Emily: 0:02

Hey,

Vanessa: 0:03

Hey.

Emily: 0:05

so today we're here to talk about emotional eating. Do you feel like you struggle with that at all?

Vanessa: 0:12

Not really. I would say I almost struggle in the other way, which is kind of part of it. If I'm really stressed or upset, I don't eat or I'll forget to eat rather than doing emotionally.

Emily: 0:25

And that's something that I really do want to touch on today. I ended up not eating at all when there's stress. And this episode is definitely still going to be super informational for you. And we'll touch on that topic as well.

Vanessa: 0:39

Yeah. Cause I think it's important to remember that not eating is just as, or more damaging than like bingeing.

Emily: 0:48

Definitely being malnourished is absolutely not cool. Or whether it's an acute scenario or a chronic. So we'll definitely touch on all of those and do some general. Myth-busting about emotional eating.

Vanessa: 1:03

And you know what I'm actually, while we're on the topic, I feel like during college I was malnourished. Like I was not eating. I was definitely stressed a lot. I mean, you, we know this

Emily: 1:18

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yes.

Vanessa: 1:21

I was not eating properly for sure. I feel like I wasn't eating very much. I definitely skipped a lot of meals. And again, not necessarily on purpose, it was just because I was stressed and not feeling hungry, so I just didn't eat. And it's really interesting I would say, you know, as far as my appearance or weight, I probably looked about the same. But there's just different cues. You know, when you look at pictures and you see your skin, or just certain things that just don't look as good.

Emily: 1:55

Yeah. You're like, yeah, totally. Your hair is less, has less of a luster to it. Your skin is less glowy. It's totally, there's so many different indicators that we're not getting enough food. And

Vanessa: 2:10

is not happening. Like I would miss periods like two months at a time.

Emily: 2:16

It's not good. So we'll definitely be addressing the whole lack of eating as well, which I feel doesn't get talked about as much for sure.

Vanessa: 2:25

Yeah. Okay. Let's get into it. Hey, welcome to wellness myths. So today we're talking about emotional eating and this is something that's kind of more in Emily's wheelhouse. So she's going to be taking the lead on this one and I'll be asking lots of questions. The reason I'm asking Emily the questions today is because she actually just finished her intuitive eating counselor certification, which is super awesome. Congratulations on that. But now, uh, we have lots of questions for her

Emily: 3:06

And I'm so excited to answer them. I just want to say too, that if any dietician or therapist is listening to this and wants to be able to bring this information to your clients and patients I highly, highly recommend Evelyn Tripoli's course for intuitive eating counselor certification. She does a fabulous job and. I learned so so much and I really recommend it.

Vanessa: 3:38

So let's just start it off with, can you tell our listeners what emotional eating is?

Emily: 3:44

So most of us think of emotional eating as coping with our emotions via food. Like we said, in our intro, this can show up in a lack of an appetite, or it can show up in eating Maybe. more than you normally would because of these emotions. So before we even kind of get into that, so that's just sort of the definition we're using our emotion or we're using food as a coping tool for our emotions. And there's a lot of different nuance in this. So just kind of bear with me.

Vanessa: 4:14

I feel like the classic emotional eating that people think of is like sitting on the couch, crying, eating ice cream from the car.

Emily: 4:24

I was literally just going to say Ben and Jerry's post breakup. My post breakup. I've only had one true breakup in my life and it was with the person I'm now married. But I did not have that reaction at all. I was literally like drop 20 pounds. Miserable. Could not eat anything. I remember sleeping over at my friend's house and she's like, Emily, will you just eat like a cracker? And I was like, I can't, I'll throw up. But there's definitely situations where I feel the opposite way too. And I feel like I want to use food in a way to make me feel better. So before we kind of get into that, There's four types of hunger, and you really need to know this in order to navigate your own emotional eating. So there's physical hunger. That's exactly what you think it is. When you feel like a growling sensation in your stomach, you might have a headache, lightheadedness, all of these little cues that tell yourself, okay, it's time to eat. And those cues are not coming from external sources, right?

So it's not like, oh, it's 12: 5:16

00 PM. It's lunchtime. Let's see. No, this is coming from that internal call. Then there's emotional hunger, which is what brings about emotional eating, right? When we're using food for that comfort, there's taste hunger. Right. You might feel super full, but you're like, oh, it tastes so good to me still. I just want to have one more bite. Think of dessert, right? You've already had your dinner. You've gotten all your physical hunger needs met, but you still want to just try that. And then there's practical hunger where maybe the clock strikes 12 and it's lunchtime. And you know, this is the only time you have to eat. So even though we're not feeling this huge hunger cue in the body, we think, okay, let's eat something, maybe a granola bar, some nuts. Whatever that can tide us over until when we can eat next, because it's not practical to be able to just eat whenever we feel like it. Not for everyone and everyone's lifestyle, if that works for you. That's great. And I'm happy for you. But most people have kind of a schedule and they'll have to use that practical hunger skill. And another example of that would be this morning. I finished my workout and I was going to my hair appointment and I was not hungry at all, but I knew, I mean, I get a full head of highlights, so I was going to be there a long time. And so I'm thinking, okay, let me hurry up and eat something really quick before I go and make sure that It's a pretty decent amount of food, because I know that I'll just feel awful afterwards if I get home and I haven't eaten all morning. So that's just kind of an example of practical, huh?

Vanessa: 6:45

It's kind of interesting too. I feel like we're conditioned our whole lives to be hungry at certain times. Like once at school and when we were little, you can only eat at snack time, then you can eat at lunchtime and then, you know, work, you have, most people have a set time for lunch. So I feel like so many people experienced that. It's hard to listen to your hunger cues when you only can eat at certain times.

Emily: 7:13

Yeah, definitely. It's really hard. And hunger itself can be, should be and will be an episode of its own at some point, because there's so much to consider there as well.

Vanessa: 7:26

Like we mentioned a lot of times people think of emotional eating. Like you're really sad and you're crying with that carton of ice cream on the couch. But what about like boredom? Would that be considered emotional eating?

Emily: 7:43

Yeah. So I consider that more of a situation where we're honoring our taste hunger, where we're just kind of bored and we're looking for something exciting to do. And that's something that might feel fun. And sometimes that comes in the form of food. So with that, I always just kind of caution people to be like, okay, This is really a preview of what we're going to talk about, but really coming into, like, why are you bored in the first place? And what can we do that doesn't have to do with fulfilling, you know, mostly biological need that you might not really need to be fulfilling. If we're just eating for that boredom reason.

Vanessa: 8:22

So how can people differentiate between real hunger, physical hunger, and just emotional?

Emily: 8:32

First identifying kind of how you're feeling. You know, emotional eating in general can happen during stressful times. Right. And we're saying, of course you use emotions with food. Other times, like happy times can bring about certain desires for celebratory foods. But you know, mostly with, with emotional eating, we're talking about stress and anger and sadness, all of those things. If you're feeling confused about what's real hunger, like physical hunger and emotional eating, I would say, first of all, that we've got to work on those physical hunger, cues. And so, you know, really what they are and how we can differentiate them. But if a lot of the times you're in that stressful situation and it's feeling really overwhelming. We don't know what to do. There's a lot going on. You can use the five minute rule, so you can take yourself and be like, okay, I really want to eat. Let's say these egg rolls in the freezer. Right? That's something I enjoy eating. So, so you really want to eat these egg rolls and you know, you've had a really long day and you're feeling really stressed and you just ate dinner. So like maybe you're still hungry. Maybe you need more dinner so then we stop and ask ourselves, how are we feeling emotionally? What's really going on inside. And if the answer is yes, we're feeling really stressed, then maybe take some other activity or other coping mechanism for five minutes and then tell yourself, okay. If I go do this other thing for five minutes and I still want the egg rolls afterwards, I'm going to go have them. Right. Because it's not really about restricting, right. It's not okay, we can never use food emotionally or anything like that. We want to be able to have a lot of flexibility within our eating. So really we just want to give ourselves some time and space to let everything kind of calm down. And so we have those five minutes to give ourselves a little bit of. To Ariel, we have those five minutes to lessen the intensity of the emotional? response.

Vanessa: 10:28

Yes. Times, I know this is a message that people probably hear a lot maybe in their doctor's offices or in social media. And it's oh, if you're feeling hungry or if you think you're feeling hungry, drink water instead, what would you say to that?

Emily: 10:42

I was literally just going to say, she's going to say drink glass. I would say if you're really in tune with your hunger cues, you know, when you're hungry, you don't need to drink a glass of water. It's kind of silly because if you're really feeling hungry and you drink a bunch of water, it might give you this false sense of fullness. And then you're going to feel even more hungry and a little bit hunger. You're really listening to those deep hunger cues. It's never going to lead you wrong. You're not hungry for no reason. A lot of people think that and. You know, if we're looking at it through an emotional eating lens, sometimes that hunger might be influenced by how we're feeling that? day. But if you're having those physical hunger sensations, no, you should just eat always.

Vanessa: 11:25

I know you talked about some tips too, you know, figure out whether you're actually having physical hunger or if it's emotional hunger. So if you say, you know, you decide I'm going to do the dishes and decide if I'm still hungry after, and afterwards you're thinking, well, I'm not actually physically hungry, but I still want. Is it okay to eat them?

Emily: 11:52

So this is going to be another typical dietician answer of it depends. So food is a comfort. There's no getting around that. And as I mentioned a million times already, that's okay. The key is we want to have multiple other options. So emotional eating is not always a bad thing. It's totally okay to go ahead and eat that, you know, egg roll in your freezer. I just can't stop thinking about the egg rolls in my own freezer. So using that exact example,

Vanessa: 12:22

Are you about to go home emotionally, eat some egg rolls.

Emily: 12:27

Probably not because I didn't had a gallon of cold brew as we're recording this on Friday evening.

Vanessa: 12:33

Okay.

Emily: 12:33

That's my like excitement for the night. So what you really want to think about in emotional eating is that it's awesome. Food is there for us as a comfort. It's a steady. Reliable form of coping. But the problem is it can't be our only option. So is it healing our root cause? Whatever the root cause of the emotion is sometimes we just need a bandaid for coping and that's fine. Especially if you're feeling kind of out of control and frantic. We want to have kind of. Uh, moments to breathe. And sometimes it's not all about healing that root cause right away. Sometimes we just need to find something where we can feel Okay. in the moment. And sometimes that might be food, but I would really encourage you to have other avenues as well.

Vanessa: 13:27

Okay. So what are your tips for someone like me that when I'm stressed or sad or having whatever emotion I typically don't feel hungry.

Emily: 13:37

Yeah. So that's when we're going to go back to remembering our four types of hunger, and one of those is practical hunger. So for some of us who feel that lack of an appetite during stress, we want to find whatever foods that can kind of work as nourishment as self-care. And basically what that means is something that's really tolerable and that's really. Maybe blend benign so that you can usually get down. Some people it's like yogurt or a smoothie or granola, or a favorite type of protein bar, or it can really be anything right. At the point when we're restricting foods so much that we're like not eating all day. Yes, of course, you know, I'm a dietician. I would love if you ate like a big nutrient dense salad, but if you can only get in like a candy bar, I'm fine with that. You just need to get some kind of calories in your body at that point. So not stressing so much about nutrition in that space, because sometimes I think when we stress so much about it, we forget okay, we're just a human being that needs calories at the end of the day. Like the very rudimentary Kind of guidance. And so if we're feeling so stressed, we can't even eat, then I'm wanting you to eat whatever. So making sure that you're not overly concerned about. Specific foods at that time and giving yourself a lot of grace but really identifying for you, those nourishment as self care foods and having them kind of in your arsenal, maybe you have, you know, these bars in your house or you have whatever kind of food that you're able to keep down in that situation nearby so that you're prepared if it does happen.

Vanessa: 15:13

Great tips, Emily, did you see me fall out of my.

Emily: 15:18

No. I was looking up thinking really hard. And then I looked back and you were like, laughing your ass

Vanessa: 15:24

Well, Craig just came in. He like, he just opened the door and for listeners, my back is against my closet door. We record in our closets for sound quality. And

Emily: 15:35

welcome.

Vanessa: 15:37

I literally just fell back. I don't know what he thought he was going to do in here. I'm sure you can hear me out there, but I'm sorry, everyone. I got real distracted by that. So for those who are eating, when they're emotional, what are some tips to stay in control there?

Emily: 15:59

Okay. So I just made, Vanessa asked me this, like verbatim, how she typed it out earlier, because I get this question so often and this word I hear so often with clients and even just people in my life who are confused about their own eating habits and it's control. So. When we're looking at eating control is really kind of. Not the word that I want to use, and it can be a little bit of an illusion, right? Replace control with awareness. So we're not trying to necessarily control or decide what our behavior will be with emotional eating. We're trying to develop a deeper connection between mind and body so that if we do eat emotionally, it feels less frantic and more connective and supportive. W, and it's something that comes up so often people say, oh, I I'm so bad at monitoring what I'm eating or modulating my eating or staying in control. And that's what kind of leads to that restrictive mindset. And especially when we're emotional eating, we don't want to end up in that restrictive mindset because what it really ends up doing is causing us to overeat because it's really hard to find satisfaction when we're in that space. And, and that's kind of another risk with emotional eating. So developing awareness with emotional eating, it's really important too. Focus in on your food. So if you're knowing, okay, I want to use this as kind of a little pick me up right. For my day, when you're engaging with that food, try not to do it in front of the TV, or while you're in a serious conversation with your partner or while you're finishing up some work at night, try to do it where you can really key into that satisfaction and allow yourself to take the pleasure from it. That can be really important and impactful.

Vanessa: 17:44

Yeah. That's a really, really important distinction. And I guess something that I think about, and I hear from clients a lot is so many people feel like they can't trust themselves. Like how many times have you heard? Oh, I can't have this food because I'll just eat the whole bag or I'll eat. If I have one, like lick of peanut butter, I'll eat the whole thing.

Emily: 18:08

Yeah, totally, totally. And that's the thing is it comes from years of trying to control what we're eating and it just totally backfiring and bringing it back. A lot of restriction. And so that's why, when we're emotionally eating, we're not trying to be like, okay, you know, you can only have 17 ships because that's what the serving size says. We're trying to key into our hunger. And at the same time, it doesn't mean eat 700 chips because who cares and you know, you're just giving up. No, that's not it at all. Eat the chips that tastes good to you and that you eat it in the amount that satisfies you. And so we're trying to hit all the hunger areas, right? Maybe you're trying to hit taste hunger. So you want it to taste good to you. If you're trying. Heal and emotional need. Maybe you're like, okay, I want it to be something that excites me and that, you know, gives me that pick me up kind of vibe, and then you want it to be practical. So you want it to fill you up in a way that's nourishing, right? Maybe you want to make sure there's some protein in it, something like that. And then you want it to fill you up in a physical hunger sense as well. So they're not always going to be all hit at once. Right. But the key is really that we don't need it to restrict foods in order to feel. At peace with them. And that's really the biggest takeaway of the entire episode about emotional eating is that you don't need to restrict foods to feel at peace with food.

Vanessa: 19:34

Yeah, it almost makes me think of uh, with teenagers. If you tell them not to do something or not even teenagers, everyone really propel them not to do something. It makes them want to do it more. Or that you aren't allowed to, you know, do whatever. I mean, it's the same thing with food. If you're telling yourself all the time, oh, you can't do that. No, that's a special occasion or whatever. It just increases. Your desire for it.

Emily: 20:03

Right. And you know, a strategy that sometimes I use with clients is that exposure therapy of the food. You know, if you really think that you want to eat peanut butter cups for every meal, try that for a day and let me know how it goes. I'm, I'd be really curious to hear. And, you know, a lot of the times people, especially with emotional eating are like, If I'm feeling upset or I'm trying to fill a void, don't let me round cake. Right. Well, when we start to heal this relationship with food and start to develop other coping mechanisms and, you know, doing all of these things, we find out that we don't really even cake that much, right. Or there's all these different kinds of things, which we talked about this way back in the beginning of our first podcast episode ever about intuitive eating You know, it's just, we kind of have all this stuff built up in our minds and we're ignoring those messages from the body, whether it. comes to how much we're eating, what we're eating, all those types of things. There's so much external bullshit messaging that we receive and that we give to ourselves.

Vanessa: 21:03

Yeah. I mean, I think we're smarter than we give ourselves credit for too. I mean kind of like you mentioned, I mean, if you're going to eat, so if you're going to eat 700 chocolate chips, I mean, that's probably not going to make you feel very good.

Emily: 21:21

Wait, can we talk about how can we talk about how my dog has since passed, but Winston, he ate an entire bag of butterscotch candy chips. Like they were like chocolate chips, like butterscotch flavor. He ate an entire bag. It was over 5,000 calories.

Vanessa: 21:39

Well, listen to this. One of our friend's dogs, a, an entire bottle of ibuprofen. I think it was ibuprofen. Uh, Phil and Brenna, if you're listening, I'm not sure what Billy ate, but I know it was some kind of painkiller and I mean, like he's still kicking.

Emily: 21:56

he's fine. Yeah. Winston was totally fine too. But you know, maybe a little bit of digestive upset, but really not enough to. I felt like he should have suffered a lot more for eating that money. Anyways.

Vanessa: 22:08

But the moral of the story is for most people, you know that, okay, if you a 700 of something, you're probably not going to feel very good. And most people don't enjoy not feeling good. So you probably wouldn't do that again.

Emily: 22:25

Right. And, and that's kind of the key things that we watch out for in too in emotional eating. It's Is it really helping you feel better if you're bingeing on the food and then you've got a stomach ache. And sometimes that can be something that we do to Kind of circumvent the feelings that we're having that are uncomfortable, like sadness or grief or anger or stress. And then we kind of numb out with the food and then you just feel kind of stomach achy and not great. So that can be a coping pattern that some people have.

Vanessa: 22:55

Kind of giving yourself something else to focus on.

Emily: 22:59

Right.

Vanessa: 23:00

So, give us some practical tips for having more awareness around emotionally.

Emily: 23:08

Yeah. So the another huge takeaway is we want people to not have emotional eating as your only coping option. So start having conversations about other coping tools. You could even put it like on the notes app of your phone, so you can find them really easily. You can write them down, put them on your refrigerator, coping mechanisms that you can use in a quick pitch. When you're really going for food. And once again, It's not Yeah, because eating is the worst thing we can do at all costs. And we can never use food that way. It's just because we want to use something that's really, effective. And food might not always be that right. Ice cream is not going to fix like the biggest problems in your life. If only it was that easy. And you want to diversify that, right? Have something like your list could say going for a walk, it could say calling your friend, it could say playing with your dog, all these kinds of different things. It could be scheduling a therapy session. And then if you're really in the throws and you're thinking, oh my God, I need this food. I need this food. I don't even have time to deal with all of these things, whatever, try just doing something else for five minutes, we talked to us a little bit earlier and then five minutes later, you're still feeling the desire for the food. Then go for it. Sometimes this can take the intensity off of the need and you might be able to enjoy the food. More food can totally be plan B. It's not that you can't use it. It's just that we want to diversify and we want to have coping mechanisms that give you better results than just feeling uncomfortable from overeating. And the last step is identify the root problem of what's going on. Is it that you can't stand your job? Your partner is driving you crazy. Can you do anything at all to solve that problem? And that might be something that we think about kind of after the emotional eating occurs or after that urge is already there. Because in that moment, we might not be the most clear headed where we can identify the root problems. Intuitive eaters in general, end up fostering a lot more. Self-awareness just because it kind of pulls everything to the surface. And that's why a lot of the times that folks that I work with also have a mental health professional, a therapist, or a counselor to also help you really uncover these root issues. And so that you can stop using food as your only tool.

Vanessa: 25:22

So, what are your thoughts on if you, I have a friend or a partner that is an emotional eater and reaches out to you not to you specifically, but to their partner and asks, you know, how the partner might be able to help. With their emotional eating. Obviously it's a journey. Yeah. You kind of have to go on by yourself, but is there any way that a partner, a friend could have.

Emily: 25:51

Yeah, Having a support system with this kind of stuff is really important. and You know, there's of course all this different spectrum of emotional eating in general. You know, if you're having something where you're feeling so much shame around food, you end up bingeing a lot, whether it has a purging component or not. Those are the kinds of things that it's really hard to help a friend with, right. That needs to be seen by a professional. And I just want to give that kind of disclaimer here. With a partner it's really important that we come from a space of zero judgment and a lot of the times people do feel shame about emotional eating and we're really conditioned that it's weakness or. You know, it's a extremely bad thing to do when it's really not. And when it's really common and so. I think really asking your partner some questions about how they feel about their relationship to food in that way can be helpful. Just to see if it's something that's maybe on their minds, if they're coming to you for help, then definitely finding the resources in your community. Maybe you have an intuitive eating dietician that you could refer them to, or encouraging them to bring it up with their therapist. And just continuing to. Encourage them and really holding space and giving themselves and giving them some grace. You know, w we don't really have to say mess up. But you know, if it does happen where they do emotionally eat at some point, or they're having an overeating kind of night or anything like that, just giving themselves grace and being like you're going through a lot and really validating that concern with them and saying, you know, I'm glad that food is there for you in this moment, because to help you maybe feel a little bit less of what you're feeling at this point in time and non-judgment attitude. Not only to how you're speaking to them about the condition, but even when they are emotionally eating, continuing that, non-judgment not saying, oh, haven't you had enough chips or, oh, it hasn't been that enough, really avoiding stuff like that. Because as we said before, controlling what you eat is really just a pathway onto feeling even less in control. It has the opposite effect.

Vanessa: 28:01

Yeah, and I think it's really important kind of like you mentioned. You know, if you feel like your partner is an emotional eater asking for permission or waiting for them to ask for help. Know that I think Emily does this a little bit too. So my husband isn't necessarily an emotional eater, but I will make comments sometimes if I feel like he. Eating a lot. And I know it's going to make him not feel good. I'll make a comment like, Hey honey are you sure you want that, you know, second plate or whatever it might be. And it's purely out of a place where I'm like, I know, but you're going to eat this. And then you're going to lay on the couch and say your stomach hurts, but he'll be like, oh my gosh, you're not supposed to do that. You're a dietician. You always tell people that they shouldn't be judging what other people are eating and. I'm not judging you. I just don't want you to be uncomfortable.

Emily: 28:58

Yeah, And it's, it's so interesting to hear you say that because what I'm hearing is that you care about it. And that's really the root of the situation. So you have to really get clear with yourself. Okay. What is my intention here? And also, how is this going to come across? And if your intention is that you care about him, then can you say it in a different way that doesn't come with the unintended. Reaction from him that he feels like you're controlling him or something like that. So yeah, that's a really good point. I'm glad that you shared your perspective on that, for sure.

Vanessa: 29:36

Yeah, you gotta be real careful people when you're a dietician like in your husband. Trust is always like trying to tell you, you wouldn't say that to a client. I'm like, well, you're not my client.

Emily: 29:49

Yeah. I was telling him that. I always tell him that, like I'm off the clock, bro. I'm not looking to you know, have a whole deep convo about what you're eating. I'm just saying like things before you eat, like your 60 ounce Slurpee tonight, like that's just, all I'm saying is you know, just, just triggering a little conversation for you to have with yourself.

Vanessa: 30:10

Yeah. That's not necessary. We probably, uh, wouldn't put it so frankly to our clients. But we do to our husbands, we don't sugar coat it.

Emily: 30:22

No. And I could learn something, I could learn something I could, I could, uh, you know, frame things a little nicer too, and something I'll work on.

Vanessa: 30:32

Yeah. So, if somebody is out there and wants to work with a professional what's the best way that they can contact you.

Emily: 30:42

Yeah. So if you're still struggling with emotional eating and you. kind of need help sifting through the root causes, finding out those other coping mechanisms for you, you can visit my website@wwwdotemilyraywellness.com. I have a form submission on there. You can fill it out. Shoot me a quick message. Or you can DM me on Instagram. I'm just Emily Ray wellness on there too. And we'll leave the links in our episode notes. Okay.

Vanessa: 31:09

Awesome. Thanks, Sam.

Emily: 31:14

Okay.