Intuitive Eating Challenge Day 7: Cope with Your Emotions with Kindness
Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, the creators of the Intuitive Eating approach, say:
“Food is love, food is comfort, food is reward, food is a reliable friend. And, sometimes, food becomes your only friend in moments of pain and loneliness.”
Food and dieting can be a means of coping with very difficult emotions. In Intuitive Eating, there is a continuum of emotional eating:
Sensory gratification - This is where we reach that intuitive eating principle of finding satisfaction and pleasure in the food you eat. When we enjoy what we are eating, we are more able to be in tune with our hunger and fullness cues.
Comfort - We often reach for certain foods for comfort, such as eating chicken noodle soup when we are sick, or curling up with a cup of hot cocoa after a day of skiing. However, when we constantly reach for food for comfort, it can become an issue.
Distraction - This is when food can be used as a means of distracting from difficult emotions. Feeling your feelings all the time can be exhausting, and using food to occasionally cope is ok. However, if you notice yourself frequently doing so, it can become an issue where you are not tending to why the emotions are occurring.
Sedation - Food is used as a means of reaching a point of numbness, or a “food coma”. Eating to this point is a way for a person to disconnect from distress in both their inner and outer worlds.
Punishment - This is where a person might feel so angry with themselves for their food consumption, that they begin to actively engage in binge eating as a way of punishing themselves (e.g., deserve the terrible stomach ache or post-binge guilt).
Emotions that might activate emotional eating:
Boredom and procrastination
Bribery and reward (for example, bribing a kid to finish their meal by saying they can have dessert)
Excitement
Soothing
Love
Frustration, anger, and rage
Stress
Anxiety
Mild depression
Being connected (for example, eating when with a group of friends)
Loosening the reins (for example, a person might feel over-controlled and rigid in all other aspects of their life, and they give themselves permission to be less controlled with food”
Intuitive Eating questions to ask yourself before you engage in emotional eating:
Am I biologically hungry? - If you are hungry, eat! If not, ask yourself the next question.
What am I feeling? - Write or talk it out to figure out what emotion you are holding.
What do I need? - Do you need rest? To feel heard? To feel comfort? Time with a friend?
“Would you please…?” - Ask another person to support you in meeting this need, such as planning a weekly time with your husband when you can get time to yourself.
I want to give a gentle reminder that this information is simply an introduction to the skill created by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. If you want to learn more, please check out their wonderful book, Intuitive Eating!
Please be gentle with yourself today as you try this principle of Intuitive Eating, and if you are interested in getting my emails filled with reflective questions and ideas for practicing today’s principle, click here and sign up for my newsletter!
