The Problem with Feeding Your Feelings

And what to do instead

I have been an emotional eater for as long as I can remember. Like with any addictive behavior, I was attempting to get rid of my feelings through food. The funny thing about emotional eating, is that the feelings don’t always need to be overwhelming, like stress or anxiety. Sometimes boredom or fatigue could kick off a bout of eating when I wasn’t hungry, leaving me feeling unpleasantly stuffed and full of regret.

It’s only in the last 5-10 years that I have been able to change this habit with skills from my yoga and meditation practice. The good news is that it IS possible to change emotional eating. The bad news is that you need to notice and feel your feelings to do it.

What’s happening when you eat emotionally

When you eat emotionally, you are attempting to change how you feel. You feel something, like anxiety, depression, frustration, boredom, fatigue, grief, or something else, and you attempt to change that feeling by eating. While this may feel better in the moment, you feel worse in the long term. When you are not physically hungry, you end up eating more than you need. You might gain weight, but more importantly, you end up feeling physically uncomfortable. You trade emotional discomfort for physical discomfort. Either way, it feels bad.

The first step toward changing this behavior is to pause. The power over yourself comes from pausing and noticing what you are doing, without judgment. You might be halfway through the pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream before you notice (true story), and that’s okay. Pausing to notice takes practice, intention, and discipline (Tapas). With practice, you will notice what you are doing sooner. Eventually, you may even be able to stop yourself before you start.

Meditation is enormously helpful when it comes to the practice of noticing. When you meditate, you start by noticing your breath. Teaching your mind to notice what is happening right now is the power of meditation. Meditation is a skill that you can learn, as it doesn’t come easily to most people at first. When you build up your skills to notice your breath, you can also notice your behavior.

Meditation 101

I hear it all the time, “I can’t meditate because….” I find the reason most people “can’t” meditate is because they have unreasonable expectations for themselves. If you believe that the goal of meditation is to enter a bliss state, then of course you “can’t” meditate.

The good news is that is not the goal of meditation. The purpose of meditation is to be present and notice what is. The mind will wander, it’s what it does. When it wanders, you bring it back. Notice your breath for as long as you can, and when your mind starts to think, pause and start again.

The practice of meditation is when you return to your breath over and over again. Eventually you will find more space between your thoughts. You may feel less bothered by the thoughts that come in, as you are less attached to them. Sometimes your mind will be racing around a mile a minute, and that’s okay. The benefit comes from sitting and practicing, not with achieving that bliss state.

Why is Meditation So Hard?

Apply your meditation skills to emotional eating

Meditation gives you the skills you need to let go of emotional eating and to stop judging yourself. Self-judgment often keeps you stuck in a cycle of emotional eating. You eat emotionally, you judge yourself for not having more willpower, then you eat more because you “might as well eat the whole thing now.”

Meditation helps you notice your thoughts like you notice your breath. Noticing your thoughts creates space between you and your thoughts. In that space you can see your thoughts as stories you are telling yourself:

• “I should be able to eat better.”
• “I should be able to stop eating when I’m not hungry.”
• “I should be able to have more discipline.”
• “I am weak and useless.”
• “I’ll never change, I might as well just give up.”

When you notice your stories and take a step back from them, you can then see what is actually true. You can also stop “shoulding” all over yourself:

• “I use food to tamp down my feelings when I feel stressed.”
• “I am feeding my emotions instead of feeling them.”
• “Will power is a limited commodity and won’t serve me in the long run. It’s going to take time, kindness, and patience to change my behavior.”
• “I am doing the best I can with the tools that I have. Learning better tools may help.”
• “I deserve to treat myself with kindness and compassion.”

The skills from meditation, when applied to emotional eating, give you the power of awareness. With awareness there is choice. You can continue doing what you are doing, or you can do something else. If you are unaware of the behavior, there is no choice. When you are aware, you can pause and take a different path.

Support for emotional eating

Starting September 24th, I am running an online course called Intentional Eating: Finding Peace and Balance in Your Relationship with Food. This online coaching course will give you individualized support to manage your eating using the wisdom of yoga and brain science. At no time will I tell you what to eat, as each person has different dietary requirements. This program will help you discover the food stories that are keeping you stuck so that you can find freedom in how you relate to food and yourself. Regain control over your eating, let go of judgment, and feel more confident in your body.

What people are saying:

I loved the conversations and feeling of community that Janine fosters. Being with people with similar frustrations allowed us to be open and vulnerable. I also loved hearing and talking about the yogic principles that Janine shared with us and how to practice them in relation to food and cravings.…

Anyone who would like to engage with a knowledgeable leader and like-minded women about ways to think about our healthy and not-so-healthy mindsets related to food would get a lot out of this program. Janine fostered a supportive environment where we felt comfortable to share the “stuff” — patterns, experiences, fears — and provided practical ways to shift our beliefs and behaviors. I’m excited to have a more informed perspective on how yogic principles can be applied to food and have been able to apply them to other aspects of my life. ~ K.P

Click the button below to learn more or to sign up for Intentional Eating. Limited to 5 people, starts on Wednesday, September 24 at 7:30pm ET.