How to deal with emotional eating during weight loss?

• April 30, 2024
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When you’re trying to eat healthier to lose weight, different emotions can surface that you’ve been pushing down. When they’re brought up to the surface you can choose to deal with those emotions by going THROUGH them and not resisting rather than avoiding them because they’re unpleasant.

When I was eating in a way that my body responded well too (plant-based) I could definitely tell the difference emotionally. Normally, my emotions would be all over the place but as I became more aligned with healthy eating, I noticed my emotions becoming more stable and even-keel overall, but there would be times different emotions hit me hard. It might have been extreme sadness, or depression or loneliness, or even rage. Those times, I was instructed to call someone and talk it through, or write it down and get it “up and out” so I don’t get stuck in the same cycle of repetitive thinking and feeling.

Identify Your Triggers

I was fortunate enough to join a 12-step program for food addiction, so I worked through a lot of my triggers with my sponsor. Every day I talk to her and tell her what came up and we worked through the triggers one by one. In return, I would be a listening ear to help others through their emotions.

We actually had a phrase called HALTS that helped us identify the common emotional triggers. HALTS stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired, Stressed. Granted hungry is not strictly an emotion, it’s a condition, but it was by far my strongest trigger. Eating at regular intervals was important because the worst time to decide what to eat is when you’re hungry.

Be like an observer throughout your day and take inventory. When do you go to junk foods? When do you eat unconsciously? What do you do when emotions that are deemed as “negative” surface (like anger, sadness, loneliness, apathy, etc)?

Find Help/Support

If you’re having problems with this, consider seeking help. It’s one of the big three (health, wealth, and relationships) that play a big part in determining the quality of your life. Get whatever help you need to suffice whether it be a therapist, registered dietitian, joining a 12-step program, one-on-one coach. Reach out for help and take charge of your well-being.