Navigating Comfort Eating | Beaufort Fitness

Navigating Comfort Eating | Beaufort Fitness

You got questions? Hopefully I have the answer. In today’s Q and A, I’m going to go over a very serious topic. One that impacts many clients and that is… how do you break up the cycle of emotional eating?

So we’re going to get right into that. So the question was posted to me through a client. I’m just going to kind of paraphrase her question. It was, “Hey, Hey Sam, I have a question. Whenever I’m thinking about emotional eating, I think really it has a lot to do with my childhood. There’s little triggers based on a reward system, or when I did something good, I got rewarded through food. Or even now as an adult, when I’m sad, I feel myself turning towards those comfort foods. So how do we break up with those comfort foods when we’re experiencing either negative emotions or sometimes even happy emotions? 

So this is a complex answer. I’m going to kind of lay it out as best as I can for you guys and in an easily digestible manner. So first we have to shine the spotlight of awareness on the problem, which would be they’ll comfort foods, us going towards those comfort foods. First thing you want to take check of okay. And you can write this down, you can journal it, whatever works best for you. Take check of what comfort food am I going to? Is it a craving or am I actually hungry? So a craving I’ve made a video on this previously, but just reminder a craving is going to be specific food. So it’s going to be, “Hey, I want that Reese’s bar” or,

“Hey, I want this type of pizza”, “Hey, I want this specific sweet treat” whatever it is. It’s not going to be, “Hey, I’m just generally hungry.”

So ask yourself, you can run a little self test, think of some type of bland food that you would still eat if you were really hungry. So can I just eat six chicken breasts right now? Could I do that? Am I hungry enough to do that? If the answer is no, I just want this thing. That’s a clear indication that what you’re having is a craving. So after we shine the spotlight of awareness there, we want to ask what emotions we are having around this craving? Am I feeling sad? Am I feeling happy? Did something awesome just happen? Did something bad just happen to me? Kind of monitor those emotions, write them down. And then the best thing you could do in that moment is we want to create some distance from that negative food, or I shouldn’t say negative food, I should say the junk food or the comfort food that we’re craving. 

We want to create distance. So separate yourself. Don’t tell yourself you absolutely can’t have it set a timer for about 10 minutes. Okay. 10 minutes. And in that 10 minutes, I want you to do something that occupies your time and also releases endorphins. Great one, go out and walk, go have a conversation with a loved one, take your dog out, play with your dog, do something that you actually enjoy doing so we can get the endorphins going.

Hack, you can even do like a short, like a bout of pushups and squats, things like that. That’s actually what I do when I’m really feeling, I get my blood moving and get my brain off of it. And the chances are in that 10 minutes, I’m not going to go back to that. And if that plan doesn’t work for you, if you still want that after 10 minutes, go ahead and allow yourself to have a little bit and then wait more before you’re having more. That way. We’re not just going into an all out binge.

So really the main takeaway from today’s video. What I want you to do is when you’re having those cravings or those feelings, “Hey, this happened to me in my childhood.” Yes, those things are all bad and they will lead to some disordered eating, but that does not define who you are. So define what’s going on, shine the spotlight of awareness on it, and then create a little breakup, create some space in between there and see how that does for you. So those are my recommendations for today. As always though, I should make a caveat. If you do have a severe eating disorder, please seek out professional help. If you don’t know who to reach out to, reach out to me, and I can point you in the right direction, because that is a very serious issue for some, so we want to take it seriously as well. 

So just to recap, identify what the food is, what the trigger is, what emotion you’re having. When you’re eating these foods, jot that down, try to create some space in there, go out, do something you’d like for about 10 minutes and then come back to it. After that, just create a good time delay and release some endorphins otherwise, and that should help you out with those food cravings for those comfort foods. That’s all I have today. Hope you found value in this video. If you liked to give me a thumbs up, if you loved it give me a heart and as always stay strong.