How to Overcome Emotional Eating by Ellen Shuman

of overeating. There may also be many physiological reason why we

keep turning to food even when it feels self-defeating to do so?)

2.Emotional Eating happens on a continuum Emotional eating is normal. We all celebrate with food. When something sad occurs, friends and neighbors arrive with cakes and casseroles. It’s only when emotional eating begins to have impact on one’s emotional and/or physical well-being, and it’s used as a person’s primary strategy for mood regulation, that it becomes a problem. When eating becomes a primary coping strategy, it greatly impacts a person’s quality of life.

At the most extreme point on the emotional eating continuum, there may be a diagnosable eating disorder present –such as bulimia or binge eating disorder-and often, clinical depression as well.

3.Here’s how food works as a mood regulator:

ØFirst, an emotional eater experiences an uncomfortable feeling. For example…You just had a fight with a family member and you’re feeling really angry!

ØNext, you have a FOOD THOUGHT; and you find yourself reaching for a bag of chips or cookies. (You may or may not be conscious of when or why you are having a food thought.)

Once you are focused on the chips, you are no longer focused on how angry you feel. The use of food as a distraction works…

ØYou eat the chips, warding off the anger for a little while. Then, the anger comes back. Now, in addition to the anger, an emotional overeater has to deal with the guilt and shame he/she

feels every time he or she eats chips (or any other food that he or she has labeled “forbidden”).

4.This is the self-defeating cycle--the trap for an emotional eater

Until you develop healthier coping strategies, and you overcome the “good food vs. bad food” beliefs, the only way to avoid the guilt and the shame that results from emotional overeating--is more emotional overeating! Every time we swear we’ll be “good” on a diet today, and then turn back to food for comfort, we feel like we have “failed”. Then, to “stuff down” our frustration, or anger, or desperation, we turn back to food.

5.So, what can you do if Emotional Eating is a problem?

Make a conscious effort to become more aware of how and why you may be using food. Develop new skills for mood regulation. If you need support to do so, find appropriate professional help (find a class,hire a Coach or a Licensed Psychotherapist). The focus should be on self-care and improved emotional and physical well-being--eating well and being fit--not on dieting and weight loss. Remember, dieting is a trap for an emotional eater. Dieting just leads to more emotional eating.

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BIO:

Ellen Shuman is the founder and Exec. Director of the WellCentered Eating Disorder Treatment Programs &
www.aweighout.com, which conducts Phone Coaching & Groups about Emotional Eating to people worldwide. A Peabody/Emmy Award winning journalist, Shuman entered the wellness field in 1992 following an appearance on
the Oprah Winfrey Show. Today, she speaks nationally on the subjects of emotional eating, body image & size-ism.

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