Conquering Emotional Eating and Rediscovering Balance with psychologist Dr. Kim Feinstein

In this week's podcast episode, I'm joined by Dr. Kim Feinstein, a psychologist with expertise in eating disorders, body image, and successful weight loss strategies. Together, we explore the concept of emotional eating and discuss constructive approaches to navigate these tendencies, aiming to enhance our overall relationship with food. Dr. Kim's focus is on assisting individuals in establishing and sustaining healthy eating habits, breaking free from the cycle of yo-yo dieting, and releasing feelings of shame and guilt. Join us on a journey towards living the fulfilling life you've always desired.



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Transcript

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you feel guilt and shame and frustration and failure and defeat. And then the cycle almost reinforces itself again, because then you're like, Oh my goodness, I have to get back on a diet in order to control these feelings, control my weight and control my behavior. And the cycle continues, and that further perpetuates emotional eating. For years, I struggled with toxic relationships and understanding my own emotions. I found myself repeating the same cycles with different people and living in victimhood. I am Maria, your host, and I specialize in self mastery coaching. I've spent the last few years working with various therapists in order to heal my own traumas and help others. This podcast is your dedicated resource for gaining emotional intelligence, nurturing self awareness, and cultivating healthy relationships. If you're prepared to master your emotions, improve your relationships, and create captivating self confidence, Then this podcast is for you. Thank you for listening and welcome to this week's episode. Hey guys, welcome to this week's episode. I have an extra special guest for us this week and she is going to talk to us about emotional eating. She is not only an expert on this topic, but she's also an incredible human being and had the pleasure of meeting her a few months ago. And I now get to call her a friend. And she is Dr. Kim Feinstein. She's a psychologist who specializes in weight loss, body image and eating disorders. Now let's dive into this week's episode. Hey, Kim, thank you for coming on. Hey, thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure to be here. I'm excited for today. Yes. So Kim and I actually met at our Build a Brand, Build Your Own Brand, or Build Your Brand event. I think Build Your Brand Live, right? It's confusing, I get it. And we met there and it was Talk about synchronicities. The group of ladies we met was, everything just felt so aligned. We all kind of felt the same way. We all kind of liked the same things. We thought about the same stuff and we all aligned and it was a group of five of us. And I think I gave you a compliment. I think I said, I liked your shoes or something. And. And we just hit it off it was a pretty unique, special place. And I'm so excited and glad that we met. Oh, absolutely. Me too. It was, it was synchronistic and divine and, very much purposeful and meant to be. So, meeting you and all those women were, were such a gift from me. I know. I love it so much. And so today we want to talk about mostly emotional eating. So I want, do you want to tell people a little bit about what you do and how you got into the work that you do? Oh, sure. So I have been in private practice for over 23 years. I specialize in disordered eating, any type of eating disorder, anxiety, depression, and trauma, and how they are all interwoven. And, um, the majority of the people though, that do struggle with disordered eating or eating disorders tend to really Um, suffer from emotional eating. And so, um, I've been really practicing and preaching these skills for a very long time. I myself practice them. I have a history of struggling with disordered eating and emotional eating. And so this journey of helping others really came through as a result of my own, uh, wellness and treatment. And, um, now wanting to give back and help others and give them the same freedom with food that I've received. I love that because I've been myself whenever I've been anxious or stressed out, I definitely go to food or in the past. I think I've told you what we met as well. It used to be alcohol. I used to just drink to not feel my emotions and numb myself. And then when I released that, it was very much so just eating and not even eating when I was hungry. It was just more like, I just, I need to fulfill this, dopamine hit that I feel like my brain needs or something and I would look for it in food and then I would just not feel good about myself. So I guess what is emotional eating? Sure, so emotional eating is typically eating for any other reason other than physical need. It's a desire to really make yourself feel better in some way. So physical hunger and psychological or emotional hunger have a lot of differences. And so when we eat for physical hunger, it's typically accompanied by physical symptoms. We have some stomach rumbling, we have a headache, confusion, fogginess, little irritability I've been told. Um, and so when we have physical symptoms, those are signs of physical hunger. When we are experiencing emotional hunger or emotional eating, it's typically a result of eating for any other reason other than for physical hunger. And I think people get confused a lot with emotional eating too because you can eat for both positive reasons or negative reasons and it's still considered emotional eating. So you can have a negative stress. like anxiety, depression, work related stress, relationship related stress, but you can also have something called eustress, which is positive related stress like celebrations, uh, birthdays, new baby, new relationship, and dating. All of these things still contribute to a habit of emotional eating. Hmm. It's funny that you say that because that happens when you're single or when you start dating someone you should start going out to eat more and you might not even be hungry but you eat or you have a few extra glasses of wine and then you're adding up the calories. So that makes total sense. And just even hearing you say it out loud now, I'm like, Oh my gosh, how many times do I emotionally eat? I have a rule though. Like I won't have cake unless it's my birthday because I don't feel like it's If not, I'll be having cake all the time, celebratorial things. It can definitely catch up with you. So for many feelings are actually the most compelling reason for eating inappropriately. So typically 95 to 90. 8 percent of people who start out on a diet and just like we're talking about, you know, the beginning of the year and new year's resolutions and emotional eating, how it's all tied in by typically the end of January, you will have 95 to 98 percent of people struggling with. Holding to their New Year's resolutions because of emotional eating. Is it because of stress at that point because they've deprived themselves almost and then they feel like they have to compensate? Absolutely, there's a multitude of reasons I think that, contributes to that, but I think that one of the biggest things is, is when people think of dieting, they think of deprivation, they think of starvation. It's very much all or nothing. It's this, um, dieters mentality that we have. And so that only sets us up for kind of that. Thinking of, well, I'll just have one bite and then I'll get back on tomorrow and then tomorrow never happens or one bite becomes two bites and two bites becomes three bites and we cannot sustain that type of restriction for that long and then the whole cycle continues. So you have that trigger, which could be eating a piece of cake. It could be going to an event and then you're like, Oh, okay. You know, you kind of have some kind of rationalization or permission. Um. Or dieters mentality thinking where you're like, okay, I'll just have it for just tonight or I'll have one glass of wine. And then the next thing you know, is that you kind of fall off the wagon. You won't do emotional eating. Then you feel guilt and shame and frustration and failure and defeat. And then the cycle almost reinforces itself again, because then you're like, Oh my goodness, I have to get back on a diet in order to control these feelings, control my weight and control my behavior. And the cycle continues, and that further perpetuates emotional eating. You just spoke to me in so many ways, because you said shame and guilt, and as an emotional coach as well, that is something that I know are two emotions that are so heavy, and if we can't process the shame and guilt, it will, deteriorate us in so many aspects of our lives. If we can't get over it in relationships. So how do you even process that? Because there has been even in my own life where I'll be like, I won't drink today, or I'm going to go two months without drinking, and I'll have a drink, and then I feel so I'm able to process that with some tapping and things, but how about with food? How do we, how do we remove, or how do we work through that shame and guilt? Well, shame and guilt is really deep rooted. If you have been a chronic yo yo dieter for so long and you've been on a diet and off a diet or have lost. You know, five pounds to 500 pounds, and then Reeve gained any of it back. It really fuels a lot of guilt and shame. So guilt is the feeling that you've done something wrong and shame is deeper where you feel like there's something wrong with you. What's wrong with me. And so many of us are so successful in so many areas of our lives. And when it comes to food, we are just. unable to break the cycle. And that engenders deep shame because that makes us feel like there's just something wrong with me. I don't understand why I could do so well in so many other areas of my life. I'm a great mother. I'm a great partner. I'm a great person, you know, in my job. But when it comes to food, I can't do it. So therefore we developed this core belief of shame, which is there is something wrong with me. And so working through shame is part of the, um, Ending cycle of emotional eating, because once you make peace with food, you then retrain yourself to believe, okay, there's really nothing wrong with me. You know, maybe in order to create the change, you weren't ready, or you weren't motivated, or you just didn't have the skills and tools or support. And so it doesn't mean that there's something wrong with you. It means that you didn't have a system in place to foster success. And so that, you know, our behavior really is. tied to our feelings, our thoughts, and our shame. And so once we start retraining our behavior and we retrain some of the thoughts, we then start to feel better about ourselves and we can reduce some of that shame and guilt. It's a full cycle. Does that make sense? Yeah. No, it totally makes sense. And I think as you're speaking about that, it all comes down to us. And a lot of the work I do is bringing it back to like, where did the, these start, right? Where did the trauma start? Where did these? Feeling start. And I feel like a lot of us don't want to go there. We just want the body. We want the diet. We want the fast, you know, I mean, now there's like all these, um, and all these things that people are doing, you know, you lose a bunch of weight in two months, but how healthy, how unhealthy is that? You know, that's. It's not sustainable and it's not a lifelong journey and a lifelong thing. How have you in your own journey been able to sustain? You said you struggled a lot with it. How have you been able to sustain a healthy relationship with food? Oh, sure. That's a great question. I just want to kind of rewind a little bit with the Ozempic and all that craze right now because, you know, we really don't know longterm the dangers of these drugs. I do know that, um, there are a lot of people that are currently using them and they are helpful and successful in weight loss. I do know that they're not changing any of their behaviors, and they're not learning any new tools or skills, and they're not changing the way they're thinking. The medication is doing that for them. So I don't know what will happen once they stop taking the medication. I don't know if, um, they will have long term weight loss. What I do know is that the science of psychology and weight loss is very much rooted in evidence based skills where if you practice and learn the skills that I have actually been practicing and working through and working through my own shame and guilt surrounding, not just food, but anything else that was tied to it. That's how you truly make peace with food. So in my own therapy and how I help others is really. Kind of peeling back those layers and looking at your history of dieting, your history and relationship with food, your childhood messages that you've received surrounding food, society and diet culture, and the relationships that you currently have in your life. But I think the biggest thing that I believe and that. Uh, psychology, uh, has really proven to be is that your core beliefs are really what's going to fuel a lot of your behavior and a lot of how you feel. So if we can identify those experiences and times that your core beliefs formed, then we can also not only reframe those core beliefs, but then that will actually help you to have healthier behaviors, which then will make you feel better. And your shame. Just. starts to lift, you start to think, Oh my God, wait a minute. I can do this. I am able to, you know, learn how to say no to a craving and tolerate painful, difficult feelings without food. And you learn the skills to, um, you know, build up those confidences. And then over time you have these little wins that add up to one big, huge win of, wow, I believe in myself. I am capable. I can do this. And that's how the shame dissolves as well. So building your confidence and knowing that you don't need to use that to numb the feelings because like you said, It's it's just your core beliefs your core feelings. So when those come up, so with emotional coaching what I realize is that when emotions come up people want to numb them and they use food They use alcohol. They use distractions. They use sex they use You know, Instagram, we use so many things to distract. So I'm so like recognize that emotion, right? When you do feel stress for me, I know I will go for like sweets or something that like will make me feel good. But I have learned that I have to stop myself in my tracks and be like, what am I really truly feeling right now? And is that going to make me feel better or worse? And obviously it's going to make me feel worse. It might make me feel really good at the moment, but long picture, it's going to make me feel worse. So I think like you said, acknowledging that emotion. And what it is that you're actually struggling with. And I mean, I grew up Hispanic and in the Latin culture and the plates of food that were like given to us were like huge and it was rice and beans and meat. And you couldn't say no to food. If you said no, it was almost like looked down upon. Like, what do you mean you don't want to eat? You need to eat, but I'm not hungry. So I've even caught myself like repeating those cycles where I'm like. Oh, I should just eat extra or eat more because it's in front of me. So I catch myself now being like, no, I'm actually full. I don't need to eat everything on my plate. But I also realized that I started doing intermittent fasting because I felt like that's something that felt really good with my body. But then I would eat when I wasn't hungry because I had a limited time of hours to eat. Mm hmm. And that would stress me out more because then I was like, I need to eat by five o'clock, but I'm not even hungry and I have to go look for food and then I would overeat because I was like, well, now I'm going to go all these hours without eating. So I almost felt like I had to compensate for it. So I even learned recently, and this is the last few months I learned. That I don't, I don't need to do intermittent fasting and just eat when I'm hungry and sure cut myself off at a certain time of the day, like, don't eat too late, but eat when I'm hungry. Only when my body tells me I'm hungry. Yes. What you're saying is so true. And it kind of ties back to how I started with, you know, there's a. a formula basically of stopping and pausing and checking in with yourself. Am I physically hungry or am I psychologically or emotionally hungry? And again, those signs and symptoms, um, of physical hunger are really going to be your true test for the physical, um, you know, satiety. So what's interesting though, is that. We all grew up as babies knowing when to stop, right? Like we pushed the bottle out of our mouths. We cried when we were hungry. We were satisfied when we've had enough, but whether it's our family, whether it's our food rules, you know, your parents think that you should be eating more. The doctor tells you you should weigh more when you're a baby, you know. All of these things have disrupt our internal signals for hunger. And that's also something that needs to be reestablished when you start to heal your relationship with food and no longer use food for emotional reasons, because we have those internal cues. And so when we're looking for physical hunger, To, you know, satisfy physical hunger, we're very rarely looking for something that, um, is going to typically be something we turn to for emotional needs. So you know, I've never worked with anybody that was suffering emotionally and said, Oh my God, I'm dying for broccoli, right? It's always going to be something that's going to self soothe, never. for nourishment. And so I would love to kind of talk a little bit about if it's okay with you, kind of the differentiation of how you know if it's physical hunger versus emotional hunger. Because I think a lot of people need to be able to make that differentiation. Um, physical hunger really is gradual. So you were saying you did the intimate fasting, but then all of a sudden you had all these food rules and you weren't physically hungry because you had to eat within a specific time and you were just eating to get the kind of banking calories, so to speak. Yeah. But typically if you eat every two and a half to three hours, it does come on gradually, your stomach starts to rumble. Um, and then you have this sensation of, oh, this is what physical hunger feels like. Emotional hunger is more sudden. It comes on I don't know where, like one minute you're fine and the next minute you're like zero to 60 and you're craving. You could have heard something, you could have smelled something, you could have saw a commercial, you could have seen somebody eating, um, you could have walked into a room that has an association with food. You could have had a bad feeling that arose. It's like stress, anxiety, sadness, or even a happy feeling. And then it's typically for a specific food because you said that you. Um, you know, like sweet foods and you know, I also love to tell people it's really not your fault that you crave those foods because sweet and salty foods typically are carbohydrate laden and there's a physiological component to those types of foods that actually in boost our neurotransmitters for feel good feelings. And so the sugar, the carbohydrates are going to give you the same chemicals in your brain that exercising gives you or, you know, falling in love gives you the problem is, is that only lasts for 20 minutes and then it disappears and then it's almost like you need another dose. Right? And so what I like to say is emotional hunger is usually above the neck. It's usually like, Oh, that looks good. That smells good. That. Sounds good. Kind of using your above the neck example to differentiate emotional hunger from physical hunger. And so what you're saying is yes, you need to, the first step is always the awareness of what type of hunger is this? And then the second step is. Actually, what am I going to do about it? Right? So you have a list of questions that you ask yourself that guides you through some logical sequential process of, okay, is it this, is it that, then I need to pause and then, and I, and I love, I have a coping skill actually, that I love to give people that I think is super helpful for learning how to tolerate a craving or urge, and, um, I'd love to, you know, give that as a freebie to your audience too, if that's something that you think would be helpful. Oh, so helpful. I mean, I need it. Yeah. You know, again, the rule is, you know, 80 percent of the time. So 20 percent of the time, everybody eats for emotional reasons and it doesn't always have to be a negative emotion. But for those of us that really don't want to, and we really want to stop. Um, I really love, it's called the five D's and, um, the first, the first D is stands for delay. So as the intensity of a craving builds. Right. It feels like it's going to last forever. But the interesting thing about a craving is that if we let it just kind of ride the wave and surf the urge, it does dissipate no longer than 25 to 30 minutes. So what we need to do is really set a timer. Say, okay, I'm going to pause right now and I'm not going to eat this, whatever it is that you're craving for at least 20 minutes, okay? So it may feel like eternity and you may need to start just for five minutes and then build up for 10 and 15 and 20, but it does get easier the more you practice it. The important thing is the second D, which is to distract. So while you're delaying, it's important to distract yourself with something pleasurable. So it can be social media. It can be something as long as it evokes the opposite emotion. We don't want to make ourselves feel worse. We don't want to induce more shame if we see somebody or something that triggers us. Um, but you can, you know, go for a brief walk, read a book, um, take a few deep breaths, playing an enjoyable game on your phone, your computer. Um, even calling a friend. So that's the second D. The third D is distance. It's almost like step away from whatever it is that's calling you. Get out of that room. Get out of the fridge. Get out of the pantry. You know, get out of the drive thru wherever you may be. Um, but you need to definitely distance yourself. And then if the craving is still super intense, which most likely it's not after this amount of time, but if it still feels very intense, Um, I want to actually highlight the question that you usually ask, how will eating this make me feel in the long term? So we know that, you know, the benefit of the food that you're eating is only going to last 20 minutes. Um, you know that it's not going to be in line with your longterm goals. So See if you could self talk your way out of success. Um, and then the fifth D is decide. If all of the above D's are still not helping, and you really want to indulge, I'm going to give you some skills and tools in order to learn to eat mindfully so that you don't overeat whatever it is that you want to emotionally eat. Does that make sense? Yeah. So even if you do indulge, don't overdo it. Exactly. So the first step is basically ask yourself, how much am I going to go into eat? Am I going to eat the entire bag of chips or will I just have a some, am I going to have a portion? Am I going to measure it out? And so then you ask yourself, where am I going to eat? Am I going to eat my car? Am I going to eat standing up or I'm going to go to the table and truly enjoy the experience. How fast am I going to eat? Am I going to shove it in our mouth or am I going to chew it slowly and savor each bite? I kind of like to give the rule of 25 chews per bite because you really absorb a lot of the sensations and the taste that you need and you don't need as much. And then this is funny. People laugh at me when I say this one, but with what hand will you eat? So when someone's going to engage in emotional eating, I always encourage you to use your non dominant hand. Your non dominant hand is going to take you out of your emotional mind, put you into logical mind. It's going to feel awkward. It's going to feel uncomfortable, but it's going to keep you aware. So when you're emotionally eating, the goal is to become aware because the more aware you are, the less you'll eat. And so that's what I love to do when I'm struggling with a craving. I love to help others use those five D's, um, and I, and I get a lot of positive results. So I can give you a handout of all of that too, that I think would be super helpful. Yes. I think my listeners would love that. And I would love it. And I love that last part where the logical brain needs to be tapped in so that you make more logical decisions. So I'm going to actually have dinner after this recording, I'm going to start trying to eat with my left hand so I don't overeat. And the chewings are, I mean, it's another one that I've heard. Another funny one is eating with chopsticks. Oh yeah, that is so hard. You'll eat less just out of frustration. I know. I think the goal to decrease emotional eating is to always one ask yourself Am I physically hungry or emotionally hungry? If I'm physically hungry, I always want to encourage you to satisfy that physical hunger with something nutrition, a healthy, whatever meal plan you're following. If it truly is emotional hunger, the goal truly is to delay, to You know, step away to distance, to distract, to determine, and then decide, and then really slow down the process, learn some mindful eating techniques using your non dominant hands, some chopsticks, um, things that you can do to, you know, slow down your nervous system. Because if you can calm down your nervous system without food, you will start to build confidence that you don't need food to self soothe. Hmm. And you'll start building that confidence. So everything, it just comes back to just building the confidence in, even if you decide to indulge, like you said, allowing yourself to just indulge a little bit and giving yourself some rules and then abiding by those rules. And it builds your confidence. I love that. That is, I've actually done that. I think subconsciously without like doing it on purpose. I'm like, okay, I want a cookie, but I won't even eat the whole cookie. And I'll throw away like half of it. I'm like, okay, I had, I had a little bit and I felt, I feel good about it because it's like, I felt good, but I also felt good that I listened to myself and I gave myself a rule and I listened to my own rule and I abided by it. Yes. And the funny thing is, is that, um, there's science to show that after three bites, something doesn't taste any better. And so you get all your pleasure just from the first three bites of whatever it is that you're eating. So if you really slow down and savor those three bites, that's really all you'll need. It will satisfy the craving. Yeah, I love that. These are all such great tangible things, and I think this is going to set people up for long lasting stability throughout their year, so it's not a diet, it's not a fad, it's not intermittent fasting, it's not restrictions, it's just a lifestyle and just really giving your body what it needs, so I love that you gave this, gave us all these good pointers and good information, and I'm so excited that you're on here, and I can't wait to share I That the five D's with everyone. And is it kind of like a format or like a little, like a page that you can fill out or whatever? So what I can do is I will set up a, um, uh, a handout for emotional eating. I will have it on my, um, website and this way they can download it whenever they want. It's at www. DR kim feinstein.com, so D-R-K-I-M and then my last name, F-E-I-N-S-T-E-I n.com. And under resources they can download, this handout and guide and I will give additional tips and tricks on how to cope with cravings and manage emotional eating so they can be successful at the beginning of the year. Awesome. And if they wanted to hire you or talk with you, can they do that on your website as well? Oh, absolutely. Everything is there. In fact, um, I'm currently have a wait list for a program that I've created called the psychology of lasting weight loss, where emotional eating is actually one of the components of a larger program in order to help people make peace with food, get off the yo yo dieting rollercoaster and truly have lasting weight loss. And it's, it's going to be launching, very soon so they could sign up for the wait list and we can, get them healing their relationship with food so that they don't ever have to go on another diet again. I'd love that. What a gift. And I cannot wait for it to come out. And I'll, I'll put all your information in the footnotes of my podcast. And Kim, thank you so much. You're a great friend. I'm so happy to have you in my life personally, but I'm even happier to be able to share you with my podcast listeners. Thank you so much for coming on. Oh, thank you so much. I feel the same way about you. It's been an honor and a privilege to be one of your guests. I love your work and, I feel so lucky to be able to collaborate with you. So thank you for having me today. And I look forward to seeing you and all your guests again soon. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.