Emotional Eating

When my emotions are running high, it’s not the best recipe for making optimal eating choices.

I’m pretty dialed in with the kinds of foods that I eat, but, even for me, a guy who lives and breathes ‘food as medicine’ all day long, I’m still human. I still get stressed, or excited. I still have cravings. I still think that I ‘deserve’ to eat this huge bowl of pasta (even though I know it’s going to destroy my stomach the next day).

Right now, uncertainty, stress, and emotions are running higher than usual all over the place, and this will continue for a least a little while longer.

The best way to combat this, to ‘break the chain’ of emotional eating is to:

• Bring the feelings surrounding your choices to your awareness, by acknowledging them (through discussion, journaling, coaching, etc.)
• Look for patterns and ways to support yourself to make better choices next time (because there will always be a next time).

This might mean a physical reminder, a change in your environment, a phone call or text …
Emotional eating is something that we ALL do to varying degrees. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. We are emotional beings.

The hard work lies in facing this fact, and doing the emotional labor of finding out ‘why’, and then replacing or breaking those connections with better ones.