Melissa McCreery

Emotional eating is a major part of most women’s lives. We’re taught to use food for so many things in addition to fuel and this can many times lead to overeating. Get some tips on how to make peace with food! Which causes you to consume more calories—physical hunger and physical hunger pangs or stress, restlessness, boredom, anxiety, excitement, a need to celebrate, a desire for comfort and other emotional triggers? When WAS the last time you ate because you were physically famished? When was the last time you ate that you weren't? Emotional eating is a major part of most women’s lives. We’re taught to use food for so many things in addition to fuel. Diets mess with our relationship with food and add so many “shoulds” to the equation that many chronic dieters hardly know if they are hungry or not. They are conditioned to judge their “fullness” by calorie counts, the clock, fat grams, carbs, and other external cues that are not hunger. To make peace with food and break free from emotional eating, it’s essential to identify the root cause of your hunger—the feelings or needs that trigger overeating. Find a program that will show you how to identify what you are really hungry for and how to start using tools and strategies that address your needs and emotions in ways that food never will. That’s critical, but there is also another piece. Taking control of overeating and making peace with food also means making peace with your physical hunger. Hunger isn’t a negative thing. It’s not something to deny (like diets may tell you to do). It’s a signal that helps you take care of yourself. Honoring your hungers and cravings with respect is an important aspect of self-care. That doesn’t mean you always eat everything your impulsive brain tells you that you want. You also don’t impulsively gratify all your emotional hungers or desires. But it’s important to acknowledge them. That means learning to really listen to yourself. It means learning how to understand your hunger and what it is telling you about what you need. It means taking this information and making choices that are in your best interest (and that include compassion and respect). A woman who is at peace with food feeds herself in high quality ways (and I'm talking about feeding her spirit and her soul as well as her stomach). She also allows herself to savor the food and the experiences that she takes in. Eating doesn't trigger guilt or self-loathing and responding to her hunger isn't something she does in secret. Let’s evaluate your relationship with hunger. How do you decide when you are hungry? Where do you feel hunger in your body? On a hunger scale of 1 (ravenous) to 10 (stuffed to the gills), how hungry do you allow yourself to become before you feed yourself? How full do you fill yourself when you do eat? When you determine that you are hungry, how do you decide what to eat? How do you tell the difference between physical and emotional hunger? If your Inner Champion was running the show and helping you live your BEST version of your life, how would you be responding to your physical and emotional cravings? Would it be different? If you don’t know all the answers to these questions, don't panic. Many emotional eaters don’t. Knowing what you don’t know is an important step to making a change. Asking questions like I’ve just asked you will help you take control of your relationship with food in new ways and start creating strategies that work for you.

Have you ever said, “I'm sick and tired of being overweight and overeating but I don’t know where to start.” Check out these easy do-able steps that can make all the difference. “I'm sick and tired of being overweight and overeating but I don’t know where to start.” That’s what a new client said. Her head was so full of diet advice, nutrition tips, weight loss ads, and beliefs about what she “should” be doing, that she was overwhelmed and feeling stuck before she even started. Should she cut back on carbs? Start working out? Keep a food diary? Rejoin Weight Watchers? She knows she’s a stress eater, so maybe she should start meditating and eating mindfully. She also really needs to catch up on her sleep, but her desk is a mess and she wants to spend more time with her husband…. Overload is like that and so is emotional overeating. Both can feel like tangled messes with no obvious starting point. When you are stuck in a cycle you don’t know how to stop, taking action can start to feel like it’s going to start an avalanche. Add to that the panic many of us feel when we are exhausted and overloaded that paradoxically causes us to bite off too much, and see our options as “all” or “nothing,” and many stressed-out overeaters see themselves facing a challenge that feels insurmountable. “If I’m going to go to the gym, I really need to go six days a week and stay for an hour,” said a client who hadn’t felt she could fit in a workout for weeks. “I need to start keeping track of everything I eat, I need to drink more water, and I need to start eating more vegetables and stop eating after dinner.” “I’m going to eat healthy, journal, meditate, and work out every day.” “I’m so stressed. Nothing can change until I get a new job.” All of these women started to feel overwhelmed before the words were even out of their mouths. Guess what? The road to lasting change is hardly ever a major life overhaul. Creating peace with food and peace with your life almost always happens in small do-able steps. Contrary to what your stressed-out brain may be telling you, powerful change can be created from simple consistent shifts. How do you start taking charge of overeating, stress, or that feeling of having too much on your plate? You start by creating success and effectiveness and allowing that to snowball. The success and feelings of accomplishment are what help you create momentum—and that, in turn, creates more ease and motivation. Pick one small simple step that you can commit to for the next week. If it makes you tired or feels intimidating to say it out loud, cut the size of the step in half. Now do it. Check it off every day, and celebrate yourself profusely. After four to seven days, choose another step. Your goal here is to choose a step that increases your progress and momentum one inch—not a mile. When you are getting started from a place of stress and overwhelm, your goal is to get into action, but NOT to add more stress and overwhelm to your life. The first step should feel almost (but not quite) effortless. Eating breakfast in the morning Checking in with yourself midafternoon and and asking yourself what you need Making a list of five things you can do when you feel stressed (that are not food) Start small. Create effectiveness, and the momentum and your progress will build. Really.

What should you eat to lose weight? How much energy have you devoted to this question? Low carb? Raw food? Jenny Craig? Have you ever considered that it might not be "the diet" that is the solution? Read more to find out! What should you eat to lose weight? How much energy have you devoted to this question? Low carb? Raw food? Jenny Craig? Women spend billions of dollars on weight loss, and create a lot of stress making decisions about which diet or weight loss plan to try this time. It’s ironic, because deep down, we know that diets don’t work. And in fact, many of us have lived out the lesson that diets can lead to binge eating and weight gain and bigger problems with food than we started with. It’s not hopeless. Healthy weight loss and what I call peace with food are possible, but they don’t begin with a diet. Here’s the important truth: The battle with overeating isn’t going to be solved by a diet because the root battle with most overeating isn’t about the food. If you want to break free from overeating cycles and weight loss battles, the critical question you need to be asking is this: What are you using the food for? What’s triggering you to overeat? What propels you towards the vending machine or sends you straight for the comfort food? What role does food play in your life? How does your current way of eating serve you? THESE are the million dollar questions. The truth is, you are smart and resourceful and you better believe that you are turning to food for a reason. The way you are currently eating does something important for you. Maybe your eating distracts you or comforts you. Food might momentarily boost your mood or your energy. Maybe you use it to procrastinate or hide out or reward yourself. Are you eating to cope with stress or frustration or exhaustion? Be curious about your hunger and the reasons that you eat. Understanding the meaning of your overeating changes everything. Understanding the purpose of your overeating helps you move beyond unhelpful self-blame and shame and guilt and into a place of compassionate understanding. From this place it’s possible to start addressing the real root causes. Because it’s probably not about the food. If you are a stress eater, you’ll want some more effective tools for addressing the stress in your life. Comfort eater? With the right tools, you can definitely find a better way. Exhausted? Overwhelmed? Nervous? Upset? There are better tools and strategies to address these feelings. And the truth is, once you have the tools and strategies to feel effective, food just doesn’t have the same appeal. Really. Effective weight loss doesn’t start with the food—and—when you address the root cause of your overeating, you don’t just change your weight. You change your life.

It’s clear that keeping a food journal or food diary—a written record of every bite you put in your mouth—is an effective weight loss tool. Here is a better way! It’s clear that keeping a food journal or food diary—a written record of every bite you put in your mouth—is an effective weight loss tool. Women who record what they eat eat less and lose more weight. They are also more successful at keeping the weight off. A food diary (done correctly), can also be an effective tool for taking control of emotional eating. The problem is, just about everyone hates keeping a food log, and setting up an approach that you dread can be an easy path to self-sabotage. Writing down everything you put into your mouth can be inconvenient, tedious, and it requires a lot of discipline. It can also be difficult to record portion sizes accurately, and far too tempting to bend the truth. Here’s a smart weight loss tip that holds promise. You don’t have to write down everything you eat anymore to get the benefit of keeping a food diary. There’s actually a simple, graphic and accurate way to record what you eat—at the touch of a button. Grab your cell phone and snap a picture. Yep, take a picture of your food—all your food—before you eat it. Pictures don’t lie. They don’t fudge on portion sizes (consider placing something like a fork in the picture so that you can assess for scale), and they show everything on your plate. They even document the times when you skip using the plate (not a good weight loss tactic, by the way). Research indicates that keeping a photographic food diary may work even better than a written one. What to do with these photos? A simple, free solution is to set up a free blog at BariatricPal. You decide whether you want to keep it private (for your eyes only) or open it up to friends or to the world (accountability helps). New apps and options are being developed as we speak. For those on Twitter, this app, for tweeting what you’re eating, allows you to add pictures to your tweets and says it will be streamlining the process in the near future. What do you think? Have you used a food diary (written or photo-based)? How has it worked for you? What has helped you stick with it, or what has gotten in your way? Please share your thoughts by adding a comment.

Emotional eating is about using food to deal with a feeling or a situation instead of addressing it directly. Get tips on how to deal directly with these situations. Here’s a simple truth. If you were more direct, you’d struggle less with emotional eating. Emotional eating is about using food to deal with a feeling or a situation instead of addressing it directly. Really. It’s that simple. When you resort to stress eating you aren’t really addressing the stress. When you comfort yourself with food, you aren’t really responding to yourself with care and compassion (at least it rarely feels that way in the morning). When you binge on ice cream to drown your sorrows, you aren’t actually tackling the sadness or hurt or the situation that is causing you pain. And emotional eating triggers go beyond feelings. Many people overeat instead of dealing directly with the situations that cause the uncomfortable feelings. You’re worried someone’s mad at you. So you eat. You are mad at someone and that doesn’t feel good (and you don’t want to show it). So you eat. You don’t want to disappoint someone. So you eat. You have a truth to tell that you know won’t be popular. So you eat. You are uncomfortable asking for what you want. So you eat. You need something and it may cause a conflict. So you eat. Sound familiar? Sometimes emotional eating isn’t only about stuffing your feelings. Sometimes overeating is a way of not taking a stand. Want to be effective with food? Want to know how to be effective with weight loss? It’s simple. Start working to be more directly effective in your life. If you want help with emotional eating (or overeating in general), there’s a question that can get to the heart of matters pretty quickly. Next time you find yourself reaching for food you aren’t really hungry for, ask yourself this: “What am I not facing head on and directly?” Be honest, be compassionate, but be firm with yourself. What are you avoiding, side-stepping, or soft-selling? What do you need to help you be more effective and direct? Sometimes you just need to step into your big girl shoes, take a deep breath, and get the job done. Sometimes you’ll find you need some better tools or strategies. Maybe it’s time to get some support or education or a coach so you can stop stuffing your feelings instead of effectively speaking your mind. What have you faced head-on and how has it helped?

No matter how much yoga, meditation, or spa time you put in, life will eventually through you a curve ball. And if your life is anything like mine, life often seems to throw two or three at once. The balance can tip from bliss and balance to stress and overload pretty quickly. And the best new habits, the most well thought out food plans, and the loveliest self-improvement strategies can quickly go to h*ll in a hand basket when stress, exhaustion, or just-plain-misery enter the picture. When the going gets tough—many women just want a carb-fest. One of the most frequent questions I am asked is how not to turn to food for stress relief or comfort. Having a rough day, week, or month? Here are some strategies that can help: Strategies for Avoiding Stress and Reducing Comfort Eating Have an Instead Plan White knuckling it rarely works for very long, and when you eventually have to let go, the reverberations can be huge. In fact, one of the most common triggers for food binges is deprivation and extreme dieting. What this means here is that “not eating,” is not a strategy. If you are going to get through a rotten day without resorting to chocolate, you’re going to need some ideas of what to do instead. Here’s something else you need to know. When you are in a state of stress or overload, or any other strong emotional state, your brain isn’t firing on all cylinders. Creative problem solving is impaired. It’s best to create your Instead Plan before the crisis hits. You’ve heard this from me before. Start making a list of possible alternatives to overeating now. Aim for the low hanging fruit Strategies to avoid comfort eating and stress eating should be easy. If you are having a bad day, don’t expect an awful lot of yourself. When I help my clients craft their instead plans, it’s not uncommon for their first ideas to be out of alignment with their mood and their energy level. “I know that instead of bingeing on leftovers, I should go work out/do the dishes/stop procrastinating on … ” are all common responses. Maybe. I’m a firm believer in the power of exercise to shift mood and energy, and accomplishing something does feel good. But if you feel like collapsing onto your sofa and you give yourself a choice between leftover macaroni and cheese and a half hour on the elliptical or finishing your taxes—do you think your instead plan has an iota of a chance? Really? Identify strategies that match your energy level and your motivation on a cruddy day. That probably means going for the low hanging, easy-to-grab fruit. Also, make sure your strategies meet the same need that the food would be attempting to fill. If you are seeking indulgence and comfort, than “tough love,” isn’t going to fit the bill. Instead of a hard workout, you might want to consider a movie you can get lost in, a phone call with someone who loves you, a lazy evening on the sofa, or a long hot shower. Retreat Sometimes we resort to stress or comfort eating because we simply don’t know what else to do. It’s an attempt to keep going when the going has gotten really tough. It’s hard for high-achievers to comprehend, but sometimes the most effective thing you can do is to do nothing. Stop. Step away from your stress for ten minutes or a day. Change your scenery—leave the room, go outside, or take a short drive. Consider retreating into your senses. Choose a short escape into a sensory experience that is not taste—a warm bath, great smelling tea, a foot massage, or some fragrant flowers. Take a nap. If you are someone who seems to spin out of control with food after a long stressful day, don’t be afraid to throw in your cards for the night and go to bed early. You could probably use the extra sleep anyway and you’ll wake up with more perspective and better focus. Call in the troops Stress is often not only a trigger for overeating, but for isolation. It’s not uncommon to feel “too busy” to ask for help or to reach out for support. It’s a big mistake. Tell those who love you that you are having a hard time and you could use some support (even if you aren’t sure what they could do). Give away, delegate, or ask for help with the tasks that you can share or let go of. Ask for company, or ask for the support you need so that you can be left alone. Here’s something important to note. Strategies for avoiding comfort eating and stress eating aren’t usually major life overhauls. They rarely fix the stressful or difficult situation—but then again, neither does eating. What these strategies are designed to do is to help you feed your spirit and your soul during a very tough time. Isn’t that what comfort really is?

Few things can be as frustrating as trying to change overeating habits and a busy lifestyle, multitasking, and being distracted can really get in the way. Food is always available and it’s so easy to reach for food or to overeat without even really knowing why. Every dieter knows how easy it is to start the day with good intentions about portion sizes and food choices only to find yourself having eaten more than you wanted, binged on junk food, or picked away at a plate of cookies that someone brought into the office. Emotional eating–eating when you are stressed or overtired or even bored can be an automatic response that happens before you are even fully aware that you are doing it. Before you add unhelpful guilt to your list of triggers for overeating or ditching your weight loss plan, know that there is a much more enjoyable alternative. You deserve to know how to stop stressing, stop doing too much, and create some inner peace. Today’s tip for creating less stress and breaking old patterns with food and overeating: eat a mindful meal. It amazes me how many people multitask when they eat. When is the last time that you were fully present with the meal that you were eating? Fully present means that the TV wasn’t on and you didn’t have a book or a computer in front of you. You weren’t working or making lists of things to do. You weren’t driving somewhere or talking on your cell phone. When is the last time that you were fully aware—with all your senses—of each bite that you put into your mouth? When you truly savored every last morsel? When you were one hundred percent aware of what you were feeling and what you were experiencing while you ate? For many reading this, I know it’s been a long time. Guess what? Mindful eating can be the key to breaking old habits with food and creating new ones. And you can get started almost instantly—as soon as you sit down to your next meal. How to eat a mindful meal Take a deep breath or two and allow yourself to really be in your body. Notice how your mind and your body are feeling. Really notice. You may have gone hours without paying attention. What’s on your mind? What emotions are you experiencing? How does your body feel? Are you tense or relaxed? How hungry are you? Where do you feel it in your body? Put your food on a plate and sit down somewhere where you can enjoy your food without being distracted. Take a few more deep breaths before you do anything. The goal of mindful eating is to fully experience every molecule of this meal. Savor it. Use all your senses. Slow down. Notice your food before you put it into your mouth. Smell it. Think about the experience you anticipate before your taste buds encounter what you are eating. Take a small bite. Feel it in your mouth. Really taste it. Stop and consider what you taste. Move the food around in your mouth. How does it feel? Appreciate the flavor, the texture, the smell. Chew it well or let it melt in your mouth. Take your time. Another goal of mindful eating is to fully experience yourself eating this meal. This might be a very new experience. Be aware of how it feels to slow down and savor. You might be surprised at emotions that come up. Some women learn that they’ve developed a pattern of eating mindlessly so they won’t be aware of their thoughts and feelings or so they can overeat without really thinking about it. Obviously, that’s not helpful. As you eat, after each bite, ask yourself if you’d like another. Notice how your hunger changes. Notice when you stop savoring. Notice if you start to feel impatient with mindful eating. As you practice mindful eating, you are likely to notice things about your eating and your relationship with food that aren’t really about the food at all. You may also find that you need some new tools or strategies to replace overeating so that you can be successful in the long term. It’s not necessary to practice mindful eating every single time you eat (although it can be helpful), but it can be very worthwhile to practice eating mindfully at least once a day. Some clients find it very helpful to identify the periods of eating that are the least mindful for them and use mindful eating techniques specifically during those times.

Taking control of emotional eating and overeating is usually a process. Figuring out what to do instead of emotional eating can be tricky, in part because food is so darn easy to turn to and it is so widely available. If you want to make lasting changes with your eating habits or your weight, it’s important to have two sets of strategies—quick, practical strategies that get you through difficult times, and tools and strategies that help you address the root causes of your overeating—so it doesn’t keep coming back and taking control of your life. I shared tips for creating quick, in-the-moment strategies in my last post. In this post I’ll share why it’s crucial to identify and address the root cause. Stress eating, anxious eating, eating because you are bored or lonely, eating because you are angry or tense or overeating after a hard day are all types of emotional eating. It’s all too easy to turn to food to try to comfort or to distract or to numb. Food is quick, easy to “apply,” and almost always present. Food often makes you feel good—for a few moments. The problem is, the salve doesn’t last, and, the food doesn’t do anything about really addressing the problem that triggered your eating. If you are an emotional eater, one of the most empowering things that you can do is stop berating yourself and calling yourself names when you overeat and turn to food. Start by respecting that you do it for a reason. If you can face your desire to eat with respect, you can start to examine what I call the “real cravings” that underlie or trigger your desire for food. What are you really hungry for? Whether it’s love or respect or stress relief; excitement or comfort,, compassion, or something different, identifying your real craving puts you in the driver’s seat. When you identify and begin to address the root cause of your food attraction, food loses a lot of its power and its hold on you (you might be amazed). Once you are clear that it isn’t really about the chocolate doughnut (or whatever you are craving), your mind won’t be so persistently focused on it. There’s a huge bonus payoff as well. When you identify the root cause of your emotional eating and start feeding that true craving, not only does emotional eating get better—so does your life. Truly taking charge of emotional eating guides you to address important concerns so that your life works better for you. Creating peace with food really does mean creating a better life. If you would like an accelerated, step-by-step guide for taking control of emotional eating, in a do-able way, you’ll want to take a look at the Emotional Eating Toolbox™ 28 Day Program, my self-guided use-at-home system that walks you through the process of transforming your relationship with food through daily, do-able steps.