How To Stop Emotional Eating

Eating to soothe our feelings is natural and normal. 

Human beings have been doing this forever. Food is more than fuel. It’s a source of joy, social connection, and comfort. If we eat a bag of chips after a stressful day from time to time, it’s not the end of the world. 

If it becomes a regular habit to numb out negative feelings with food and it begins to impact your health, it’s time to do something about your emotional eating. 

Constant emotional eating is not a sign that you’re weak. It’s a sign that your anxiety, sadness, boredom or burnout has become so painful for you that you’re desperate for relief. Food is a quick way to get a rush of feel-good chemicals in your brain so it becomes your go-to source of relief. 

So much advice around emotional eating focuses on distraction. Go for a walk! Drink some water! Eat a healthier alternative! But none of these strategies address the root cause of your emotional eating - your emotions. 

So how do you stop emotionally eating? Get support for your mental health. Learn how to feed yourself with foods that lower anxiety and regulate the mood. Get tested for nutritional deficiencies and hormonal imbalances that can impact mental health. Get help coming up with a list of supplements and natural remedies that can address your anxiety, stress or sadness. Try acupuncture that focuses on calming down your nervous system. Get help figuring out how to cope with stressors in your life.  

These are some of the ways that I help my patients every day with their emotional eating as a naturopathic doctor. 

Do you have questions about emotional eating? Click the button below to contact me. 

Why It's Hard To Change Our Diets (And What To Do About It)

“I know what I should be eating but I can’t motivate myself to do it!” This is a common complaint I hear from patients. 

I want to first start off by reminding anyone who struggles with this to go easy on themselves. Food is a great source of comfort to people and carbohydrates and fats are fuels that our bodies are wired to gravitate towards. 

There are a number of underlying factors that could be contributing to this struggle. Below are just a few. 

Your Relationship With Food Needs Help  

If you constantly feel like you are trying and failing with some sort of weight loss diet (keto, paleo, sugar free etc.) the root issue could be that you have a negative relationship with food and body image. This could trap you in a perpetual state of hating your body, placing challenging demands on yourself to restrict food, feeling overwhelmed and eventually giving up on your diet plan. If this is the case, we need to work on healing this relationship with food and the body - something I love helping patients with.  

You Need Support With Anxiety Or Depression 

It’s hard to make food choices that nourish our bodies when our mental health is not in a great place. When we feel anxious, worried or down, we tend to want something that gives us a quick boost in mood. Foods higher in sugar, fat and salt can trigger more of a reward response in our brains - especially if we associate these types of foods with happier times. The root of the issue here may be that underlying anxiety, stress or depression is not being dealt with. Cravings may be a sign that your body needs some support with mental health - a topic that I’m passionate about.  

You’re Burnt Out 

When you’re depleted of energy and exhausted, the thought of preparing home cooked foods or even grocery shopping can be overwhelming. If you wish you could eat more fresh or home cooked foods but can’t muster the energy to do it, work on getting some help with addressing the fatigue. Fatigue can be caused by a number of things including hormonal imbalances and nutrient deficiencies. 

Food is a big deal. It’s a source of nutrition as well as joy and comfort. Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t craft your diet into a state of complete perfection (which is defined differently by everyone anyways). If you struggle with exploring a new way of eating that you’re interested in, rather than berating yourself for not having enough willpower, address the barriers that are getting in the way.  

Sick of Always Being on a Diet? Consider Intuitive Eating

Are food, weight and dieting major sources of anxiety for you? Are you trapped in that classic dieting cycle? The one where you carefully watch your diet, then later break the “rules”, feel guilty, “binge”, feel more guilty about binging and then promise yourself to watch your diet even more closely. If you’re completely fed up with this cycle and you want to work on improving your relationship with food, I suggest considering intuitive eating.

Intuitive eating is all about letting go of rigid rules around food in order to improve a negative relationship with food. It’s about following your body’s hunger cues and being flexible with your food choices. If you want to learn more about what intuitive eating is and my own personal experience with it, check out my article HERE.

Today I want to focus more on the science behind intuitive eating. The concept of relaxing the rules around eating can be really intimidating so going over the science behind intuitive eating might help you feel more at ease about it. There aren’t many studies out there on the subject yet, but the ones that exist are promising.

So, lets run through some of the promising findings that have come out about intuitive eating:

-          Intuitive eating may promote a better body image than rigid diet control

-          In some studies, intuitive eating resulted in a greater drop in BMI or at least it did not cause any weight gain

-          Intuitive eating may be associated with improved eating behaviours

-          Psychological health has been shown to improve with intuitive eating

I suspect more interesting findings will come out over time. If you want to learn more about how to do intuitive eating, you can click HERE. Clicking this link will lead you to my “Favourites” page where I have a link to a great resource to get you started on your own research.  

As a naturopathic doctor who works extensively with conditions like anxiety and depression, I see how our mood can affect our food choices and how guilt around our food choices can negatively affect our mood. I enjoy working with patients who are ready to improve their relationship with food and I’m always happy to connect patients to fabulous counsellors and dietitians who share my passion for this subject. Time and time again I find that when we get our mindset to a healthier state, it’s so much easier to eat in a way that helps us feel amazing both physically and mentally.

My Approach to Gluten

It’s a common cliché to think that naturopathic doctors put all their patients on a gluten free diet. The term gluten describes specific proteins in plants like wheat, rye and barley. Gluten gives foods made from these grains a unique texture that is hard to mimic. This is why gluten-free breads taste so different from the breads we’re used to.

I don’t believe everyone needs to be on a gluten free diet and I only recommend it when I think it’s necessary. I also don’t believe that only those with celiac disease need to consider reducing gluten intake. There is a growing body of research on non-celiac gluten sensitivity although this research is still controversial right now. Wheat and gluten sensitivities have been associated with skin conditions like eczema, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic pain and even mood disorders.  

I’ve seen a number of patients benefit from a trial of reducing gluten in their diet – even if they were already eating a healthy diet before. Personally, when I include gluten in my diet, I tend to get hives, seasonal allergies, my thyroid levels go out of whack, I get more fatigued, more “brain fog”, my mood suffers and I sometimes get mild joint pain. When I remove or even just reduce gluten, these symptoms all go away and I usually feel great.

It’s important to note that whenever I reduce my gluten, I try to avoid processed gluten free foods. A lot of these processed gluten free foods are not nutritionally valuable. I’ll have gluten free bread or gluten free treats here and there but for my staples, I prefer to stick to foods that are minimally processed and naturally gluten free like rice, sweet potato, quinoa, chickpeas, etc.

My latest gluten free stretch of time was 2017 - 2018. I was able to be almost gluten free for a big chunk of the year. I didn’t really miss it at all. However, towards the end of 2018, I started to feel deprived. As I mentioned in my article on intuitive eating, it’s really important to me that I eat healthy without feeling deprived. That’s why I decided to reintroduce gluten back into my life for now. I still try not to have it every day, but I am having it more than in 2017. The mild hives have returned, and I do feel a slight dip in my energy but I’m ok with temporarily paying this price so I can feel happy about my diet and less deprived. I know that in time I’ll be open to cutting gluten out again.

And that’s how it goes for me. I’m aware of my gluten intolerance and I fluctuate my level of gluten intake based on my motivation and sense of deprivation. My intolerance symptoms are mild enough that I can live with them when they come back. If they get more severe, then I might prefer to be more strict with my gluten avoidance.

The point is that the power is in my hands to use my awareness of my intolerance as I see fit. When I tell my patients that they may benefit from reducing certain foods in their diet, I will never sit there and judge them if they don’t follow my recommendations to a tee every single moment of their life. You have to know yourself and your relationship with food. You have to know what you’re willing to do and what you’re not ready for yet. I’ve had many patients tell me that they do want to change their diet but only to a certain extent. That’s ok. I will meet you where you’re at and we can change as much as you’re ready for and save the rest for another time.

My job is to arm you with the awareness of all the things that you can do to benefit your health. Your job is to communicate to me what you’re ready for and what you’re not ready for. Our job together is to use this information to build a plan that works for you on every level.