Ever wondered why your emotions dictate your eating habits? Join us as we unravel the complex relationship between our feelings and food, shedding light on how emotional eating stems from learned behaviors rather than mere cravings. We'll explore how both overeating and undereating become coping mechanisms for dealing with emotional turmoil, and how this can lead to poor emotional regulation, negative body image, and decreased self-esteem. Through shared personal stories and relevant research, we emphasize the importance of recognizing and addressing the emotional triggers behind our eating behaviors, urging listeners to understand that true change is an inside job.
Learn about 10 different types of emotional eaters and reflect on your patterns, understanding that behavioral change is a journey requiring repetition and perseverance. Just like a baby learning to walk, adopting new, healthier habits takes time and effort.
Take our test to work out which of the 10 Emotional Eater types could be your current eating pattern:
The Comfort Seeker The Nostalgic Eater The Social Feaster The Learned Eater The Stress Survivor The Biochemical Craver The Coping Challenged Eater The Self-Esteem Snacker The Boredom Binger The Feelings Avoider
We offer 12 practical steps for breaking the harmful cycle of emotional eating that you can employ today. Discover the power of mindful eating and the benefits of keeping a food journal, as we introduce strategies to help you cultivate a healthier relationship with food and emotions.
You can't feed your feelings with food, but you can find healthier ways to nourish them. Our feelings matter. You matter!
We wrap up the episode with this quote from Margaret Thatcher, reminding us that consistency is the key to meaningful and lasting change.
"You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it."
Ever wondered why your emotions dictate your eating habits? Join us as we unravel the complex relationship between our feelings and food, shedding light on how emotional eating stems from learned behaviors rather than mere cravings. We'll explore how both overeating and undereating become coping mechanisms for dealing with emotional turmoil, and how this can lead to poor emotional regulation, negative body image, and decreased self-esteem. Through shared personal stories and relevant research, we emphasize the importance of recognizing and addressing the emotional triggers behind our eating behaviors, urging listeners to understand that true change is an inside job.
Learn about 10 different types of emotional eaters and reflect on your patterns, understanding that behavioral change is a journey requiring repetition and perseverance. Just like a baby learning to walk, adopting new, healthier habits takes time and effort.
Take our test to work out which of the 10 Emotional Eater types could be your current eating pattern:
The Comfort Seeker The Nostalgic Eater The Social Feaster The Learned Eater The Stress Survivor The Biochemical Craver The Coping Challenged Eater The Self-Esteem Snacker The Boredom Binger The Feelings Avoider
We offer 12 practical steps for breaking the harmful cycle of emotional eating that you can employ today. Discover the power of mindful eating and the benefits of keeping a food journal, as we introduce strategies to help you cultivate a healthier relationship with food and emotions.
You can't feed your feelings with food, but you can find healthier ways to nourish them. Our feelings matter. You matter!
We wrap up the episode with this quote from Margaret Thatcher, reminding us that consistency is the key to meaningful and lasting change.
"You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it."
This is Reverse, reset, restore the show. That is all about learning to fall in love with your amazing self. We look at how we can reverse our old belief systems, reset our thinking patterns and restore our mental, emotional and physical well-being. If you are on a transformative journey, you've come to the right place. Let's do it together. Change comes from within.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to this week's episode where we delve into the intricate relationship between our emotions and our eating habits. It's a topic that touches many of us on a deeply personal level. How often do we find ourselves reaching for that extra slice of cake or indulging in a bag of chips? When we're feeling stressed, lonely or overwhelmed, we turn to food, hoping it will provide solace and comfort in times of emotional turmoil. Yet what begins as a well-intentioned attempt to soothe our feelings often spirals into a harmful cycle of self-abuse. As author Janine Roth aptly puts it, emotional eating is a learned behavior. We aren't born craving ice cream or french fries. It's the emotions that are driving our eating. This quote encapsulates the crux of our discussion today the intertwining of emotions and food in our daily lives.
Speaker 1:
Food, glorious food no way to avoid it. We need it for survival, but at some point in our evolution, it has become much more than just fuel for the body. It's become nourishment for the soul. All our big social events encompass food Weddings, birthdays, even funerals. We have festivals that celebrate it. Religions have ritualized it and cultures have claimed certain foods as their heritage. Food stands as a symbol for other things in our lives, such as fertility and abundance. It drives economies and environments, and is one of the most important and complex factors in our relationship with ourselves.
Speaker 1:
Food can make us appear fussy or controlling. It can make us sick or keep us healthy. It can be used as a weapon or as a reward. How many of us, as children, heard things like eat your dinner because there are starving kids in Africa, as though me eating what was on my plate was going to fill another person's belly? You know because, as kids, we took that expression quite literally, and so it never made much sense to me. Of course, what it really meant and what parents were trying to say is that don't be wasteful because others have it. Worse off. Some of us lose our appetite when we're feeling all the feelings, or refuse to eat to exact control or punishment over our bodies. And not eating can also be considered a form of emotional eating, albeit in a different context than overeating or seeking comfort through food. Let's look at this for a quick moment, because I think it's important to compare how eating and restricted eating that are driven by our feelings can impact us.
Speaker 1:
While emotional eating typically refers to using food as a coping mechanism to manage emotions such as stress, sadness or boredom by consuming excessive or unhealthy amounts of food, refusing to eat can also be driven by underlying emotional factors. In cases where individuals deliberately avoid eating or severely restrict their food intake, emotional factors such as anxiety, depression, trauma or disordered eating patterns may be at play. Refusing to eat can serve as a means of exerting control, coping with overwhelming emotions or expressing distress or dissatisfaction with oneself or one's circumstances. For example, individuals with eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa or avoidant restrictive food intake disorder, arfid, may refuse to eat as a way of coping with negative body image or low self-esteem or underlying psychological issues. Similarly, emotional distress or trauma may lead to a loss of appetite or disinterest in food as a manifestation of emotional turmoil. What I think is essential to recognize here is that both overeating and undereating or refusing to eat can be expressions of emotional distress and, ultimately, eating or not eating is weaponizing food and using it against our bodies, against ourselves.
Speaker 1:
In this episode, we are looking specifically at us emotional eaters, the ones who turn to food as a source of comfort or reward, or even punishment. Now, what I mean by punishment is that I know there have been times when I've punished myself with food I know has the potential to hurt me as a type 2 diabetic. Carbs, which ultimately all turn to sugar, are harmful to me. If you have any type of insulin resistance or metabolic disorder, this is likely to be true for you as well. So when I eat carbs, be it burgers or ice cream or potatoes or even fruit, I know that I am feeding myself food that my body doesn't like and doesn't respond well to. My emotions, on the other hand, love this stuff and when I was feeling sorry for myself or angry with myself, carb laden goodies were the things I used to punish my body. And I gotta be honest, I still fall into this trap from time to time, letting my monkey mind emotions win over the more reasonable me that wants to show myself self-love. So I still do fall back on old habits still, and my body pushes back hard because it's trying to tell me something. I have found myself in this bitter feud with my body, hating how it responds to certain foods, and then feeling guilty and shame and a lot of other emotions that just created this continuous cycle of abuse.
Speaker 1:
So we can absolutely use food to punish ourselves, especially if we are in a self-sabotage, self-hatred frame of mind. But self-sabotage isn't always seen as an obvious punishment. Nope, it can be insidious and sneaky and try to hide behind the comfort emotional eating can provide. We can use food as an emotional blanket or a warm hug that reaches our lips before settling into the hips. Research has shown that emotions play a significant role in shaping our eating behaviors, and studies have found that individuals are more likely to consume high-calorie comfort foods when experiencing negative emotions such as stress, anxiety or sadness. These foods are often laden with sugar, fat and salt, which trigger the release of dopamine in the brain, temporarily alleviating feelings of distress and providing a sense of pleasure and reward For many of us.
Speaker 1:
In the moment of eating that comfort food, we feel good, or at least better, and we all want to feel better, don't we? So why do we turn to food as a means to do that? The connection between emotions and food runs deep within our psyche, rooted in both biological and physiological mechanisms. From infancy, we learn to associate feeding with comfort and security, as our caregivers soothe our distress with milk or food. These early experiences shape our relationship with food, paving the way for emotional eating patterns later in life. Additionally, societal norms and cultural influences further reinforce this connection, as food becomes entwined with social gatherings, celebrations and rituals.
Speaker 1:
I've got a little test for you to do right now. I'm going to give you 10 different types of emotional eaters. I want you to score yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 for each one, 1 being the lowest, not like you at all, and 10 being oh, this is me to a T, and then I want you to add up which one most aligns to you. Now you might find that there is more than one that resonates with you, and that's okay, that's normal. This is an exercise for you to perhaps see something new about yourself, or maybe even kind of confirm the type of emotional eater you already know yourself to be.
Speaker 1:
Number one the comfort seeker. Food can serve as a temporary distraction or soothing mechanism for managing difficult emotions such as stress, anxiety, sadness or loneliness. Eating certain foods may trigger the release of neurotransmitters like serotonin, which can temporarily improve your mood. For the comfort seeker, there is a strong emotional connection to certain foods that remind them of happier times or provide a sense of security. This can also be linked to feelings of happiness and contentment, a phenomenon often seen in the months after someone gets married or when they're in a relationship where they're just feeling super happy.
Speaker 1:
Number two the nostalgia eater. Drawn to foods that evoke memories of happier times, the nostalgia eater finds comfort in the familiarity and nostalgia of certain foods. These foods are often associated with childhood experiences or cultural traditions, serving as a reminder of safety, love and connection. Eating these foods can provide a sense of familiarity and security, especially during times of emotional distress. Number three the social feaster. Food plays a significant role in social interactions and cultural celebrations. People may turn to food to bond with others, celebrate special occasions or alleviate social discomfort in social settings, using food as a social lubricant. The social feaster overeats in social settings to alleviate feelings of discomfort or anxiety. They may engage in mindless eating as a way to bond with others or distract themselves from social insecurities. They may also eat because of the expectation and pressures of others around them to eat.
Speaker 1:
Number four the learned eater. Individuals may learn to use food as a coping mechanism by observing family members or peers who engage in emotional eating. Having observed emotional eating behaviors in their environment, the learned eater has learned to use food as their coping mechanism. It becomes a habitual response to emotional triggers ingrained through repeated observation and reinforcement. Number five the stress survivor. Stress can trigger cravings for high calorie comfort foods as a way to alleviate tension and promote relaxation. The stress survivor turns to high calorie comfort foods for relief. Consuming these foods may provide a temporary escape from stresses, albeit with negative long-term consequences.
Speaker 1:
Number six the biochemical craver. Hormonal fluctuations and genetic predispositions influence the biochemical cravers, food cravings and emotional eating patterns. They may experience intense cravings during certain times, such as the menstrual cycle, due to biological factors outside of their control. Additionally, genetic predispositions and neurobiological factors may contribute to the biochemical craver's susceptibility to using food as a coping mechanism. Number seven the coping challenged. Some individuals may lack alternative coping mechanisms for managing emotions effectively. Without healthy outlets for stress or emotional distress, they may resort to food as a readily available and socially acceptable means of self-soothing, and emotional eating becomes their default coping mechanism in times of distress.
Speaker 1:
Number eight the self-esteem eater. Poor body image or low self-esteem can fuel emotional eating patterns. As individuals seek comfort or distraction from negative thoughts and feelings about themselves. Seeking validation and comfort, the self-esteem eater turns to food to temporarily boost their mood and distract themselves from negative self-perceptions. Eating becomes a way to alleviate feelings of inadequacy and bolster self-esteem, albeit temporarily.
Speaker 1:
Number nine the boredom binger. Boredom or feelings of emptiness can trigger mindless eating or cravings for food is a way to fill a void or distract from feelings. One of the telltale signs, at least for me, is if I'm bored which doesn't happen all that often, as I keep myself fairly busy is the number of times I will get up and open the fridge door or the pantry and stare into the void looking for something that hasn't actually been there. The previous times I looked in the last half hour, when I have finally become aware that I'm doing this, I realize I'm looking for food as something to do, not because I'm actually hungry, so I can then choose to find another way to sate my boredom. The boredom binger seeks stimulation through food as a form of entertainment or distraction.
Speaker 1:
And number 10, the feelings avoider. Janine Roth says we eat the way we eat because we are afraid to feel what we feel, using food to avoid confronting uncomfortable emotions. The feelings avoider suppresses or ignores their feelings by turning to food for comfort. They may have been conditioned to believe that expressing emotions is unacceptable or unsafe, leading them to seek refuge in food as a way to numb or distract themselves from their emotional reality. They may have been around people who didn't know how to regulate their emotions for themselves, and perhaps they got told that their feelings were too much.
Speaker 1:
Girls are allowed to cry, but boys over the age of what? 10 are not. Women who cry too much are drama queens, and men who cry are weak. Our feelings are not our own if they make other people uncomfortable. So we spend our lives walking on eggshells to our own emotions while trying to placate everyone else's. No wonder we are trying to smother our feelings with food. We are afraid to feel what we are feeling, either to express it or, worse yet, to deal with it. So let's just pile up the plate and ignore what's really going on. You can get away with this for quite some time, perhaps even decades, but eventually you won't. And if you don't deal with your feelings in a healthier way, your unhealthy eating habits will force you to deal with them, at least in how the body has. How did you go Out of the 10 types of eaters presented here, and on a scale of 1 to 10, how did you score which emotional eater type seems to appear most often in your life, or even right now? Understanding what emotional eater you tend to be can be helpful in developing strategies to address those times when you're feeding your feelings and cultivate healthier coping mechanisms, and we're going to look at what some of those strategies might look like for you in just a few minutes.
Speaker 1:
Before we get into that, I do want to have a quick look at seven consequences of emotional eating that can be harmful. The first one seems the most obvious right. Number one weight gain. Emotional eating often involves consuming high calorie comfort foods that are typically low in nutritional value. No one reaches for a salad when they are emotionally eating right? At least I don't. A study published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology found that emotional eating was associated with increased body mass index, bmi, and a greater risk of obesity. Over time, consistently overeating in response to emotions can lead to weight gain and associated health problems such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
Speaker 1:
Number two poor emotional regulation. Relying on food to cope with emotions can interfere with developing healthy emotional regulation skills. Instead of addressing the root cause of emotional distress, individuals may turn to food as a quick fix, leading to a cycle of emotional dependence on eating. Number three increased stress. Ironically, emotional eating can exacerbate stress levels rather than alleviate them. Research conducted by psychologists at the University of Michigan revealed that emotional eating was linked to higher levels of perceived stress and lower levels of emotional well-being. Feelings of guilt, shame and discomfort often follow episodes of overeating, adding to existing emotional distress and perpetuating the cycle of emotional eating.
Speaker 1:
Number four nutritional deficiencies. Emotional eating tends to involve foods that are high in sugar, fat and processed ingredients, which can lead to nutritional deficiencies over time. These deficiencies can negatively impact overall health and contribute to a range of physical and mental health problems. Number five negative body image. Continuously turning to food for emotional comfort can lead to negative body image issues and feelings of self-consciousness. This can further perpetuate the cycle of emotional eating, as individuals may use food as a coping mechanism for negative body image related emotions. Number six disrupted eating patterns. Emotional eating can disrupt your normal eating patterns, leading to irregular meal times, excessive snacking or skipping meals altogether. This inconsistency in the eating habit can disrupt metabolism and make it more challenging to maintain a healthy weight.
Speaker 1:
And number seven decreased self-esteem. Chronic emotional eating can take a toll on self-esteem as individuals may feel powerless to control their eating habits or ashamed of their reliance on food for emotional comfort. This can further perpetuate feelings of inadequacy and contribute to the cycle of emotional eating. As Astrid Aluda said, don't let your mind bully your body into believing it must carry the burden of its worries. So by this time in our episode, you have your emotional eating type and maybe recognized yourself in some of the seven consequences of emotional eating. The good news is is that, no matter where you are right now with your relationship with food and your body and your thought patterns and your eating, you don't have to stay there.
Speaker 1:
Creating a healthier relationship with food and your emotions involves developing healthier coping mechanisms, and that begins with awareness. And your emotions involves developing healthier coping mechanisms, and that begins with awareness and recognizing our triggers. What is it that is happening that creates the urge within us to find solace in food? It's about identifying our triggers, becoming aware of the triggers that lead to emotional eating. This may sound easier said than done, but that's just because you aren't yet in the habit of watching for this. Identifying emotional eating triggers is like turning on a light in a dark room. It's the aha moment where things can click into place. It brings clarity to why we eat when we're not physically hungry and even what food we turn to.
Speaker 1:
Once we understand these triggers, we can address them directly rather than relying on food to cope. Here's how it works Awareness. We can't correct, course, if we don't see we're going the wrong way. To begin with, recognizing the emotions or situations that lead to emotional eating is the first step. It might be stress, boredom, sadness, loneliness or even happiness. Paying attention to situations, people, experiences, thoughts and emotions that prompt the urge to eat is the only way we can begin to heal.
Speaker 1:
Awareness is a practice. It involves paying close attention to your thoughts, your feelings and your behaviors. Now, when you're first starting out, for every time you become aware, there are probably 10 times that you're not, and that's okay, because this is a learned skill and the more you practice, the more aware you'll become and the quicker that awareness will become to you too. Understanding. Once you've identified and once you've become aware, you can explore why these triggers prompt you to eat. For example, you might eat when stressed, because it temporarily numbs the feeling or provides a distraction. Or you might find yourself wanting to have a chocolate as a reward for dealing with a difficult person. The point is that once you recognize that something has triggered a response or a desire to eat that is not hunger-based but emotions-driven, you can ask yourself questions to get to an understanding of that trigger, or that the trigger exists, so that you can begin cultivating alternative coping strategies for managing emotions. I'm going to walk you through 12 practical steps you can take from today to let go of your emotional eating habits and foster a more balanced and positive relationship with food for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1:
Number one practice mindful eating. Cultivate mindfulness during meals by slowing down, savoring each bite and paying attention to your hunger and fullness cues. Focus on the sensory experience of eating, including taste, texture and aroma, without judgment or distraction. This may mean you have to put down your phone or turn off the TV. Mindfulness when eating regular meals can help establish a pattern in you where you begin to be much more mindful anytime you eat anything. This will also help you cultivate your awareness, building upon your ability to learn to spot your triggers before you eat rather than after Number two keep a food journal.
Speaker 1:
For those of you who are visual learners or enjoy keeping lists or notes, a food journal could be the perfect way to keep track of your eating habits and emotional triggers. Noting the emotions and circumstances surrounding your eating episodes can help to identify patterns and gain insight into your relationship with food. Not only is an eating journal a practical way of looking at your relationship with food, it could also help you, if you're having other potential issues with your health, to look into your diet. Sometimes we eat things that are not helpful, but we don't always put two and two together to realize that our food choices may be the reason for our health problems.
Speaker 1:
One of the ways I really had this drummed into me was the massive headache. I got sitting next to a table that had been laid out to celebrate someone with an afternoon tea. It was full of sweets. Within five minutes I had a pounding headache just from smelling the sugar. That's how sensitive my body had become to sugar exposure. I liken it to an allergic reaction and know that I ultimately do better when I cut sugar out. When I'm eating a lot of carbs, I tend to have a lot more headaches when I'm not eating carbs or I've eliminated most of them from my diet. My headaches are few and far between. My point is is that you might surprise yourself to find that exposure is similar to this, maybe what is setting you off, and a food journal can help you recognize this.
Speaker 1:
Number three explore alternative coping strategies. Develop alternative ways of coping with emotions other than turning to food. Engage in activities that soothe and nourish you, such as exercise, meditation, creative expression, spending time in nature or connecting with supportive friends and family members. When you catch yourself in a craving, look at an alternative way. You can acknowledge the feeling in a way that doesn't involve food. And if you are, for example, a boredom binger who tends to look in the fridge, in the pantry, every night after dinner, look at setting yourself up with a hobby that keeps your hands and your mind busy. Maybe it's knitting or sewing or doing something practical to move away from using food is the answer to break up your boredom.
Speaker 1:
Number four address underlying emotions. Explore the underlying emotions driving emotional eating, whether that's stress or boredom or sadness. Practice self-compassion and self-care to nurture your emotional well-being and develop healthier ways of managing emotions. Sometimes, emotional eating is a symptom of deeper issues, like unresolved trauma or low self-esteem or some relationship problems. Identifying and addressing these underlying issues with the help of a therapist can be crucial in breaking the cycle of emotional eating. Number five challenge negative thoughts. Challenge negative thoughts and beliefs about food, your body image and your self-worth. Cultivate self-acceptance and body positivity by focusing on your strengths, your values and your intrinsic worth beyond your physical appearance. Number six seek support. Again, this goes back to whether you reach out to trusted friends or family members or a therapist who can provide encouragement, accountability and guidance in your journey towards healthier eating habits and emotional well-being.
Speaker 1:
Number seven check in with yourself Throughout the day. Pause and ask yourself how you're feeling emotionally. Are you stressed? Are you happy, are you sad? Are you anxious? Pay attention to how these emotions influence your desire to eat. As Melissa McCreary says, the pause, even simply a breath taken, between hunger and eating, is the first step towards taking control. Number eight notice physical hunger cues. Learn to differentiate between physical hunger and emotional hunger. Here's a really simple way to tell which hunger is driving you. Physical hunger often comes on gradually and is located in the stomach, while emotional hunger tends to be sudden and focused on specific cravings.
Speaker 1:
Number nine don't incentivize food. Don't use food as a reward system. You know what I'm talking about the system you have where, because you went to the gym, you get to eat a whole large pizza, or because you got up an hour earlier every day this week to work out, you deserve to have the 3pm chocolate bar with the tea and the three biscuits as well. You see this happen a lot with kids. Parents or adults will incentivize a desired behavior or action with the promise of a treat. It sounds innocent enough, right and practical. You want ice cream? Eat your grains. You can have some candy when you've cleaned your room.
Speaker 1:
Incentivizing food as a reward reinforces the emotional connection between food and feelings of pleasure or comfort. It can undermine intrinsic motivation, which is the internal drive to engage in a behavior for its own sake. So, instead of enjoying the activity itself, individuals may focus solely on the reward, diminishing the pleasure or the importance derived from the activity, and it can be counterproductive to our goals, whether these goals might be improving our weight or health or longevity. Using food as a reward may provide temporary motivation or satisfaction, but it's not a sustainable or effective long-term strategy for behavior change. Alternative rewards that are unrelated to food, such as praise, recognition or non-food treats can be more beneficial in promoting positive behaviors.
Speaker 1:
Number 10, rephrase. Some people find having a word or a phrase when they have the urge to eat outside of fueling their bodies is a helpful strategy. If you're the type that listens to auditory commands, this might be a tip that you'll find works in your favor. For example, you might want to say dinner and done. If you're trying to break the habit of evening eating, that phrase is a reminder that you've eaten dinner and now you're done for the day. Or you might try saying something like kitchen's closed, or pop it on a post-it note for your fridge and your countertops as a visual reminder that you don't need to eat. Here's one that I've used for myself, both as a mantra and written out on a post-it note. What you are looking for is not in the fridge. And here's a couple more for you. I eat to fuel, not to fill voids. Am I feeding my feelings or are my feelings feeding me? I eat with intention. If you use any of these or others and find that they work for you, I would love to hear about it. Let me know in the comments on the Reverse Reset Restore Facebook page or Insta page or right here in the podcast episode. If you're listening on a streaming platform that allows, like Podbean or Spotify or the Reverse Reset, restore YouTube channel.
Speaker 1:
Number 11, practice self-compassion. Be gentle and forgiving with yourself as you navigate the process of change. Acknowledge that breaking the habit of emotional eating takes time and effort and practice. Some days you're going to win the battle and some days the emotional eating may win out. On those days, try not to belittle yourself or get angry or feel ashamed, because those feelings don't serve you. We all have days where we eat off plan or do things that don't necessarily have our best interests at heart. It's okay, you are human and in those moments, just try to practice some self-compassion. Yeah, you maybe did make the less than best choice. Don't get too hung up on it. The opportunity to choose differently will come along again. I guarantee it. Learn to love yourself, especially when you'd usually go hard on yourself, and remind yourself of the times that you do make the different choice. Celebrate those small victories along the way, and what you'll find yourself doing is making more of those small win choices, because they make you feel more empowered and feel better. And number 12, one day at a time.
Speaker 1:
Sigmund Freud says it takes constant repetition to force alien concepts on reluctant minds. Remember that forming new habits take time and requires consistent reinforcing through repetition and making the choice to choose the new behavioral eating pattern. Think about when a baby is first starting to walk and they fall down time and time again. But do they stop and think I suck, I suck at this walking thing, so I'm just not gonna even try? No, of course not. They keep going, crawling and falling and picking themselves up, only to teeter and fall over and over, until suddenly one step is followed by another and another and next minute. You can't even keep up with them Learning anything, whether it's walking or talking or writing or eating differently or whatever it may be, all our learning takes constant repetition.
Speaker 1:
What once was foreign concepts to us soon becomes second nature with practice, with time, with doing it over and over and over again. The difficulty of when it comes to changing ourselves as adults is that we don't always want to do it, no matter how much we know it's beneficial for us to make the changes we don't always want to put in the work. And why would we, when the world screams at us with quick fixes like diet pills and weight loss surgeries and a thousand different diets and exercise routines being hawked at us in every direction. We are impatient for things to happen now, but that's not how life is, my loves. Before we walk, we crawl. Before we talk, we babble. Before we read, we learn the letters of the alphabet. So remember that relearning new ways of living and being even with food is a one day at a time process, and that is perfectly okay.
Speaker 1:
By incorporating these strategies into your daily life, you can gradually shift away from emotional eating patterns and develop a healthier and more balanced relationship with food and emotions. Remember that change is a journey and every step towards greater self-awareness and self-care is a meaningful step towards overall well-being. What's your biggest emotional eating hurdle right now? Have you identified whether you are a nostalgic eater, boredom binger or comfort seeker, or one of the other seven emotional eater types? Out of the strategies listed here, which ones do you think you want to try to help you navigate a different relationship with food? I'm going to close out this episode with a quote from Margaret Thatcher. It's one that is universal and serves as a reminder that whatever you are facing today, whatever changes you want to make or habits you want to release. It can be done. It takes time, consistent and persistent, to see the results. Or, as Mrs Thatcher reminds us, you may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.
