Intuitive Eating 101 Series - Principle #7: Cope With Your Emotions Without Using Food

Learn when emotional eating can be OK and how to deal with it when it's a not OK.

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Welcome to part seven of a ten part series, breaking down each principle of Intuitive Eating, a non-diet and weight-neutral approach to health. If you missed the introduction about what Intuitive Eating is and the deeper dive into the first principle, read this post first. You can also read the last part in the series here.

This post is going to be all about Principle #7: Cope With Your Emotions Without Using Food.

In part two of this series, I talked about the importance of honoring your biological hunger and how that by doing so, it can often resolve what people think of as “emotional eating”. But if you find that you are practicing honoring your biological hunger and also eating when you’re not hungry, possibly eating past comfortable fullness, you may feeding your emotional hunger.

Now even though the title of this principle “Cope With Your Emotions Without Using Food” sounds like an all-or-nothing statement, please don’t turn it into another “should” or “shouldn’t” or rule. Eating for emotional reasons can be totally normal and OK. The last principle was all about getting satisfaction and pleasure out of foods. And we live in a culture that uses food to celebrate, or soothe, or to connect, all the time.

Food can be love, and reward, and comfort, and soothing. And using foods in these ways can be totally part of Intuitive Eating. So there is nothing wrong with having some emotional attachment to food. What can be a problem is if food is your only way of coping with emotions and this drives behaviours that may have negative consequences in the end, such as binging and feeling guilty about it, or avoiding uncomfortable feelings or situations, or silencing your unmet needs. Again, minor or infrequent episodes of this type of behaviour can be OK, but if it becomes habitual, it can become problematic in your life. Usually because if you feel like you're emotionally eating all the time, you may feel out of control and then feel guilty or ashamed of your behaviours.

Essentially, if emotional eating creates negative and destructive thoughts, feelings and behaviours, then most likely it’s become a problem in your life. So the main idea behind this principle is not to eliminate all emotional connection with food, but to help you learn how to cope with your emotions in other ways as well, so food isn’t the most important thing in your life, nor is it a source of guilt or stress.

Before I share with you strategies on how to start coping with your emotions without food, let’s talk first about what emotional eating can look like. Tribole and Resch (2012) describe a continuum of emotional eating, in that it can be fairly inconsequential and harmless to being very intense and destructive. They identify five types of emotional eating on this spectrum. Let’s go through each one briefly, starting with the lowest intensity one:

1. Sensory gratification: This is essentially eating for enjoyment and pleasure. This is a very normal and encouraged part of Intuitive Eating and is discussed in more detail here. This is not only harmless but is actually super helpful in making peace with food.
2. Comfort: Also a fairly benign type of emotional eating. This is when we eat foods to comfort us during a stressful or emotional time. Maybe it’s eating your favourite comfort food at the end of a long day or having some cookies with milk before bed. Eating for comfort is again, normal and can even be a helpful way to relax. The issue is if food is your only way to wind down after a long day, or the only way to deal with anxiety.
3. Distraction: This is actually a very common type of emotional eating and often people who eat to distract themselves are not even aware they’re doing it! Eating to distract can take on milder forms, like eating to procrastinate and avoid doing something you don’t want to do. People who say they eat out of boredom often fall into this category, like nibbling throughout the day at work even if they’re not hungry. And eating to distract can take on more intense forms, such as eating to distract you from feeling uncomfortable or painful emotions. Again, though it’s OK to use distractions as ways to get by, food will only offer a temporary relief, but not actually help you fix the whatever you’re avoiding.
4. Sedation: This is a more intense form of emotional eating and is used for the main purpose of numbing out uncomfortable or painful emotions. In other words, foods are used to NOT feel. In this case, you are probably not being in-tune with your hunger and fullness cues, nor your level of satisfaction with your food, because you’re trying to tune-out of your body, not tune inwards. This is taking distracted eating to another level of self-destruction. The problem with eating to numb-out is that it may only provide temporary escape from your distress, and most likely cause even more distress after the fact i.e. physical distress from being uncomfortably full, and mental distress from feelings of guilt or shame or anxiety about your behaviours. Now, for people who may be trying to cope with trauma or deep emotional issues, food sedation may be the best coping mechanism they have. And that’s OK. This is not to shame anyone who may use food this way. If you were not taught how to cope with stressful feelings any other way, then it’s understandable if food has become your go-to for escaping. But know that there is hope in learning other ways to cope with these emotions and get out of the emotional eating pattern...which I’ll get into soon.
5. And last on the spectrum of emotional eating is Punishment: This is when eating for sedation becomes so destructive and the feelings of guilt and self-blame may become so intense, that you then start using food to punish yourself. You may eat in an angry and aggressive way, like you’re trying to beat yourself up and make yourself feel even worse about your behaviours.

Regardless of the type of emotional eating you may engage in, what triggers emotional eating in the first place is... you guessed it - emotions! Let’s look at some of the most common emotions with an example of each,  that may trigger emotional eating:

• Boredom and Procrastination: You’re using food as a way to pass the time or put off doing tasks you don’t really want to do. Or you feel like food is the only way to get a break, like getting a chocolate bar from the vending machine during your 5 minute break at work.
• Bribery and Reward: You feel you deserve to eat more food (usually comfort food) after working hard or accomplishing something. Or you give your child a candy if they’ve done their homework.
• Excitement: Making a new delicious recipe, or planning a dinner party, or even going on a diet can induce feelings of excitement. Also, being on a rigid diet for a while can create feelings of dullness around food so that when you do break the rules and eat “bad” foods you get a rush of excitement.
• Soothing: This is already discussed above, but just to reiterate, eating to soothe, relax or to bring comfort, can all be OK. It’s just when it may be the only thing soothing you in your life that it can be a problem.
• Love: Making meals for others and eating with others is a healthy and normal part of eating. But food can be just one way to show love, not the only way.
• Frustration, Anger and Rage: Sometimes people will eat to get out their anger, especially eating crunchy things. It’s almost like throwing a plate on the floor when you’re angry to release the stress (not that that is a great way to deal with anger either), but you’re biting mindlessly on hard, crunchy food.
• Stress: In times of stress, our body actually shuts down our digestive system so that we have energy and resources to deal with the stress. And some people will notice that they are not hungry during stressful times. Others though, will reach for the chocolate bar. But most likely they are not actually hungry, they are just soothing the anxiety or other feelings about the stress.
• Anxiety: Often described as butterflies in your stomach or a tightness in your chest or throat. Again, some people may eat less when anxious, others may use food to temporarily ease the anxiety.
• Depression: It’s not uncommon for people to turn to food for comfort or soothing when experiencing mild depression.
• Feeling Connected: This is when people eat to feel connected to others, to be a part of the group, without considering whether they are actually hungry or even like the food.
• Needing to relax and let go: This can be a super common feeling to trigger emotional eating for people who are often super rigid and high achieving in all the other areas of their life, except food. So eating becomes the only time they believe they can relax or let go. And will often result in overeating and feelings of guilt.

So now that you know all the types of emotional eating and the common emotions that can trigger it, how do you actually start dealing with emotional eating (if you believe it’s a problem for you)? Tribole and Resch identify four steps to get you started:

1. As already mentioned, make sure you are actually honoring your hunger first. If you are and you still find yourself eating when you’re not hungry, then move on to the next step.
2. Identify what you’re feeling. This can be very challenging, especially if you were never taught how to express your feelings or to put language to your feelings. If you don’t know what you’re feeling, you can start using a Feelings Chart, like these. Or even just scroll up to the last section of this post and try to identify what you could be feeling. Next time you notice yourself eating when you’re not hungry or thinking about eating when you’re not hungry, ask yourself: What am I feeling? Is it boredom? Disappointment? Anxiety? Overwhelm?
3. Once you identify what you’re feeling, ask yourself: What do I need? It’s hard to know what you need if you can’t identify what you’re feeling, so it’s important to label what you’re feeling first. Then once you know what you’re feeling, it’s easier to identify what you may need in that moment. For example, if you notice you’re feeling overwhelmed, then maybe what you need is to decrease the amount of commitments in your schedule, or ask for help. Or if you notice you’re feeling exhausted, then maybe you just need to sleep, instead of eating a pint of ice cream.
4. Lastly, once you identify what you need, try to speak up and ask for help or whatever it is you need. It may be asking your spouse, friend or family for help, or reaching out to your therapist or trusted Facebook group for support. Sometimes you may not be able to express your feelings or needs to someone else or even want to in that moment. So other ways to express your feelings could be: journaling, letting yourself cry and release the tension, or maybe listening to a guided mindfulness practice of how to sit with your feelings and help them dissipate.  

All these steps can take time to practice and to get better at. And if you’re not used to expressing your emotions or asking for help to meet your needs, this principle may feel a bit scary or destabilizing. So go slow with this and stay compassionate towards yourself as you practice this principle.  

It’s also really important to understand that if you’ve been using food to cope with emotions for a while, that that behaviour has not only potentially been enabling harmful behaviours, but that it’s also been serving you in some way. You are getting a pay-off by emotional eating on a regular basis, otherwise you wouldn’t be doing it. For example, distracting and numbing yourself with food may give you temporary relief from uncomfortable or distressing emotions. It may give you something to look forward to in your day, as a form of escapism. It may be helping you get through your day-to-day life without doing something that could be way more harmful (i.e. hard drugs, or suicidal behaviours). So to just take food completely away as a coping tool right away might actually cause more distress. Building your self-care and coping toolbox, while maybe still using food to cope, can be OK. The bigger your coping toolbox becomes, the less important using food will become in helping you cope because you’ll have all these other ways to cope.

What are some other ways to cope? Making sure you're meeting your needs for self-care and nurturance, as described above is definitely a really important way to mitigate emotional eating. Self-care can be things like going for a massage or getting a pedicure, but more importantly, self-care is nourishing your physical, mental and emotional self on a daily or weekly basis. Things like getting enough sleep, spending time with loved ones, getting rid of old clothes, watching a fun movie, listening to music you like, moving your body in joyful ways, writing in a journal, seeing a therapist or coach, are just some forms of self-care.

Also, using other things to distract you other than food can be helpful as well. Things like going for a walk, doing a jigsaw puzzle, watching T.V., reading a book, going for a drive..etc. Distracting yourself from wanting to feel things sometimes is OK. Feeling your feelings and trying to deal with them all the time can be exhausting and isn’t necessary. So having other ways to distract yourself other than food can be helpful. 

Emotional eating is definitely a huge topic and often misunderstood or worse, demonized in the dieting world. There is still a lot that could be unpacked with this principle, but I hope you were able to take away at least these main points:

• Emotional eating is a not a bad or shameful behaviour. Some forms of it can be very healthy and a normal part of Intuitive Eating. While other forms can be more harmful and cause self-destructive behaviours such as binging and more painful feelings like guilt and shame. But this doesn’t mean you’re a “bad” person. Most likely the emotional eating is serving you in some way and it just means you may need to learn other ways to cope with your emotions.
• You have the right and total permission to express your feelings and get your needs met. Let me repeat that: You have the right and total permission to express your feelings and get your needs met. Period.
• It’s also OK if you have no clue how to start expressing your feelings or engaging in more helpful coping behaviours. If you feel like you need help with this, I’d strongly suggest seeing a qualified professional to help you with this, such as a therapist or psychologist.
• Stay kind and compassionate with yourself as you practice this principle. I cannot stress this enough. Beating yourself up if you have an emotional episode and “screw up” will only add to the guilt and shame you probably already feel. Instead try to view what you believe to be a “failure” as a chance to discover something new about yourself. Invite yourself to ask what it is you need right now and that you deserve to get that need met. The more you can identify what you’re feeling and what you may need, if you’re feeling triggered, the more you will trust yourself to deal with these situations with confidence, when they arise.

If any of this post resonated with you, you may be feeling lots of emotions right now. My intention was not to trigger anyone, but to educate and give you some tools and strategies to start practicing this principle. But if after reading this post you’re feeling unsettled, I invite you to take a few breaths and then decide what you need in order to deal with whatever is coming up for you. It could be sharing with a loved one what’s going on for you or maybe reading something waay less heavy, like celebrity gossip. Whatever you do, please take care of yourself.

Next - Read about the eight principle of Intuitive Eating: Respect Your Body.

References 
Tribole, E. & Resch, E. (2012) Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press

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