What if the shame you feel after you emotionally eat is actually keeping you stuck in your emotional eating pattern?
You eat something, you didn’t plan to eat. And then the thoughts start.
“Why did I do that? I shouldn’t have had that. I shouldn’t have eaten that. Oh my god, I’m ruining my plan. What’s wrong with me? I’ll never change.”
And underneath all of those thoughts is one painful belief:
There’s something wrong with me.
But I want you to hear this: You’re not broken and you’re not flawed. And your emotional eating isn’t proof that something’s wrong with you.
Think about what happens when you emotionally eat.
You start feeling guilt, you start feeling shame. You don’t just eat the food and move on. You start judging yourself.
And then you promise yourself, “I’m not going to do this again. I’m going to start again tomorrow”.
So you start a new plan. You go to the gym, you exercise it off. You try to control your food even more.
And for a little while, you feel like you’re back in control.
But then another stressful day comes, and the same pattern happens. But now your shame is even bigger because, maybe you did it twice this week. You did it recently. It’s happening more and more.
And so you restrict, and the cycle happens again.
What happens is you emotionally eat, you feel shame. You try to restrict, you have more emotional eating, you feel more shame.
The thing is, that shame creates more of what you’re trying to escape.
Every time you feel shame, you create stress in your body. When you constantly criticize yourself, that creates stress in your body. That criticism, that stress is uncomfortable. You feel that shame, you feel “not good enough”.
And the only way you know to soothe that is to go to food to numb out those emotions, to not feel the way you feel, because that’s what you’ve used food for.
To help you regulate your emotions, to help you feel okay.
Because food is the way you learned to cope with your uncomfortable emotions, to soothe your discomfort.
Let’s dive in
- 1:44 The vicious cycle that leaves you feeling stuck in shame.
- 2:21 Why emotional eating was created in the first place.
- 4:00 You’re not broken, you just haven’t learned to heal the root of your emotional eating (and meet your true needs).
- 4:38 Awareness is great but doing the deeper work is what shifts your emotional eating.
- 5:55 The Emotional Eating Evolution Program and next steps
Next Steps
1. If you are ready to start your journey to resolving your Emotional Eating you can download my free guide “What Are You Truly Hungry For?” to start discerning true from emotional hunger and catching your triggers HERE.
2. If you are ready to transform your emotional eating so that you can get to ease, peace and confidence around food and in your body with a step by step process and guidance then find out more about The Emotional Eating Evolution Program HERE.
To peace,
Michelle
Certified Holistic Nutritionist Specializing in Emotional Eating
