June 20, 2017
Food – It’s attached to just about everything we do. If we invite people over to visit, it’s usually for dinner or a BBQ. If we want to reward ourselves for a great job, that reward often ends up being some type of food. If we are sad or unhappy, we can tend to use food as a coping mechanism. Heck, we even eat when we’re bored!
Overcoming Emotional Eating: Awareness is the First Step
Yep, no matter what the occasion or mood, there’s a food for that!
For example
- Birthdays = Cake
- Christmas = Egg nog, chocolates, baked goods, cookies, turkey dinner and all the fixins’
- Movie night = Popcorn, candy
- Date night = Dinner & drinks
- Halloween = Candy candy candy!
- Easter = Easter eggs
- Valentine’s day = Chocolate, wine, dinner
- Family reunion = BBQ, potato salad, drinks, cake
- Summer heat = Ice cream, BBQs, drinks, s’mores
- Hanging out with friends = Dinner and drinks
- Received a promotion at work = Cake
- Bored = Repeatedly grabbing a spoonful of nut butter from the jar in the fridge, or checking the cupboards over and over again.
- Stressed or exhausted from a busy week = Wine, chips, sweets
- Achieved an awesome health or fitness goal = Cheat meal
Whoa! Did you catch that last one? We can even reach for a cheat meal as a reward for eating GOOD FOOD!
Now this is not to say that we shouldn’t all live a little, right? Right! I love truly enjoying a great treat, or having friends over for dinner. Who doesn’t? Food should absolutely be savoured and enjoyed! It is one of life’s greatest pleasures! BUT – The trick is to become aware in these occasions as to whether you are truly enjoying it, or simply eating it.
And if we are attaching food to emotion, (in other words, eating when we are happy, sad, etc), this is when we really need sit down with pen to paper and figure out things we can replace those foods with.
After I had my son in 2016 and in the midst of a bout of postpartum depression, I suddenly developed a sweet tooth – One I never had before. The biggest culprit? White chocolate macadamia nut cookies from the local grocery store down the street. They were so addictive, I could walk there every day for one! It literally became a thing. Yep, this future nutritionist had suddenly developed herself a new emotional eating habit.
That’s when a close friend and I got on the topic of sugar. I told her that I had never really cared much for sugar before, but suddenly, it was all I could think about! She asked me a question I will never forget. She said, “Yes – but do you eat the cookies because you truly enjoy them? Do you really take pleasure in eating those cookies, or do you sort of just “numb out” when you eat them? Do they serve as a treat, or a distraction from what’s really going on in your head?”
While I think there is so much more to be said on the topic of emotional eating, I do think she gave me the perfect starting point in realizing what I was struggling with, and what I needed to do to deal with it.
Awareness.
The ability to, when faced with the decision to eat, ask myself, “Am I eating this food to truly savour it or to nourish my body, or is there something else going on emotionally? Am I really, truly hungry, or am I bored/happy/sad/angry/tired/lonely?”
There is definitely more pieces to the complex puzzle of emotional eating. That being said, I do believe that finding awareness in the moment is the first step to a greater understanding of ourselves and our eating habits.
What do you think? Do you tend to use food to cope? Do you find yourself to be an emotional eater? OR do you use food as a reward?
