotional eating be cured?
Yes, it can! The way to overcome emotional eating is to figure out what emotions are causing you to want to eat, and then find healthy solutions (other than food) to supply your emotional needs.
How can I stop emotional eating at night?
One thing you can do is be sure you are eating enough during the day. If you are limiting your food intake too much during the day, you will very likely find yourself overeating at night. Another helpful tip is to pre-portion a snack for the evening to help limit how much you eat at night.
What if I’ve tried everything to stop emotional eating but nothing works?
If you’ve tried self-help options but you still can’t control your eating, consider seeking help with a therapist or other health professional.Therapy can help you understand what is triggering your emotional eating so you can learn coping skills.
What is the difference between emotional and physical hunger?
When trying to differentiate between emotional hunger vs. physical hunger, remember that emotional hunger isn’t satisfied once you’re full, so you keep eating more and more until you are uncomfortable. Physical hunger, on the other hand, is satisfied when you are full. Also, physical hunger comes on gradually and is based on the last time you ate, while emotional hunger is triggered by things such as stress, worry or fatigue.
An article by New Life Ministries about ending emotional eating shares the following truth:
“Emotional eating occurs when the desire to eat is driven by emotions rather than hunger. Most people who set a weight loss goal do well at first. But one of the biggest obstacles to weight loss is to feed emotions with food. Apostle Paul himself got stuck in a cycle of doing something he didn’t want. Romans 7:15 (NLT) says, “I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.”
If you are also stuck in a cycle of emotional eating that you do not want, do not despair! There are ways to make progress in this area and continue to have success in your weight loss journey.
By implementing strategies such as stress management and journaling that help you understand what is triggering your emotions, as well as building healthy habits of good nutrition that help you replace emotional eating with more constructive activities and healthy foods, you can avoid the things that trigger stress eating and attain sustainable weight loss.
Remember that overcoming emotional eating is a journey that must be taken one step at a time, but you can find success, and there is hope at the end of the journey.
Do not hesitate to seek support from the community and from health professionals if the journey becomes too much for you to manage on your own. Prioritizing your own well-being is an important part of successful weight loss management and being able to overcome emotional eating struggles.
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