Is emotional eating always bad?

When and Why Emotional Eating Isn’t a Bad Thing

When people talk about emotional eating, it is always how to stop it or figuring out why you do it in the first place. It typically comes with the thought that it is a terrible habit you must stop immediately, but this isn’t always the case.

Eating because of how you feel isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It depends more on how often you do it and whether or not it is the only thing you can turn to.

It’s also a sign that you have something in your life that you are not dealing with. It’s an opening towards a better life if you pay attention to what makes you eat when you’re not hungry.

Do You Have Other Coping Skills?

This is one of the most important things to ask yourself to be able to tell if your emotional eating is even a problem. Emotional eating should only be considered a bad thing if it is your ONLY or main coping mechanism.

As humans, we have a plethora of options available when it comes to feeling better, cheering ourselves up, or dealing with difficult times in our life. If you use food as your only way to cope, then emotional eating is a problem for you.

However, if it is only one option of many things you turn to for comfort or to deal with stressful times in your life, then it is probably not as big of an issue for you.

Is Food Offering You Comfort When You Need it?

If you still struggle to figure out whether or not it has become a bad habit for you, consider how you feel after you eat in more of an emotional, stressed, or bored state.

Is it helping you feel better and just providing some comfort?

Are you overly stuffed and feeling guilty for what you ate or how much?

Do you feel relaxed and less anxious after eating?

Do you still feel terrible when you are done eating?

As you can see, food can both help and hurt your physical and emotional state. Paying attention to how you feel after you eat is just as important as why you chose to eat in the first place.

The positive aspects of emotional eating

It´s helpful to make a table listing the positive and negative effects of emotional eating on your life.

Seeing that emotional eating has actually some positive aspects too will make you feel less guilty and judgmental towards yourself. Self-acceptance is such a crucial step in the direction of food freedom.

When you realize that there are some positive aspects of emotional eating too, you will start owning and taking responsibility for your eating experience instead of feeling out of control.

You will accept that sometimes you just want to curl up in front of the TV with a glass of wine and some chips or chocolate and just relax. As you accept that this is normal and you don´t feel any guilt, you will feel satisfied after having a small portion. You won´t have the urge to overdo it and turn this experience into a binge.

You won´t have the urge to do it every night either.

You’ll be able to save this experience for times when you really just want to have a bit of comfort or fun. You have many other ways to make yourself feel good. You don´t use food and alcohol to suppress your emotions or numb yourself, they are just a small, pleasurable part of that nice evening.

Are You Using Food to Avoid Other Issues?

So consider if you use food for a bit of pleasure and comfort or food is helping you to hide, cover-up, or avoid other issues in your life. If it´s the latter, then emotional eating isn’t the best option for you. It’s not just about maybe eating foods that aren’t healthy or eating more than your body needs, but about your mental state.

You need to deal with difficult things in your life, even though it might seem impossible. You can’t hide from your problems forever and hope they will go away. Unresolved emotional issues can manifest into physical health issues.

If you need help to deal with your emotions without eating, the following blog posts can be helpful for you:

Emotional eating isn´t your enemy

As you can see from the previous paragraph, emotional eating isn´t your enemy. It´s actually your friend. It´s a sign that something is not working in your life, that you have some feelings, emotions, or other issues you need to deal with.

Eating issues are the doorway to our real issues that we need to look at. These issues may be relationship, career, parenting, money, love, family, sexuality, or spirituality related, or a combination. It can be helpful to look behind the door to see what your eating challenges are trying to teach you.

If you need help to find out what you are really hungry for and break free from emotional eating, the How to stop eating your feelings workbook will be perfect for you.

If you need further support reach out to me.

– You can send me an email at hello@ritamayblog.com.

– You can book a free call here.

– We can have a 90-minute 1 on 1 consultation to help you find your triggers and develop a strategy to break free from emotional and binge eating.

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