As a recovering binge/compulsive/emotional eater turned anti-diet nutritionist & clinical herbalist, I hold the perspective that these eating behaviors are provoked not only by diet culture, but by our need to find comfort, soothing and/or escape from life through food.
I also hold the perspective that emotional eating isn't a bad thing. Quite the contrary. We are *meant* to have an emotional relationship with food. It is meant to be soothing, pleasurable and comforting.
It is after all, the building blocks of what keeps us alive.
Where it can be problematic is if you find that you reach for food in ways that aren’t actually pleasurable or if you hear your intuition whispering that this isn’t quite how you want your relationship with food to be.
Unlike other nutritionists and eating psych coaches, I’m not an advocate of trying to stop emotional eating.
What I do guide women to do is turn up their conscious awareness. To get to know themselves better. To notice why it is they are eating an entire bag of chips or sneaking food in the bathroom or spending their evening binging on anything in the house.
Simply notice.
Am I eating this because my boss yelled at me?
Because I’m constantly criticizing myself for not being thin or succeeding at dieting?
Am I reaching for this food because what I’d really like is companionship, sex or romance?
Or if you’re like me, as a way to soothe all the places you denied yourself your full humanity- where you didn’t speak up, ask for what you wanted or needed or continued to pretend you were happy, polite and unbothered. In all that artifice, I needed a place where I could be fully real and let the expanse of me have space- that place was food.
I have seen many clients increase their self knowledge and emotional intelligence simply by using conscious awareness to notice and understand their behavior and emotional landscape more fully.
You don’t ever have to give up emotional eating, sometimes it IS the salve we need when other coping skills just won't cut it- but knowing and understanding your choices through listening to your body soul wisdom is the first key to #bodysovereignty.