The term emotional eating is thrown around a lot, but not everyone understands what emotional eating really is.

Emotional eating is eating and overeating that occurs when we use food as a way to cope with a feeling, situation, or a need that is not physical hunger. Emotional eating is eating that happens when we want to eat but our bodies don’t really need the fuel. Common kinds of emotional eating are “nervous eating,” eating when you are bored, using food as a “reward” (to feel good), or eating when you are lonely. Because this kind of eating isn’t tied to a physical need for food, it can easily cause weight gain.

Here are three things EVERY weight loss surgery patient needs to know about emotional eating:

1. Many people don’t know that they are emotional eaters. How’s that? Well, emotional eating isn’t always as straightforward as feeling a feeling (“I’m anxious”) and then making a choice to eat. Here’s the tricky part. Over time, if you’ve learned to use food as a way to cope with certain feeling states or situations, your brain can stop identifying that you are eating for emotional reasons. Here’s an example. If when you’re stressed, you reach for a snack to comfort yourself, over time, your brain stops telling you, “You are stressed and you are going to try to cope with it by eating a cookie.”

Over time, your brain may start skipping the emotion and move directly to interpreting that stressed feeling as physical hunger. You might not even realize that you are feeling stress. Your thinking will go like this: Something stressful will happen and you will start wanting a snack. You might even feel physically hungry. Food, not stress, will be the central thought in your mind. If you are someone who feels hungry “all the time,” emotional eating could very well be playing a hidden role.

2. Emotional eating and self-blame, shame and guilt go hand in hand. If you are feeling “out of control with your eating,” odds are that emotional eating is happening. The problem is, if emotional eating goes unrecognized, or if we don’t take it seriously, it’s easy to fall into a trap of guilt and self-blame for not being able to “stay in control” of your eating.

Shame and guilt are never helpful when it comes to long term weight loss. They tend to breed isolation, negative self esteem, decreased hope, and ultimately more emotional eating and self-sabotage. If you are struggling with emotional eating and you don’t learn the tools you need to cope with the feelings, the odds are that you will continue to feel out of control with food.

3. If you don’t take control of emotional eating, it can take control of your weight loss plans. Research studies of individuals trying to lose weight find that people who eat for emotional reasons lose less weight and have a harder time keeping it off. The journal Obesity recently published an article concluding that successful weight loss programs should teach clients how to cope with emotional eating in order to improve the clients’ ability to lose weight and not regain it. The risk of weight gain is not the only reason that emotional eating is important to address. Failure to address emotional eating—using food to cope with feelings and needs and circumstances other than physiological hunger—can also contribute to difficulties with cross-addictions after weight loss surgery.

If emotional eating is something that you struggle with, it’s important to know that no diet and no weight loss surgery will fix that for you. Taking control of emotional eating requires learning new effective ways to cope with your emotions. It’s not about the food.

It’s also important to know that learning new tools to cope with emotional eating can be one of the most rewarding and life-changing gifts that you can give yourself. Learning new ways to cope with life issues and feelings allows you to tackle life head-on. When you do this, food becomes simpler, and your life grows bigger, and ultimately, more rewarding.

Melissa McCreery, Ph.D. is a Psychologist and the founder of Enduring Change Coaching. She helps her clients create and live the life they crave. She is also the creator of the Emotional Eating Toolbox 28-day Program for Taking Control and Moving Beyond Dieting. Sign up for a free 5 part Self-care Package Audio Course, learn about upcoming WLS seminars and other programs or contact her www.enduringchange.com.

I am struggling with this and have not been successful with my band due to emotional eating. I am in therapy now and making some life changes that I hope will help.

Mandi,

Kudos to you for seeking help. Reaching out is sometimes the hardest step. Therapy can be immensely helpful with some of the underlying issues that contribute to emotional eating.

Take good care,

Melissa

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!! I really appreciate your article. Currently, I am "sentenced" by my WL program to sit through a 12-week behavior modification class (trust me I know that I need behavior modification). So, when I leave the class I feel like a slug who just likes to eat because I must not have anything else to do when actually I just need help/encouragement to move past my emotions. Instead, for an entire hour we are lectured to about food choices, how to exercise, proteins and fats. Instead, I believe what we really need is information on how to deal with the WHY... ARE EATING OURSELVES INTO A STUPOR? And we're paying for these classes out of our own pockets just so we can be "considered" for surgery. While I'm an active participant in the class (I need/want to at least feel like I'm getting my money's worth) however, most of the people just look at the moderator like she's crazy; their eyes are glassed over and lips are pursed (the guys come one time and never come back). I hope you will share this information with your colleagues around the country who are actually teaching these so called behavior modification classes. :thumbup:

Thanks for your comments. Acknowledging and recognizing the emotional eating is an important first step AND there is a necessary second step which is acquiring and learning to use the tools to learn how to respond to it. Too many weight loss programs and gurus either don't address emotional eating or just tell participants "don't do it." This isn't very helpful in my opinion. The work, and much of the writing that I do, focuses on helping people learn HOW to take control of emotional eating. It's a process, but it's definitely easier when you have the right tools and a plan for addressing it.

I still am unclear or undecided that I am an emotional eater. Is there a checklist of "symptoms" or behaviors that can help me identify if this is an issue for me?

I had my surgery December 28th 2007 my weight was 265 pounds it seems I am not losing weight at all my weight now is 230. I had two fills

2nd fill he could not find my port went back 3 weeks later which a month ago he said he gave me 3ccs. I am still eating last week I even when back to jenny craig because I am on the life time program. I know I should be smaller I have started to workout I have joined a club. Can someone please help me find the right way.

God Bless you guys.

Liz

Teri,

I have a blog and a website that both have quite a bit of information on emotional eating. Here's the link to a post that has some of the signs and "symptoms" of emotional eating:

Peace With Cake: Ending Emotional Eating: Mindful Eating: Transforming Your Relationship With Food. The other site is: Enduring Change Coaching: Helping people create healthy lives, businesses and bodies.

Hope the information is helpful,

Melissa