The Emotional Eating Habit Cycle

In this episode, we’re revisiting  a topic so many of us struggle with—emotional eating.

You might think you’re turning to food because you’re stressed, bored, or need comfort, but that’s only part of the reason. What’s really happening is you’ve built an emotional eating habit.

In this episode, I explain how you created this habit and how the cycle works and, more importantly, how to break free from it.

So if you’re ready to start a new chapter in your relationship with food, this episode is for you! Let’s do it!

**Join my free 5-day challenge designed to help you stop emotional eating and take back control around food.**

WHAT YOU WILL DISCOVER

• How emotional eating is actually a habit cycle involving cues, thoughts, urges, and rewards.
• Why eating makes you feel good in the moment but keeps you stuck in the cycle.
• How you always have the power to choose a different response to the urge.
• Practical ways to break the emotional eating habit and create new, healthier habits.
• Simple yet effective strategies to reward yourself without turning to food.

FEATURED ON THE SHOW

• 5-Day Stop Emotional Eating Challenge
• Would you do me a favor? Please leave a review on your preferred podcast platform — it helps me reach more and more people. Thank you!
• I’d love to hear from you with any questions or breakthroughs or topics you’d like me to cover. Send me a direct message on Instagram @ajoyfulyou or email me at rachael@ajoyfulyou.com
• Follow me on Instagram for more
• Website

 

TRANSCRIPT

This is The Joyful You Podcast, episode 103, The Emotional Eating Habit Cycle.

Welcome to The Joyful You Podcast.

On this show, I talk all about the tools you need to cultivate a healthy relationship with food, your mind, and your life.

I’m your host, Rachael Collins.

As an eating psychology practitioner, a certified life coach, and a weight loss expert, it is my mission to show you how to work with your body to manage your mind, process your emotions, and create supportive habits so you can live well, feel well, and become your strongest, healthiest, happiest, most amazing self, a joyful you.

Let’s do this.

Hi there, friends.

Today, I want to teach you about the emotional eating habit cycle.

You think you’re overeating because you are stressed or bored or maybe it’s for comfort or joy, whatever your reasons are, but that’s only part of the reason that you’re overeating.

The reason that you’re eating all the things and feeling out of control around food is because you have created a habit.

And this is really good news because if we created the habit, we can unlearn the habit and create a new habit that is now going to service.

Before we dive into this, I want to let you know that I have a free five-day emotional eating challenge.

If you struggle with emotional eating or feeling out of control around food, this is going to help you stop.

I will leave a link to sign up in the show notes.

All right, let’s get into the emotional eating habit cycle, shall we?

Emotional eating really is just a habit.

And let me show you how this works.

Very first, we have a cue.

So this could be just seeing food.

It could be being around certain people.

It could also be an emotion that we feel.

We all have our go-to emotions that help us create this particular overeating habit.

And I bet if you think about it, you will know exactly what yours are.

For me, it’s boredom.

I hate feeling bored.

I want to be entertained.

And so a lot of times, I will turn to food because it gives me something to do and it entertains me for just a little bit.

But the problem with this is I’m eating when my body doesn’t need the fuel, which means I’m overeating, which means all that excess eating my body then stores as fat on my body, and I don’t want that.

So whatever it is for you, you will have a cue.

And the cue triggers a thought.

Maybe that thought is this tastes good.

Or for me, my thought is this will be entertaining.

This will give me something to do.

This thought then creates an urge or a feeling of desire.

That’s all an urge is.

It’s just a feeling of desire.

And in this case, it’s a desire to eat.

It’s a desire to put food or maybe even it’s a beverage into our mouth.

So then we go to the pantry or the refrigerator or even the drive-thru and we consume it.

When we consume it, it then rewards the brain in the form of dopamine, and it’s usually an extremely high amount of dopamine.

Okay?

Now, dopamine is a feel-good chemical that your brain releases, and the more floury, sugary, fried and fat processed the food is, the more dopamine your brain is going to release.

Now, when we have this dopamine reward, it then closes the feedback loop, and that’s what creates the habit.

Got that?

Now, this will turn into a cycle, which is what we’re talking about, the emotional eating habit cycle.

This turns into a cycle when we then beat ourselves up because we feel guilty, we feel ashamed for eating off plan.

So we beat ourselves up, and all of our self-criticism creates more unwanted emotions that then act as cues that trigger thoughts like, well, I already messed up, I might as well eat and start again tomorrow, which just keeps the cycle going.

And the more you do this, the more you repeat this cycle, the stronger the pattern gets, the more ingrained the habit gets.

So how do we break the cycle?

We learn a new habit, and learning a new habit works exactly the same way.

We have a cue that triggers a thought that creates an urge.

What most of you don’t realize is that the second you feel an urge, you actually have a choice.

You get to decide if you’re going to obey the urge or not obey the urge.

Now, a lot of times, it feels like we don’t have a choice, right?

The urge is just so strong.

It feels really urgent.

Urges feel urgent and very important.

But I promise you, you do have a choice.

Food cannot make it into your mouth without you physically going and getting it and putting it into your mouth and chewing it up and swallowing it.

You have a choice.

In act therapy, they talk about there being a choice point, like a fork in the road.

That’s how we could think of it.

We can choose which path we’re going to take.

The one on the left, the one on the right.

Will we choose the feed the urge, reward the brain path?

Or will we choose the let’s get curious and be patient with the urge path?

You’re going to have the cue and the thought and the urge to eat.

You will.

But it’s up to you to decide what the next action is going to be.

So if you want to strengthen your overeating habits, keep answering the urge for food.

If you want to break the cycle, then instead of eating, you need to choose to not eat when you feel that urge and just allow the urge to be there unanswered without food.

If you want to break the cycle, then instead of eating, what you need to do is choose to not eat and allow the urge to be there.

We’re going to allow the urge.

So we fill the urge in our action.

Instead of eating, it’s going to be allowing.

Remember, an urge is just a chemical that’s vibrating through your body.

That’s what you are feeling is just the vibration.

And if you can allow this chemical to do your job, it’s basically just a messenger.

It’s sending you a message that there’s a need, okay?

If you can allow that message to be there, if you can be curious about it and patient with it, it will be gone in about 90 seconds.

90 seconds, that’s a minute and a half, that’s it.

Set a timer.

It will go by pretty fast.

Now, if you resist the urge or you tense up when you feel it and you fight against it by trying to use willpower, it’s going to keep the urge there and it will last way, way longer.

Now, this is one of the things that you are going to learn inside my five day stop emotional eating challenge.

We go into this process of allowing and listening and being curious and being patient in great, great detail.

But for now, let me just give you the reader’s Digest version.

So what you want to do is you want to sit with the urge.

You want to welcome it.

You don’t want to tense up and freak out when you feel it.

You just want to be open and welcome it.

And be okay filling it.

Relax.

Take a few deep breaths in through your nose.

Hold it out through your mouth like a straw.

Got it?

Then I want you just to go into your body.

Pay attention to where it is physically in your body.

Where do you feel it?

Do you feel it in your throat?

Is your throat tingling?

Do you fill it in your mouth?

Is your mouth watering?

Do you fill it in your arms with energy flowing through your arms and your fingers and your hands?

Where do you fill it?

It’s gonna be different for everyone.

So where do you fill it?

If you can do this, then it’s going to process through and the urge will be gone.

But remember, if you fight it, it’s gonna stick around and it’s just gonna get stronger and stronger and stronger, which is what happens when we try to fight something, right?

So that’s step one to breaking the cycle is one, notice the urge, but don’t answer the urge.

Instead, you’re going to allow the urge.

And when we allow the urge, we’re basically just processing the urge.

We’re welcoming it in.

We’re getting really curious.

Where do I fill it in my body?

What message do I think it’s sending me?

Usually, the message is of an urge is you need something.

We need some attention here in our body.

And if you can get curious about what it is, you’ll figure it out.

And then you’ll be able to answer the urge with what it really needs, which I promise you is not food.

So we know that a habit is made up of a cue, a thought, then the urge, then we take action, then we have a reward.

So the next step is the reward, right?

Now, there is no built-in reward for processing an urge.

Unfortunately, you do not necessarily get a big shot of dopamine going through your brain when you sit and get curious and be patient with an urge.

You have to create this for yourself.

So let me give you some ideas.

One, you can have a sheet with 100 boxes on it, and you can mark off a box every time you sit with an urge.

You can put a bead in a jar, or a penny in a jar, or a bobby pin in a jar.

You can even over-praise yourself for doing a good job.

This just looks like, way to go, Rachael.

Yes, you’re awesome.

I knew you could do it.

I am so proud of you.

Look at us go.

Something like that, okay?

That is how you’re going to retrain your brain.

You’re gonna rewire your brain and create a new habit.

And I promise you, when you do this, then the emotional eating habit cycle is going to bust, and you’re not gonna feel like you’re spinning around and around and around with food.

All right, if you have any questions about this, or you would like further help, hop into my five day Stop Emotional Eating Challenge.

I’m going to teach you everything you need to know.

So go ahead and check out the link below, and I will see you soon.

Thank you for listening to The Joyful You Podcast.

If you’d like additional support, click the link in the show notes, and let’s chat about how we can work together to get you to your goal.

If this episode was helpful to you, make sure to subscribe and please share it.

The most helpful thing you can do in return is to go leave a review.

If you want to hang out on social media, you can find me on Instagram, at A Joyful You, or on my website, ajoyfulyou.com.

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