You feel stressed but you don’t feel hungry but you find yourself mindlessly eating anyway. It feels frustrating to you that despite not being hungry you still find yourself doing this more often than you would like. You wonder what’s wrong with you and why you can’t seem to get over this habit you have. You try and tell yourself next time you’ll try harder to get it together. You feel guilty for eating this way and just want to make it stop. You’ve probably tried to become more strict with yourself but then eventually have gone back to the same pattern of eating as before. You may be experiencing emotional eating. Despite the guilt you feel or even what society tells you about food, it’s normal for people to use food to self-soothe. It does become problematic when emotional eating is your primary coping skill for dealing with your emotions.
What is emotional eating?
Emotional eating is when you use food as a response to dealing with your emotions including stress, anxiety, sadness, anger, and even happiness. Emotional eating is not cued by physical hunger and is often done when you aren’t even hungry at all. This way of eating can lead to feelings of guilt and shame. It can start to result in a loss of self-esteem and confidence. Many people start to fear weight gain and try to control their food intake further. It usually backfires and makes emotional eating worse. It can be difficult to overcome or manage emotional eating without the support and guidance of an eating disorder therapist.
What is an emotional eater?
An “emotional eater” is often a derogatory term that is used to describe someone that uses food to cope with emotions despite not being biologically hungry. Someone that is an emotional eater might use food to soothe themselves and to deal with stress or boredom. Emotionally eating can also occur as a way of trying to distract or procrastinate doing things that you might not want to do. Emotional eaters tend to try pleasure and satisfaction through food when they can’t find it elsewhere. People with ADHD might be more prone to emotional eating than those that don’t have this diagnosis.
Signs of Emotional Eating
Everyone uses emotional eating differently but there are some common signs and symptoms of emotional eating. Here are some of them:
Eating in response to emotions
Intense cravings for certain types of food
Using food as comfort or to destress
Feeling guilty or ashamed after eating
Eating alone or in secret
Eating past the point of physical fullness
Fear of judgment for the way you eat
How do I stop eating emotionally?
It is difficult to overcome emotional eating on your own. You likely emotionally eat because it serves a purpose or helps you cope with difficult emotions. It can be hard to give up emotional eating when you don’t feel you have other ways of coping or don’t recognize the other areas of stress in your life. Here are a few tips to try to combat emotional eating:
Identify your triggers
Notice the people, places, or situations that make you prone to emotionally eat. Create a plan on how you want to cope with these triggers without emotionally eating
2. Make sure you’re eating enough
I find that some people believe they are eating emotionally but part of the problem is they aren’t eating enough so they keep thinking about food and believe they’re emotionally eating but maybe part of the problem is restricting.
3. Coping Skills for emotional eating
Utilize other coping skills to deal with emotions such as stress and boredom. Use mindfulness, journaling, talking to a friend, or deep breathing as new ways to practice dealing with emotional discomfort.
4. Work with an eating disorder therapist
There’s usually more of a reason why you might be using emotional eating as a way of coping with emotions. You don’t have to have an eating disorder to work with an eating disorder therapist. An eating disorder therapist specializes in helping people improve their relationships with food and find different ways to cope.
What to do instead of emotional eating?
There are many different alternatives way of dealing with your emotions that don’t involve emotionally eating consistently. The most important thing to do instead of emotional eating is to find something that works for you. This could take trial and error before finding something that you find to be effective and helpful. Some people enjoy walking or yoga as a way to deal with their emotions. Other people might find calling or talking to a friend about what they feel to help them work through their stress. Watching a tv show or playing a musical instrument can be something that could be helpful. Finding what works for you and being able to deal with the underlying emotions that keep causing your to emotional eat will make the difference in recovering from emotional eating.
Therapy for emotional eating in Utah can help
If you find yourself feeling stuck with the pattern of emotional eating and nothing seems to help, therapy for emotional eating may be helpful. Many people resist going to therapy when they know they might need extra help because they are worried they will be criticized or judged. Some of the women I have worked with have also worried that they would have to continue dieting or that therapy would encourage them to lose weight and that simply hasn’t worked. Therapy for emotional eating is designed to help you make peace with food and yourself not to encourage you to further restrict or withstand your cravings. I believe therapy is about helping you work through the emotions you are feeling in healthy and helpful ways while understanding how past experiences or hurt may be contributing to these issues.
Work with an eating disorder therapist in Utah
You don’t have to keep struggling with the cycle of emotional eating. You can find relief from guilt and shame and learn to deal with your emotions in different ways. Therapy for emotional eating can help. This Utah Counseling Clinic has an eating disorder therapist specializing in emotional eating. To begin counseling follow the steps below:
Meet with a therapist for emotional eating
Find relief from constant emotional eating
Online Eating Disorder Therapy in Utah
When you are dealing with emotional eating or disordered eating, you must have access to a therapist who specializes and knows exactly how to treat this. Many cities in Utah don’t have access to an eating disorder therapist. This is why I offer online therapy in Utah. Online counseling is safe, effective, and much more convenient than trying to travel to an in-office appointment.
Online counseling also means I work with clients who struggle with emotional eating from all over the state of Utah. I work with clients in St. George, Cedar City, Heber City, Provo, Salt Lake City, Logan, and more.
Other mental health services provided by Maple Canyon Therapy
Eating disorder therapy isn’t the only counseling service offered at this Utah Counseling Practice. Other mental health services provided by Maple Canyon Therapy include EMDR therapy, binge eating disorder treatment, body image therapy, anxiety therapy, birth trauma therapy, and counseling for college students. Schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation to see how I can help.
About the Author
Ashlee Hunt is an eating disorder therapist and founder of Maple Canyon Therapy near Provo, Utah, and an online therapist throughout the state of Utah including St. George, Cedar City, Provo, Heber City, Logan, and Salt Lake City. Ashlee has a bachelor's degree in psychology and a bachelor's degree in family life and human development from Southern Utah University. She obtained her master's in social work from Utah State University. Ashlee has been working with women to improve their relationship with food and become intuitive eaters since 2013. She has worked with women who struggle with emotional eating, disordered eating, and eating disorders through all levels of care including an eating disorder psychiatric hospital. Ashlee believes women can heal by offering themselves more self-compassion and working through their negative beliefs.