Skip to main content

Common Challenges: In the eyes of emotional eating

“No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.”  Eleanor Roosevelt

This is a powerful quote and one I use often when meeting with some of my wonderful clients.  It’s such a simple, short sentence but so thought provoking.  Often upon an initial meeting with clients we discuss past medical history, medications, food allergies, exercise, meal timing and patterns and just skim the surface.  I listen while a story is told and understand that it will take time for trust to be built as my client and I put our plan together to move forward.

As we move through this journey together, we find that more times than most it is not just about the food.  We talk about using food as a fuel; we work on a meal plan and initiate lifestyle changes, and initiate exercise.  Most of the time success is obtained and for some, this is when the fear starts to settle in.  Will this last?  I’m doing well now, when will I start to fail again?  Can I keep this up this time?  

It is important to understand it’s never about the food and that is why, when appropriate, I introduce the concept of keeping an emotional chart along with the food journal to document feelings, emotions, or activities that parallel eating.

If you find that you eat during times of stress, anxiety, loneliness, boredom, anticipation of events, depression, or anger it’s important to address this behavior and work within yourself to define trigger points, understand actions, and work on behavior modification.  Emotional eating can become detrimental to weight loss and lifestyle change and it is important to get to address.  Dietitians have an ability to discuss nutrition and health and introduce the concept of emotional eating, but a therapist is best to work with to uncover the parallel between the action and emotion.

Most dietitians pair up with therapists they trust and respect. The combination of therapy and nutrition intervention is an equation for success.  If you have any of the signs above you can start by keeping a food and emotion journal. If you notice a pattern, make an appointment with a clinician.  You can ask your physician, research the web, or even contact me at kindrednutrition@gmail.com and I’ll help you find the right fit.  Good luck and be well.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Make it Happen

Parents, I see you. I see you putting everyone else's needs in front of yours. I see your dark circles under your eyes, your gray hair, that your wasting away, or that you've collectively gained weight over the years. It's time to put yourselves first because if you don't take care of yourself you won't be around to keep taking care of everyone else. So often friends, acquaintances, or clients say to me, "I don't know how you find the time to exercise." "How can you take the time away from everything else and get away to exercise?" "I wish I could actually focus on myself and exercise." Exercise to me is self care. It produces endorphins faster than any other activity I engage in. It  reduces my stress, keeps me healthy, increases flexibility, and gives me more energy to be on point with my busy kids and my demanding job. My exercise isn't extravagant and it doesn't take too much time. Here's my secret. I always

Why this Dietitian Cares more about your PREbiotics than your PRObiotic Pill

Clients ask me all the time what I think of their brand of probiotic or which one they should start taking.  Studies have shown that probiotic supplements definitely have their place in certain circumstances (that’s a whole other blog for another time), but my bigger concern is... what are you feeding the ones you have already? “Probiotics” is just a fancy word for helpful bacteria.  Even if you don’t take a pill, you have these little guys in your digestive track.  The problem right now is that current probiotic supplements can only include the bacteria that scientists have been able to 1) identify and 2) put in a pill without them dying right away.   However, we (probiotic and non-probiotic users alike) have so many different strains of bacteria (somewhere in the neighborhood of billions) who do so much good for us such as make vitamins and help battle bad bacteria.  BUT - just like us - they need to eat!  A recent study showed that a diet high in protein is not in their

To The Bones- A review from a dietitian

Friday July 14th, Netflix premiered the movie To The Bone.  Prior to the premier many had opinions of the movie. Some were fearful that it would glorify an Eating Disorder, some felt the movie would put too much focus on extremely thin patients with Eating Disorders neglecting those that are within normal weight but still extremely sick, and many had a lot of opinions about the lead actress who lost a significant amount of weight for the role disclosing she is in recovery for an Eating Disorder. My colleagues and I discussed the pretense of the movie, I communicated to families that the movie was coming out in case their daughters and sons watched the movie, and Friday I went home from work and viewed the movie. Although Hollywood has a way of sensationalizing everything there was a lot that the movie got right. The opening scene where Ellen counts the calories as soon as she sees the food is a good depiction of how someone with an Eating Disorder thinks. Food is not sensual it i