There’s a Reason It’s Called “Comfort Food”

When life feels hard, people turn to food. And often, way more than they’d like.

That’s why 60 percent of our incoming clients say emotional eating is their #1 biggest nutrition challenge. It’s not hard to understand why.

Eating feels good.

As a result, food offers a pretty great, if very temporary, solution to our suffering.

Think of it this way: When you “stress eat,” you’re using food to solve a problem (anxiety, pain, grief, discomfort). Only it’s a problem that food can’t solve.

What’s more, most people who experience emotional eating feel trapped and guilty afterward, which just perpetuates the behavior.

But here’s the thing: Emotional eating can be so automatic you don’t even know what’s triggering it. If you can relate, here’s an unexpected approach that might help: Give yourself permission to overeat. It sounds odd I know, but it can help identify the very specific triggers, certain sights, smells, people, and emotions, that drive you to lose control. Here’s a scenario that describes what we often see with clients. Imagine that every Saturday afternoon, you find yourself plowing through a box of Girl Scout Cookies or a carton of Ben & Jerry’s or a bag of Tostitos, and a container of 7-layer dip. You’ve just “blown your diet” again, even though you felt totally in control when you ate lunch a couple of hours before. You feel frustrated and ashamed, and you’re always left wondering how it happened. But if you really started paying close attention, you might have an epiphany: It’s also the time you talk to your mom every week. Mystery solved.

So what do you do, exactly? Next time you get the urge to stress eat, treat it as an experiment. So yes, go ahead and overeat. It’s going to feel counterintuitive at first. Uncomfortable even. But view it as a learning experience, a necessary step in the process. (Plus, there are worse ways to learn.). And… Take notes. Use our Behavior Awareness Worksheet to document what happens and how you feel before, during, and after. Send me a message and I will gladly email one to you. Important note: This is a judgment-free zone.

The process will help you identify triggers, but it’ll also start removing, or at least, lessening, any guilt or shame you feel around overeating.

Often, if you’re “allowed” to overeat… It suddenly doesn’t feel as urgent.

When it’s no longer forbidden, the intense craving for a whole box of cookies sometimes turns into a more manageable desire for just one or two. So try to observe your experience as neutrally as possible.

If you’re having trouble…

Pretend you’re a scientist collecting data on someone else.

Afterward, review the worksheet. What do you notice?

Are there any patterns or ‘a-ha’ moments that stick out to you?

Maybe you notice that you head for the pantry right after getting off a stressful, two-hour-long conference call. And you realize you’ve been doing that almost every day for… weeks.

It’s possible you’ll have to do this experiment a few times before the trigger(s) become obvious.

That’s okay.

If this happens, do your best not to obsess about the decision to eat or not eat.

Instead, focus on learning more about your own behavior, and keep your worksheet notes handy so you can add to them as needed. Once you’re aware of the trigger, decide what to do about it. If it’s something you can avoid, great.

If your trigger isn’t something you can change or avoid, sometimes just being aware that you’re experiencing a trigger can help.

Your partner in health, Coach Jacki