Emotional Eating in Isolation
5 tools to help regulate emotional eating
Checking- in
When you notice yourself about to go for more or when you're in the middle of binging on your favorite food, ask yourself, what is this food doing for me? How am I feeling?
We turn to food for comfort, joy, excitement, and satisfaction. It’s helpful in that moment; it usually feels reeeally good to eat. Then when we’re done, more often than not, shame takes over and we’re left with even worse feelings than before we went for the extra treat. Let’s change this narrative and start to acknowledge our feelings instead of covering them with food.
Self-Compassion
When you overeat or eat something that doesn't make you feel good, bring in self- compassion. This is the one of the most important skills in moving through emotional eating. These times are difficult and it’s only natural that we look for pleasure in food. Food is so much a part of culture, society, many positive memories and is necessary for life. Give compassion for yourself when it's the first thing you go for to experiencing pleasure.
Research shows that the more compassionate and forgiving we are of ourselves, the more we’re motivated to tend to our needs and take care of ourselves. Your inner child will be so deeply grateful to drink up that compassion.
Breathe
Take 10 minutes to breathe. Sit with yourself on the couch with music, a journal, or nothing, and watch your breath. Breath brings in oxygen and a sense of calm to our nervous system. When we are in a trance of emotional eating, our nervous system is overwhelmed. We need oxygen to our brains and our body to calm ourselves so we can make informed decisions. When we’re overwhelmed with stress or avoiding our feelings with all the distractions in our home, it’s really easy to turn to food.
Acknowledging our relationship to our needs
Do you honor your needs in this time of uncertainty? So much of the time when we are not fulfilling our needs, we look to outside sources for help. Start to watch your needs for rest, play, food, love and productivity. When you can fulfill your needs in these areas, your “buckets” don’t need to be filled with food.
Structure and Flow
Create times of structure and times of flexibility. Give yourself a structured outline that can provide grounding throughout your day along with times of flexibility to meet your needs of that day. If you're working with food, this could mean your grounding point is to sit down to eat 3 meals and a snack during the day, on a plate, not working. The flexibility can be what you eat. In this way, you're providing your body with the structure it needs to be satiated and filled with the energy of food. When you slowing down to eat, you will tell your body to digest it in the way it needs to. Create times for flow where you do what feels right during that time.
We hope this finds you in a well where you are inspired to feel your power in navigating the storm.
