When I ask women what they consider as their major weightloss struggle, do you know what is the number one answer I get?
Emotional eating.
Emotional eating is when you eat without feeling hungry, just to deal with your emotions. These emotions are most of the time negative ones. Women eat to NOT feel sad, upset, discouraged, overwhelmed or even to deal with fatigue.
The reason why eating can help dealing with those emotions is because eating releases some hormones or body chemicals that make them feel happier. And unfortunately, that happiness feeling doesn’t last.
Now you can see why this is a dangerous shortcut: not only eating when you don’t feel hungry means that your body doesn’t need that energy intake and will store it as fat (hello additional pounds on your hips and belly and thighs!), but also it gets your body confused. Meaning that you unlearn little by little how to recognize your true hunger sensation.
And if you want to lose weight, I’m quite sure you have already heard about what I just explained. Emotional eating is a very common topic in the weightloss world…
But what most people don’t talk about is that emotional eating is cultural.
Let me say it again: Emotional eating is CULTURAL.
This means that this is something we have collectively learned. Sounds crazy right?
But think about it: how common is it in our industrialized countries, especially in the US to reward our kids with food? How easy it feels to buy them an ice cream for good grades or to celebrate after a sports game by eating out? How familiar it sounds to support a friend or a colleague who has had a bad day by going out with them to have a drink or eat a bite?
Does any of this sound familiar?
And what is even more interesting is that among industrialized countries, the United States are the one where emotions and food are the most strongly linked. A study several years ago showed that although Japan and the US are both considered as post-industrialized countries, food is significantly more linked with emotions in the US compared to Japan.
Another study has showed that when people think about food, what they picture is social connection in France, high quality ingredients in Italy and quantities (how much we eat and if we eat too much) in the US.
A couple of months ago, while I was teaching inside my Group Coaching Program, Slim Not Deprived Women, one of my students asked me if emotional eating also existed in France.
And the answer is: not as much as in the US! You see, although people sometimes stop by the boulangerie (or bakery) on the way back home to buy a chocolate croissant because they have had a very stressful day, we don’t give in the emotional eating as much as here in the US.
And this is good news! Because it means that if you have learned to deal with your emotions through food, you can also unlearn it. There are techniques to deal with your emotions other than food. But the first step to get there is:
Just consider emotional eating off the table!
Easier said than done? Not really, because what is cultural is avoidable. This shift in mindset will help you stop emotional eating sooner than you think.
So here is my tough love for you: Stop looking for excuses and face your emotions and thoughts. Emotional eating is not an option. Period.