How do you overcome Emotional and Stress Eating?
As many of you know, I believe with all my heart that when we feel good, we do good. Emotional eating, comfort eating, stress eating are more common than you think and the effects can be devastating on our overall sense of wellbeing.
This is something I have personally experienced for over a decade. Heck, I wrote an entire book on the topic so when fellow coach Mark Leruste invited me on his podcast, The Unconventionalists, I was beyond excited!
Mark also knows what it feels like to grab comfort food when feeling like crap. And then feel even worse off for it… It’s a vicious circle, right?
So how do you get out of the habit of reaching out for food instead of dealing with your emotions? Especially when you’re an entrepreneur and you’re under a lot of stress?
In this episode you will learn:
- Why there’s so much shame around emotional eating
- How to deal with information overload on what you should and shouldn’t eat
- Why we get hangry
- How to get out of the vicious circle of emotional eating
- Tips to deal with living with a partner who eats differently
Don’t have time to listen? Here are some key markers to jump to specific sections
On emotional eating and finding balance
- I used food both as a punishment and as a comfort throughout the years. It wasn’t ever just one or the other. The lines are very blurred. It’s the same logic as do you exercise to feel good, to feel strong because you love the endorphins, because you love the community or do you exercise to punish yourself because you ate something. [11.59]
- We’re all hungry for realness. [14:08]
- This isn’t about eradicating any sort of food that’s not deemed super healthy, but I fine tune. [10:00]
- I think we’ve forgotten how to connect with our bodies… It’s very clear when you eat something that doesn’t sit well with you… Start there, notice how you feel after each meal. [14:51]
Stop comparing. What works for me will not work for you. [15:39]
On how entrepreneurs can manage their eating habits
- It’s about anticipating the challenges you’re going to have… The key is to plan ahead of time – if you have ten minutes, maybe you just want to go for a walk. Maybe you want to have a check in with another friend in the similar situation. [20:42]
- I’m strict about my self-care but I’m flexible about how I achieve it. [22:24]
- The first thing to realise is this dynamic you’re in didn’t happen overnight… Just start with very small tweaks – make a deal with yourself, this isn’t going to happen overnight. Introduce very small tweaks – pledge to yourself that every day at lunchtime, you’re going to make an effort to move your body. [27:09]
On intuitive eating
- You can trust your body to know what it needs and you don’t need to be controlling what you’re eating all the time otherwise you’d go crazy. [33:10]
- Eat what you want to eat. I often don’t eat the same things as my husband… whatever it is it doesn’t matter. I look at it like: you like vanilla, I like strawberry – it’s not a big deal. [36:11]
For more resources on how to overcome emotional and binge eating, check out these articles in blog. For more detailed information and practical tools, have a look at my book STUFFED.
