You Might Be An Emotional Eater & Not Know It

Emotional eating is the primary reason that people have unintentionally gained weight over the years and feeling like it snuck up on them.

In this episode I share some ways to check yourself to see if you’re emotionally eating and what to do about it.

• Sleep Munchies report on NPR

Hope it helps! Shoot me a message on instagram @alexparker.fit if you have any thoughts or comments you’d like to add!

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Alex Parker

Fitness Coach • Make weight loss & building muscle effortless and permanent.

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 Hello and welcome back to the fit space pro podcast today We're gonna talk about how you might be an emotional eater and you might not know it and I'm gonna share a little bit about how I did not know I was an emotional eater when I realized and Some of the things that cause emotional eating that you just might not know about.

So first, let's get into what is emotional eating Emotional eating is, kind of just like it sounds, you are emotional and you eat, right? And I think we can all identify someone that we might think is an emotional eater, or we've watched them kind of uncomfortably turn to food, and look to cope on some emotions with food, treats, otherwise.

You kind of watch people overeat, and you're like, whoa, that seems kind of like excessive, and, uh, there's something going on there, right? But the rest of us aren't emotional eaters, we think. Okay. And to give you a little bit of background, I was, at this time that I'm thinking of, it was about 2012, 2013, it was a stressful job.

I worked at an agency as a software developer and we pushed our limits. Um, and it was a high output team, a high output company, and we worked hard. We worked focused. There is this. You know, kind of a library culture in the open office. So there's, there's an open office, but you kind of weren't supposed to interrupt anyone or, uh, interject.

And there was kind of a quiet heads down, stay focused kind of a culture. Which, there's nothing wrong with that, but sometimes you can get stuck and you can feel like, uh, some stress and different emotions that maybe you just don't know how to cope with, right? But you don't know that you don't know how to cope with it.

The biggest problem with self awareness is that you don't know that you're not aware. So it's that whole quote, you don't know what you don't know. Right? And the more you know, the more you realize you don't know. Um, and that's, that's kind of the catch that gets us all. But what we want to do is learn how to open up to new awareness and learning new awareness.

And this is kind of the goal of this podcast episode is I'm hoping that you can kind of introspect, look at yourself, look at your eating habits, look at why you're frustrated with your fitness goals or your health goals and see why Maybe, just maybe, you might have some emotional eating habits that you're not quite aware of yet.

Or, some other habits that we're going to touch on that might be contributing to your inability to comply with a fitness plan or a nutritional plan and what to do about it. Kind of some one two punch steps. So, uh, an emotional eater is someone who responds to emotions. and copes with those emotions through food.

And those might be overeating. It might be sneaking treats in the pantry. It might be just going berserk on a dessert. Um, there's really a lot of different ways you can respond, but the most subtle one is probably overeating. And it's really easy to overeat in 2024, especially in the Western. Diet. And I'm speaking from America, so I'm going to speak from an American perspective, but eating in America, the food is so dense in calories and so rich in fats and carbs, sugars.

And just high calorie, empty calorie, a lot of times, foods. And there's nothing wrong with fats, there's nothing wrong with carbs, but when you have these foods that are just jam packed with highly refined carbohydrates and laced and drenched in fatty sauces and delicious oils, frankly, you can pack so many calories in a small volume.

And the small volume really contributes to how easy it is to overeat. Thanks. But on top of that, if we're emotionally eating, if you sit down for a rich, creamy Italian meal with noodles, right? You've got so much oil and carbs in that meal. And a lot of times there's little to no protein. It might be like two strips of chicken.

You'd be eating 15 to 20 grams of chicken or of protein in that chicken. How do I know if I'm an emotional eater? Well, one, let's sit down and if you eat a half of a meal when you're out with friends and you eat slowly and you chew slowly and you're satisfied very easily and you can just keep socializing without needing to eat, you're probably not emotionally eating in that instance.

If you're feeling the urge to finish the dish and you want seconds and you're kind of feeling compelled to have dessert. And you don't want to miss out on dessert because you're out to eat with friends, so you might as well indulge, right? Uh, this can be some signs of emotional eating, or if you find yourself feeling sorry for yourself or wanting to celebrate and your first instinct is we need to go treat ourselves with a treat, a cake, uh, cookies, whatever, then you could be in the realm of emotional eating.

Now, emotional eating has Some negative connotation to it. And I want to get away from that because really we're all emotional creatures anyways. So there's nothing wrong with emotions. There's nothing wrong with eating around emotions with emotions. There's nothing wrong with enjoying a deep or a sentimental meal with friends, right?

But the Struggle is actually when you're, when you're using, and I might substitute the word abusing, food in order to feel better. So you might not think cognitively, I want to feel better. What food can I eat? It might be a somewhat autopiloted response to how you feel, and you just find yourself snacking or grabbing some sort of a treat.

And I say this is not like this is an exercise of self awareness because there's so many people I was in this party of I'm eating this food and then suddenly you realize you're eating this food. And you're like, Oh, why am I eating this? I don't, I don't know. I'm not even hungry. And then you put it away.

No extra thought. Right. But yet you're trying to lose weight and no matter what you try, nothing works. And this is where there's sort of this. Um, just the missing awareness holds you back because you don't even realize what you're putting in your mouth. Um, the bites, the licks, the tastes, eating kid's food, having a few bites of their food, um, trying to finish their food.

They have a half piece of toast and you're like, Oh, well, I don't want to throw this away. I'm just going to eat it. I'm sure that's calorie value is very low, right? It doesn't really matter. But there's three almonds here that my kid didn't eat. I'm going to eat them. Because I don't want to throw them away.

There's all these little things that add up so easily and quickly to an amount that allows you to actually put on body fat. So there's snacking and bites, licks, and tastes can actually be an emotional response as well. It's an inability to sit in the present and actually be present and aware of what you're doing, what your purpose is, what your intentions are, and you're kind of just going on autopilot and reactively responding to these cues.

And these cues are, Oh, that looks good. I'm going to eat it. Oh, that looks tasty. I'm going to taste it. But you're not thinking that. It is like telling my daughter this last night, we are spirits in an animal body. So we have instincts and we have instincts and we have appetites and our instincts and appetites serve us well in order to survive and thrive.

But our spirits or our minds are what we want to be in control. So we look at my cat and I say, you know, our cat Jasper, he, lives off of instinct. When he's hungry, he goes hunting for food. When he feels scared, he runs. When he feels like attacking something, he attacks it, right? He just responds to the cues around him all the time.

You dangle a string in front of him, he cannot resist attacking that string. It's just an instinct, right? Now we have these instincts of eating food that looks delicious. So how do we get control of these instincts and actually be intentional with what we eat? And enjoy it at the same time. You don't have to eat salads and chicken and broccoli all the time.

Right. That's not enjoying life either. So we really want to do a couple of things. One, get aware of our emotions. What am I feeling? And if, if you're a modern day man, there's a good chance you're just not addressing your own emotions. Most men are afraid to talk about their emotions. They don't like to talk about it.

It's uncomfortable for them. They've been programmed to think that emotions are dumb. Emotions are weak and emotions are for women. And that could be, not further from the truth because men are very emotional creatures as well. The problem is that we suppress it, right? And then we deny it. And then we sit there and emotionally eat because we don't know how to cope with the stresses of life, but we're not emotional.

So this, there's no way that this could be emotional eating because I'm a man and I'm not emotional. I'm a logical. And since I'm all logic, then there's no emotional behavior going on here. Look the other way, right? Well, uh, that's a lie. It's self deception, and it is self betrayal, because When a man is willing to look at what he's actually feeling and kind of explore it, he may realize that he is not coping with a lot of emotions that have been buried.

And a lot of times that comes out as food abuse and snacking. So I was at work at this stressful job, and when I felt stuck on an issue, I felt like I couldn't progress, I felt this incompetence set in because I hit this block on solving some problem with my engineering, and I didn't know what to do, so I would get up, take a walk to the break room, and sure enough, they were stocked with these delicious, high sugary, fatty, salty foods, and you know what?

They were really good. You know, no, uh, no fault of the bosses who had incredible discipline and was not a snacky person. I was snacking my brains out there. And so I was putting on weight, but then when we'd have a work party and I would eat and then I had to eat seconds and at home I would eat and then I would eat seconds because it was delicious.

And I eat thirds because it was delicious. And Lindsay was an amazing cook. And so I would just be putting on the weight and I didn't know why, because I didn't. feel like I was eating that much more than everyone else. So I was not aware of what I was putting into my body and I wasn't aware of how often I was snacking or just grabbing food surely out of a instinctual response to an emotion, right?

So let's talk about that. Well, first let's hit a list of a short list of emotions that we might be using food to cope with because it correlates with the brain chemistry. And these are stress, boredom, loneliness, shame, procrastination. Uh, I've experienced almost all of these to a large degree, um, with food and There's more and there's others.

There's, um, obviously emotions are complex. I would say that people don't usually snack when they're experiencing anger. And even stress has sort of a, I wouldn't call it sort of a U shape or like a bell curve response to stress with hunger. Because, you know, Stress to a degree can cause you to not be hungry, but kind of crave relief from that stress.

And so you'll go to sweet treats that trigger your reward system. But if you're stressed to a larger degree or to a higher level of stress, that actually might shut off your appetite. So if you're listening to this and you're like, well, I don't know, when I'm stressed, I don't eat. That's actually very possible as well.

Stress can shut your appetite down. But if you rely on dopamine and You're slightly stressed and you need some dopamine to keep you moving forward because that is your dopamine. That is what the dopamine does. It keeps you feeling motivated and moving forward, um, feeling successful. And so sometimes we'll treat ourselves to little snacks that hit that dopamine nerve and then you want to keep moving forward.

You're like, okay, I'm doing okay. And you, you keep working. Well, that could also be stressed from relationships with kids, with spouse, with boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever. These stresses can cause those same types of stressors or indicators to want to snack or eat or overeat. Let's talk a little bit about the brain chemistry and why these things are so difficult to resist.

And there was this one study done with, um, lack of sleep and how lack of sleep can actually affect your ability to resist junky foods, these sugary, fatty, salty foods, which frankly is most of the American diet. Because it sells. It sells really well. Because you crave it, right? All the chips that you eat.

And you know, it's, it's in your face too. Pringles, right? Once you pop, you can't stop. It's like, try to just eat one, right? There was one with Lay's, I think, and I can't remember it, but basically like once you eat one, you can't stop. There's two parts. One is dopamine in your brain's reward system. And second, the lack of sleep.

So at this time when I was working, I was also sleep deprived. I was probably sleeping six hours a night on average, five to six hours a night. I was trying hard to work on a side project. I wanted to build some software and that was fun. But this study that I was bringing up, it's called lack of sleep may give you the munchies.

And according to the study, it was a small study and it was just done on, I believe it was 14 young, healthy volunteers. And it was only over eight days, so it was a small study, but they were just measuring this brain chemical. And what they did is they sleep deprived a group of them and then they measured this chemical in their blood, which I'm not going to try to pronounce, but it's called 2 AG.

It's, uh, Endocannabinoid to a record, blah, blah, blah. I'm not gonna do it. Glycerol ends in glycerol. Okay? So it's two Ag, it's this brain chemical. And what they found with the sleep deprived group was that it increased their two ag levels in their bloodstream through the day and through the end of the evening hours.

Now, what this brain chemical does is it increases your, they said your joy of eating, but really it's your. It's your desire for eating and it's your craving. So it's like, you know, when you eat a food, you're like, Oh, that's so good. Oh my gosh, I love that. That's not your hunger being satisfied. That is 100 percent your dopamine being responded.

It is your dopamine responding, and it is your brain chemicals saying, Yes, that was good. Do it again. And I'm going to build you a highway to make that easier to make that choice next time. So this 2AG chemical in your bloodstream makes those foods seem more appetizing. So when these 14 youngsters were deprived of sleep, then they were less likely to resist unhealthy treats.

They didn't feel full after big meals, and they scarfed down twice as much food that was actually bad for them. So, I don't know if you've ever been underslept. If you're a parent, if you're a mom, you're a dad, and your kids are keeping you up at night, I personally really struggle with this and I know this enough now that I can use it to react and I can respond appropriately when my sleep is low, right?

But because of this, when you don't sleep enough, the next day it's really hard to resist cravings to the point you actually may feel like a slave to your cravings. And the good news is, the same group of people, once they were actually rested well enough, they were able to resist the unhealthy foods and they were able to get back to controlling their urges on junk food, right?

So, number one, if you're struggling with cravings, then the absolute number one thing to focus on is make sure you're getting enough sleep and enough rest. And if you can't, then you're going to have to set up other blockades to kind of safeguard you against yourself. Because if you can't make choices that serve you in the long run, then you need things in place that will help you make those choices.

But since most of us can and ought to try harder to get more sleep, then that's the first place to start, is start on getting more sleep, okay? That's the first offense and any recovering addict, alcoholic, drug addict will say the same thing that when you are low on sleep, you will be weaker to temptation, to urges, the natural body's instincts.

It's a survival mechanism. When you are low on sleep, it is like a survival mode. Your body is trying to do what it can to get the energy that it needs because you didn't give it the energy it needed from sleep. So if you struggle with overeating or snacking or cravings, number one, hit your sleep. Okay.

Number two, if you are taking care of your sleep as best as you can, and there's nothing more that you can do to get more sleep, then this is where I want you to raise your awareness. And this is where we're going to help you get dialed into your emotions. Okay. If you're a man and you're I want you to get humble because Your manly pride is not going to serve you well here, and it's not going to help you learn about yourself and learn how you're unconsciously and autopiloting responses to your emotions in unhealthy ways.

So allowing the humility to be told, yes, I am emotional. Maybe I am responding to my emotions unhealthily in ways that I think is protecting the people around me, but it's actually not. It's sabotaging my health. It's sabotaging my wellness. Um, When you do something that you realize after the fact is not serving your best interest in the long run, that's your signal, okay?

Right now, I'll call these awareness signals. And if that's the first awareness signal that you can raise, then raise it, like a flag in the ground, like, or a beacon, like, there is my signal. If you had three servings of your wife's casserole dish that was just absolutely delicious, And you're stuffed and there's a part of you, even like this tiny snuffed out little voice inside of you that says, I probably shouldn't have eaten that much.

I didn't need to eat that much. That's your signal. Okay. That's your signal that you did not logically eat. You didn't eat in any sort of logical way. You ate an emotional level of fullness. And if that's true. Good, you put the signal down. Okay, I've got something to work on here because I had this feeling of regret and I don't want you to sit and regret it.

But that feeling or that signal of like, I betrayed my best interest, I betrayed my long term interest in health and wellness, that's, that's your flagship that you are setting up a system to start working backwards from. So from that, you're going to look backwards as, as to that point and working back in time, um, Transcribed What was going on before that, what was my day like?

Was I stressed? Was I feeling overwhelmed? Did I have a really long day at work? And I came home and the kids were all fighting and my wife was stressed and maybe she's coming down on you because you didn't do something you said you were gonna do the day before. Uh, could have been anything, right? But walk backwards from that point and take an inventory of all the ways that maybe you kind of, or could have built up some stressors and emotions that you didn't want to deal with.

Are you feeling resentment? Are you feeling not heard, not seen? Are you feeling ignored? Are you feeling, um, lonely? Are you feeling like you don't have the friends that you need? Are you feeling like you don't have the support? Are you feeling unappreciated? Like there's so many different feelings that we feel on a day to day basis in our day and era that we just don't think or we haven't learned healthy ways to deal with and cope with.

So we kind of put it off and say, I'll just be fine. It doesn't matter. And. It could be small. It doesn't matter how big or small it is. That's not the point. The point is that you're not dealing with it in a healthy way. So, working backwards from that awareness signal, you have other points that you can realize, okay, maybe, maybe that's, maybe this is building up for me.

Maybe I am stressed about these things in my family or with my kids or whatever. And the first thing to do, either just internally or to a guy friend or maybe to your spouse, if you feel comfortable talking about it, if you guys have a good relationship and you can share. That's great. Then you say, you know, uh, this is, this is what I'm feeling.

I'm, I'm feeling stressed and I'm feeling like I'm not appreciated. I'm feeling like unseen, unheard, or like my, my efforts are being ignored, whatever. You could really pull out, uh, whatever it is you're finding is creating a tension inside of you. And by. I mean, tension, not a tension, but a, a type of tension and inner turmoil inside of you that you're just not wanting to deal with.

And then just kind of take inventory of that. And then the next day, kind of watch for it and look for it. And what am I feeling? And you don't have to get into the woo woo, like I'm always paying attention to my emotions. What am I feeling now? What am I feeling now? Like it doesn't have to be that far on that.

But it is going from zero awareness to some awareness, and that some awareness can raise enough awareness that you can then respond to it healthily. And a lot of times, the healthiest and the best response is just calling it out. Saying, you know what, I'm frustrated right now, and I don't know how to deal with it, so I'm gonna try to figure it out.

And that has been one of the best things that I have learned with my kids, is when I'm frustrated with them. Okay, I might be tired, I might be grouchy, I'm trying to do something, I'm trying to focus on it, but I'm not able to because my own sleep deprivation is affecting me. It's got my foggy brain, I'm trying to resist tempting foods, I'm like, Under all of this pressure, under my own doing, right, but my kid's next to me trying to get my attention or trying to get me to do something that is just acting as that last camel or that last straw on the camel's back.

Found the camel here. And, um, under that scenario, it's so easy for us to lash out at the kid and say, just stop, like be quiet. Right. But that's not actually who I want to be. And I don't want to respond that way. And I don't want to just suppress that feeling. I'm trying to be nice to the kids. I'm not going to say anything, but I actually might get up and go snack on something that makes me feel better without realizing it if I'm still emotionally eating right.

But I've learned not to do that. And I've learned to just call out what I'm feeling. And I'll say to my child, my 10 year old, even my four year old saying, you know, I'm very tired. I'm feeling a little grouchy. And I am sorry, I can't be the person that I want to be right now because I, I feel the way that I feel.

So I'm going to ask for a little bit of space so that I can kind of regain my emotions and I can manage my responses to my emotions right now. And, um, I want to come back when I'm feeling better and then let's play Legos or let's do the thing that they're kind of seeking from me, right? The attention, the, the connection, the playing together, the thing they want to show me.

And I'll say, you know, I'm, I'm really sorry. I want to do this with you, but I'm not in the right frame of mind, or I'm, I'm struggling with some emotions of my own right now. So give me some space and then let's figure this out. And I'll give them some time. in the future and come and walk up to that time, right?

And respond to that or, or, uh, follow through with that is what I'm trying to say. So calling it out is one of the best and most alleviating things that you can do because immediately when I just speak it and I say, I'm frustrated, I'm tired, and I'm in this situation that I, I don't even know how to deal with because I feel like I'm in over my head because of my own doing, right?

They feel relieved. They don't feel like I'm, Blaming them for how I'm feeling, which is what we do, unknowingly, we blame those around us for how we're feeling. And then I feel kind of like heard, I feel seen, even if it is by my four year old, right? And then I feel better immediately, almost. And then I can kind of keep moving, resolve, whatever it is I'm working on.

Or if I don't immediately feel resolved, I'll go take a walk. Take a break. I'll go outside and do a lap around my neighborhood. There's a couple of times at bedtime, I've been so frustrated. I want to just throw a tantrum myself, right? And in times past, I would go and I would suppress it and I would be the good dad.

And then I would go down and I would actually just eat something that hit that dopamine for me. And I didn't realize that that's why I was doing that. I was just like, I just feel like snacking, have a bowl of cereal. I know it's nighttime and I just ate dinner and I'm full and I'm not actually hungry.

I'm just going to have a bowl of cereal because I feel like it, right? So learning to call it out and learning how to respond to emotions in healthy ways is such a worthwhile endeavor. So you might be an emotional leader. You might not realize it. And this is my call to you to start looking, to start.

Trying to see why and how you're sabotaging yourself and what is it that you need that you're denying yourself? There's something inside of you that has a need and it's it's a part of you that needs attention. It needs Rest it needs nurturing and you're denying it and in that denial creates these emotions That are difficult to deal with and in that difficulty you might suppress them further with things like food or other You destructive habits, right?

Lashing out at your kids, feeling angry, getting frustrated, turning to the news and venting and blowing up. Like, like we do a lot of different things that cause problems. And so turn in words, ask yourself, what am I feeling? Why am I doing this? And what is it that I really want? And then from there, call it out.

And all of this after you make sure you are absolutely getting enough sleep, okay? And you'll find as you focus on getting enough sleep and starting to raise your awareness with your emotions and how you're responding to your emotions, you'll start working on what I call emotional responsibility. And that is, it's not your goal to manage your emotions or to control your emotions.

It's your goal to recognize your emotions and respond responsibly. And so then we become emotionally mature or emotionally responsible and we can manage our emotions responsibly or really manage our responses or our reactions to our, our emotions responsibly. That said, hopefully this, um, sparked some thoughts, sparked some desires to work on your emotional eating and some tools that you can work on.

Um, I have this quote here just to wrap it up and I don't know who Sai Baba is, but it's a great quote by Sai Baba and it says, you seek too much information and not enough transformation. So this is my call to you to take action on this. Don't just keep looking for more information and digesting more information.

Like, Actually put it to use and try it out so tomorrow when you find yourself in a situation that you feel like you went against your better interest in your long term interest of health and wellness, ask yourself, Why did I do that? Was that emotional eating? Was that an emotional self sabotage? And what led up to that?

Start raising your awareness signals. and working backwards from those signals so that you can set earlier signals to understand a little bit more about what is making you tick inside. And that's a wrap. Thanks for listening. You can find me on Instagram at alexparker. fit or fitspacepro. com