Emotional Eating

Dealing with Cravings and Emotional Eating after Weight Loss Surgery
With Amber Kay

In today’s video, Amber looks at how to control cravings.

Everyone experiences cravings and gives in to them at one point or another. We all do it. And once in a while isn’t going to do any harm at all, any more than that and it can become a source of guilt, stress and self sabotage… NOT what you want when you’ve gone to the surgical lengths you already have to achieve better health! In this video Amber explores why we have cravings and more importantly how to manage, interrupt and to take control of them so that you’re the one in control, not your cravings! 

If you would like even more assistance dealing with cravings and emotional eating then you can access our comprehensive Beating Mindless Eating program below. This is free to Fresh Start Program participants and includes a number of additional resources (including hypnosis recordings and relaxation audios) to help you break this destructive habit once and for all.

 

You can read the transcript for this video below:

Transcript: Post-Surgery Program - Week 5: Nutrition (Dealing With Cravings / Emotional Eating)

Hi it’s Amber Kay here and today I want to talk to you about how to deal with cravings and unnecessary snacking after weight loss surgery.

As you know, weight loss surgery is a powerful tool to help you reduce your weight and the physical changes in your body make it much more difficult to overeat food, and may also reduce your hunger by lowering hunger-triggering hormones, depending on what type of surgery you’ve had. 

The problem however is that today we don’t always eat just to satisfy our physical hunger, we also often turn to food to change the way that we are feeling - for example to reduce feelings of stress or tiredness, or to relieve boredom, anger or frustration or as a source of comfort and security. 

This is the reason that most diets don’t work – diets offer a logical way to lose weight however humans are not always logical, we’re complex emotional human beings. We may know at an intellectual level what’s good for us and what isn’t and what will help us get rid of excess weight and what won’t, but when we’re feeling stressed or tired or angry or bored, our emotions can override our actions and all of our best intentions can go out of the window. 

Although some food cravings are there because we are genuinely physically hungry, many of our cravings today are there even when we are not genuinely physically hungry, and simply because we want to change our feelings. So even though you may not be able to eat the same amount after your surgery, you may find that many of the same food cravings that you had before your surgery are still there or may start to come back over time, or you may discover some new ones! This can mean that you start to eat foods that you know aren’t assisting you to move towards your health goals or to overeat even when you’re feeling full but you can’t seem to help it despite your surgery. 

So, today I’m going to take you through a number of simple yet powerful strategies that you can use to help reduce these cravings so that you can gain even more control over your eating habits. This means that you will continue to move towards your ideal weight after your surgery and improve your long-term health. These strategies are also going to help you lead a more enjoyable, relaxed life where you no longer have to rely on willpower to avoid unnecessary eating and go through those cycles of eating and then feeling physical and emotional pain.

Before we look at these strategies, I want to help you understand emotional or mindless eating even further so that you can get to the root cause of many of your cravings. 

Emotional or mindless eating is really about using food to change your emotional state rather than eating for nutritional reasons. 

Now I want to start by saying that everyone eats emotionally to some degree and that using food from time to time as a pick me up, as a reward or to celebrate isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Humans are social animals and eating food to celebrate birthdays or religious days or the end of a season is something that we have always done and that is very tribal in a sense. 

Emotional and mindless eating becomes a problem however when it happens frequently and is your primary way of dealing with uncomfortable feelings – when your first impulse is to open the fridge or look in the food cupboard when you’re feeling upset, angry, tired, lonely, stressed, frustrated, bored or some other uncomfortable emotion, or when you want to experience a pleasurable emotion like comfort, happiness, pleasure or joy. When this happens you can get stuck in an unhealthy cycle where the real feeling or problem is never addressed. 

Emotional hunger cannot be filled with food. Eating might feel good in the moment but the feelings that triggered the eating are generally still there afterwards and in fact you often feel worse because you then have feelings of guilt, or shame, or frustration, or fear. If you’ve eaten poor quality processed foods then these may also make you feel physically sick as well. You may then beat yourself up for doing this to yourself and over time you may feel increasingly out of control over both your food and your feelings leading you on a downward spiral in terms of your health. 

Before I help you to deal with emotional and mindless eating, it’s important to learn how to distinguish between emotional hunger and physical hunger – because sometimes you genuinely will be hungry and your body is telling you that you need to eat for nutrition and energy. It’s not always easy to tell the difference between the two – especially if you’re not used to recognising the different signals in your body, and because emotional hunger can be a very strong feeling which is easy to mistake for physical hunger. 

So there are a number of clues that you can look for that will help you tell the difference.

1. Firstly physical hunger tends to come on gradually whereas emotional hunger tends to come on very suddenly.
2. Secondly, when you’re physically hungry, almost any food sounds good whereas when you’re emotionally hungry you tend to crave specific foods that give you an instant feeling – often these are sugary treats. 
3. Next, with physical hunger you generally feel satisfied when your stomach is full however with emotional eating your hunger isn’t satisfied even once you’re full. You want to keep on eating more and more.
4. There’s also a difference in where you feel these types of hunger. Physical hunger tends to be located in the stomach and you may get a growling belly. Emotional hunger however tends to come as a craving that’s in your head and you’re focussed on specific tastes or textures.
5. Finally, with physical hunger you’re unlikely to feel guilty after you’ve eaten. With emotional hunger you feel guilty or ashamed after you’ve eaten as you know deep down that you’ve eaten for the wrong reasons. 

So how do we stop emotional and mindless eating and beat our cravings? The first step is to get clear on your personal triggers that cause you to eat emotionally - to identify the situations, feelings and places that tend to lead to this behaviour.

As I mentioned before, it’s important to note that emotional or mindless eating isn’t always linked to negative feelings like boredom or anger, it can also be triggered by positive feelings – for example food can be used as a reward or to celebrate a happy event or as part of a ritual like going to the cinema. 

So what causes you to eat emotionally? In case you’re not sure, I’ll take you through a few common causes which may apply to you.

One of the major reasons that people eat emotionally today is because of stress. When you’re feeling stressed, your body releases a stress hormone called cortisol. Cortisol increases your heart rate and blood pressure and prepares your body for action –– it's your body’s natural way of protecting itself because when your caveman ancestors were feeling stressed they were probably running away from a predator or fighting for their lives. Cortisol also triggers cravings for food – because after fighting or running away your caveman ancestors would have needed to replenish their energy supplies after these physical exertions. 

Today however our stresses are very different – we’re more likely to be worrying about paying a bill or how to manage our “to-do list” than to be running away from a tiger. This means that we get the same increases in heart rate and blood pressure but without the urgent need to move our bodies. We also get the same cravings for food even though we haven’t necessarily expended any energy. So the more uncontrolled stress that’s in your life, the more likely you are to turn to food for emotional relief because of these stress hormones.

Tiredness is another major reason for emotional eating. If you’re lacking in sleep or are feeling shattered from all of your commitments then it’s easy to reach for something sweet to try and pick your energy levels up. The reality however is that although it might feel like you’re helping to address your energy levels, adding more food into your system for your body to deal with will probably just leave you feeling more tired, especially if you’ve chosen a poor food choice. What your body is really craving is rest and sleep.

Another common reason that people eat emotionally is to temporarily silence uncomfortable emotions. These include feelings of anger, fear, sadness, anxiety, loneliness, resentment and shame. When you’re eating food, it gives you a feeling of certainty or security and you’re avoiding the emotions that you don’t want to feel.

Boredom is another common reason to eat emotionally. Do you ever eat simply to give yourself something to do? Or perhaps to fill a gap in your life? If you feel unfulfilled and empty then food can be a way to occupy your time. At the time it distracts you from the underlying feelings that perhaps you have a lack of purpose or have dissatisfaction with your life.

Childhood conditioning is another major reason that people emotionally eat. Did your parents reward your good behaviour with treats or give you food when you were feeling sad? Did you grow up having pop-corn every time you went to the cinema? Perhaps your mum used to bake a lot when you were young and so you model this behaviour with your family as a way to show them your love?

So I’d like you to stop this recording and to write down what your triggers are for emotional eating. So grab a pen and a piece of paper and I want you to jot down 4 or 5 reasons or situations then lead you to eat emotionally. So stop this recording now.

Okay, now hopefully you have a list of some of the reasons and situations that lead you to eat emotionally. If you struggled to work these out then a simple way to work them out is to keep a diary for 7 days which tracks what you eat, how you are feeling and how much sleep you are getting.  Every time you overeat or go for foods that you know aren’t serving you, take a moment to figure out what triggered that urge and write it down. Over time, you’ll see a pattern emerge. Maybe you always end up eating chocolate when you’re on a tight deadline or when you’re lacking in sleep? 

Now that you’ve identified your triggers, the next step is to work out some more constructive and healthier ways to change your emotions to replace the emotional eating strategy that you have chosen and that isn’t working for you.

Swapping your old emotional eating habit for a new empowering habit will have a huge impact on your life. Imagine if every time you felt bored instead of reaching for your favourite comfort food you picked up a musical instrument? In a year’s time instead of struggling with your weight and feeling down, you could be 10kg lighter, feeling fantastic and a whiz at the guitar!

So what are the alternatives available? Really this is a very personal thing – what’s going to work for someone else may not necessarily work for you. For example, perhaps you’ve got absolutely no interest in learning the guitar. So what is going to work for you?

Here are a few suggestions that you might like to consider:

• If you’re feeling lonely then a good strategy might be to call a friend or to buy a pet or to write an email to a loved one. 
• If you’re feeling anxious, you could expend some energy by going for a walk or doing some strength exercises or dancing or meditating. 
• If you’re feeling exhausted you could book yourself in for a massage, have a hot cup of tea, read a book or lie down for 10 minutes. 
• If you’re bored, you could read a book, watch a dvd, take a shower, learn a new language or knit a jumper.
• If you’re still struggling for options then try listening to music. This is one of the quickest and most accessible ways to change the way that you’re feeling.

Our lives are determined by our habits – and if we just swap some simple habits your life can go in a completely different direction. So we all have a choice as to how we respond to our feelings – you deserve to have the life that you want and you can get that by consciously deciding right now some better strategies to adopt. I want you to stop this recording and right now list 5 ways that you can change your emotions. So press pause, grab a pen and a paper and write down 5 ways to change your emotions. Did you do it? Come on! 

Ok, so now you should have a list of 5 ways to change your emotions. Did you do it? If not, stop this recording and go and do it now!

Okay, so even if you have this list, putting it into practice once your triggers come up is something different. So how do we switch our habits?

A simple strategy is to pause when your cravings come up.

Emotional eating tends to be automatic and virtually mindless. Before you even know it, you’re reaching for that chocolate in the fridge or the biscuits in the drawer. If you take a moment to pause and reflect when you’re hit with a craving then you give yourself the opportunity to make a different decision. If you pause for a few minutes instead of giving in to your old habit then you can check in with yourself and ask yourself how you’re feeling and what’s going on emotionally. Allowing yourself to sit with your feelings and to feel uncomfortable is absolutely okay – emotions often come in waves and even the most painful and difficult feelings will subside relatively quickly if you allow yourself to sit with them.

Even if you give in and end up eating, you’ll have a better understanding of why you did it. This can set yourself up for a different response next time.

A great strategy that I recommend to break your  automatic comfort eating habit is to use an elastic band on your wrist. When you find yourself reaching for or even in the middle of eating some food when it’s not a meal time – give yourself a “twang” with the elastic band. This tells your subconscious mind that what you are doing is not serving you and you will start to associate pain with your old behaviour. This will help to break your habit and teach your body to change. Once you have given yourself a “twang” immediately stop eating and go to one of the healthy strategies that are on your list. 

Pausing and sitting with your feelings and using the elastic band are strategies that work well at the actual time that you’re craving to eat something emotionally. There are also some strategies that you can easily use that will help to stop these feelings from coming up in the first place and these relate to your lifestyle. 

Creating healthy lifestyle habits that will make you stronger, more relaxed and well rested and happier will mean that you’re better able to handle problems and issues when they do arise. When you’re feeling tired and exhausted, any slight problem has the potential to send you off the rails and heading towards the fridge or cupboards.  So it’s really important to focus on lifestyle factors including sleep, relaxation, regular exercise and connection with people. And I want to talk about each of these in more detail.

So firstly sleep and relaxation – these are absolutely critical for controlling emotional eating as I mentioned briefly before. Have you noticed that when you’re lacking in sleep that you start to crave foods that will give you a quick energy boost and that generally aren’t good for you? Perhaps this is the time that you break out the chocolate or crave sugary lollies. There’s a good reason for that – sleep affects two key hormones in your body that control your appetite – leptin and ghrelin. 

Ghrelin stimulates appetite and leptin signals to the brain when you are full. When you’re lacking in sleep, your ghrelin levels go up, increasing your appetite and your leptin levels go down, meaning you don’t feel satisfied and want to keep eating. So the more sleep you skip, the more food your body will crave and the less control you will have over your eating. Lack of sleep also increases your stress hormone cortisol and this too leads to increased stress and further emotional eating. 

So to help control your appetite and reduce your cravings – aim to get plenty of rest – at least 7-8 hours of quality sleep each night. If you generally get less than 7 hours sleep on average or have poor quality sleep then addressing this really will have a huge impact on your cravings. 

Exercise or physical movement is another key lifestyle factor that will help you control emotional eating. Exercise is a fantastic way of reducing stress levels and can really improve your mood and your energy levels and therefore reduces emotional eating. This is backed by research as well – for example a study in the journal Appetite found that people who exercise during their work day – who go to the gym at lunch time or take a brisk walk during a break, eat less chocolate than those who don’t exercise at all. Regular exercise has been found to help clear your mind and to make better decisions when it comes to food. Beware however that some forms of exercise can also stimulate your emotional eating. If you’re highly stressed and then take part in an intense long gruelling workout this can actually leave you even more stressed and tired and increase your emotional eating appetite further. So exercise at the right level for you and make sure that it reduces your stress levels rather than increases them. Going for a walk is always a good option…

Connecting with others is another key long-term strategy for combating emotional eating. As humans we are naturally social animals. Close relationships and social activities are incredibly important for overall happiness. Spending time with positive people who enhance your life will help reduce your stress levels and the related emotional eating. It’s also important to avoid people who impact you negatively as time spent with them can increase your emotional eating.

Focussing on what you eat is another huge factor in combating emotional eating.  An absolute fortune is invested by food manufacturers each year on researching how to get people to eat more of their foods. They want people to be addicted to their product and so foods are literally designed to make you want to come back for more! Sugar is also highly addictive and once you’ve started eating it, it can be very hard to stop. 

When you focus on high quality whole foods and cut out sugary processed foods then you will be going a long way to reducing your cravings. It doesn’t mean that you should never have a treat. Enjoying a little of what you love can help you steer clear of feeling denied. But go for quality over quantity -  for example eat dark chocolate instead of highly processed chocolate bars or have some ice cream but make it a good quality one and a small serving and you could have it with fruit instead of on its own.  

If you do crave sweet things then try reaching for fruit instead of processed food. You’ll get fibre and nutrients along with the sweetness and it’s a much healthier alternative.

If you do find yourself eating sugary treats emotionally then an excellent strategy to use is to brush your teeth or have a cup of herbal tea – this is a great way of cleansing your palette and sending a signal to your brain that you have finished eating now.

Another recommendation I have about sugar and processed treats is to remove the temptation from your environment. If you know that you can’t control yourself when it comes to treats then don’t allow them in your house in the first place. That way, if you’re craving a treat then the extra effort of going to get it will potentially stop you from having it. By the time you’ve reached the shops you may find that the craving has also passed. If you live with other people who buy treats then perhaps ask them to hide them somewhere that you don’t know about!

My final recommendation on beating emotional and mindless eating is to go easy on yourself.  This is probably something that you’ve had for a long time and so it may take time to get a handle on your cravings and that’s absolutely okay. You are going to have triumphs and you’re also going to have set backs.

Take things slowly and rather than asking yourself a disempowering question for example - “why do I keep doing this to myself?” or “Why do I have no control?” Instead ask yourself more empowering questions, for example – “what have I learnt and what can I do differently next time?”.

There are also plenty more resources that go into even more depth in our main resources library where you can find information on breaking and building habits, and other topics.

I look forward to speaking to you again soon with another resource to help make your post-surgical life even more fulfilling, and until then, take care and all the best!