Mama,

Have you found yourself in the pantry, stressed out and eating Oreos, chips, or whatever you can get your hands on? One of the most common coping mechanisms for stress or overwhelm is emotional eating.

However, just because you’re an emotional eater doesn’t mean that you can’t lose weight or can’t break the habit! It just means you need to learn more about yourself so that you can break that cycle! The first thing emotional eaters need to learn is that it’s not really about the food.

I used to be an emotional eater.

My son was born with a lot of health problems. He had to have a few surgeries as a baby and it took a toll on me. Any time I felt anxious, stressed, worried, sad, or even relieved, I ate. I knew it wasn’t good for me but I couldn’t stop myself.

When I would emotionally eat, I would blame it on the food. The cookies sounded good. A neighbor brought over brownies so I had to eat them. The kids didn’t finish their food and I was too tired to make my own, so I just ate their leftover mac and cheese or nuggets.

Food was always the scapegoat. I told myself that food was the problem. Cravings were my problem. Self-control was my problem.

But none of those were the problem. I always say, it’s about the food, but it’s not really about the food and this is so true when we’re talking about emotional eating.

Emotional eating doesn't start with a craving. It ends with it. Emotional eating starts with an emotion or feeling.

Feelings lead to actions. When you find yourself mindlessly eating, it’s not because you’re hungry it’s because you’re avoiding dealing with a feeling that you’re having.

I found that happening so much with my son. I didn’t want to face my fears so I would ignore them and head for the fridge.

I’d eat, self soothe, and feel better for a minute. But then the tidal wave of guilt, shame and regret crashed down on me.

I would feel guilty for eating so badly.
I’d be embarrassed by how much food I ate.
And I’d regret it, swear to never do it again.

Until the next big emotion hit and I didn’t know how to deal with it and I’d repeat the cycle all over again.

After a while, I decided I had to do something about this. I knew emotional eating wasn’t a habit I wanted to pass down to my kids, so I dived into learning about emotional eating, why we do it, and how to stop.

And I learned that being able to recognize your emotional eating cycles and wanting to change it is a huge sign that you’re ready to overcome it.

The most important thing is to learn your triggers. And I know, triggered is an overused word these days. But, it’s actually very important to realize that everything starts with a trigger. Nothing starts from nothing, right?

Something has to spark the thought, feeling, or action. So yes, literally anything can trigger us, but we need to understand what triggers us to take actions that serve us and what triggers us to take actions that hurt us.

During one of my Macros Made Easy Program calls, I was talking with a Mama who had fallen off track for a few weeks and then got back on track. I asked her these two questions:

• What triggered you to get off track?
• What triggered you to get back on track?

Answering both of these questions is vital to understanding our habits and tendencies.

If you’re an emotional eater and you want to change it, I want you to answer those two questions and reply to me with your answers! We can work through them together!

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