As a Weight Loss Coach, Nutrition Coach, Mindset Coach and Weight Loss Hypnotherapist for ladies in midlife, Perimenopause and Menopause; helping ladies who are in the habit of using food as an emotional crutch and coping mechanism is something that I work with daily. 

What is emotional and stress eating?

Emotional eating is predominantly using food as a tool to suppress or soothe negative emotions such as stress, anger, fear, sadness, loneliness, etc.  As a Midlife Weight Loss Coach, Mindset Coach and Nutrition Coach, it is one of the most common habits I see in my clients. 

There’s a good reason why people turn to refined carbs, fat, and sugar when they’re in an emotional state, especially if it’s a negative one. They’re a super stimulus for the reward centre of the brain: they give you a high, numb you, or soothe and comfort you, depending on what it is you’re eating.

However, junk food isn’t a successful way to deal with your emotions. Just as soon as these super stimuli lift you up, they drop you back down again.   Eventually, you get that sugar or junk food crash that leaves your mood 100 times worse than when you initially started eating.  

The final straw – Happiness Depletion

However, there is even more that regular emotional eating takes away from you than just weight gain and sugar and junk food crashes and that is something called dopamine depletion.  Our cells can only make so much dopamine, so if you are getting huge artificially created amounts, then you can use your dopamine in a short space of time and therefore create dopamine depletion in the body.  This effectively means that if you have a very high sugar, junk diet, then you will chemically feel less happy.  A high sugar and junk food diet is a depressant and is closely linked to low moods, low motivation, anxiety, the “meh” feeling, and depression.  Let this sink in – excess junk literally steals our happiness. 

Banish Midlife Stress and Emotional Eating

So, we now know that the reward you’re getting from these foods is fleeting in the short term, and in the longer term, can have a catastrophic effect on motivation, mood, self-esteem, and mental health.

Emotional eating is a habit and habits can ALWAYS be replaced and changed for better ones (with a little work).  I use a combination of Weight Loss Coaching, Nutrition Coaching, Mindset Coaching and Hypnotherapy to ensure that my ladies have all the tools that they need at their disposal to crack this unhelpful habit for good.  Here are 7 effective techniques to kick this habit to the curb!  

1. Feed your emotions, but not with food.

One of my jobs as a Weight Loss Coach, Mindset Coach, Nutrition Coach and Clinical Hypnotherapist is to help ladies build new habits that will enhance their life.  Emotional eating is a habit, and habits, CAN ALWAYS BE CHANGED.  With emotional eating, being forewarned is forearmed.  If you know you are in the habit of emotionally eating in the evenings, you know your trigger time, so you can protect yourself from falling prey to the bag of Doritos or downing the bottle of wine (both two of my favs FYI).

Check in with yourself and start noticing what kind of feelings you are experiencing before you eat emotionally.  Find alternative ways and coping strategies to deal with your emotions.  We want to get those relaxing or happy hormones (dopamine and serotonin) flowing but in a way that will supply you with good feelings that will last significantly longer and that do not sabotage your weight loss, mental health, motivation and health. 

Google how to raise your serotonin and dopamine levels and take a pick on your preferred way to get those happy hormones flowing – sex, cuddles, Netflix binges, exercise, hypnotherapy, yoga – the list is endless and the choice is yours!

This will require effort at first as it will be new and not your natural go-to but commit for 66 days (which is the average time to build a new habit) and eventually you will break the pattern of emotional eating and your new behaviours will become your natural go to. IMAGINE THAT!

2. Learn to feel ALL emotions, including negative ones

As a Weight Loss Coach, Mindset Coach and Weight Loss Hypnotherapist, I give my clients the tools and techniques to develop strong emotional resilience, self-belief, self-esteem and self-worth.  As mentioned, junk food can temporarily blunt our emotions and provide fleeting relief from whatever emotion we are experiencing that we do not like.  However, we also know that it compounds your problems instead of helping them.  If we feed negative emotion with junk food then we are keeping a thumb on our head and are unlikely to be able to work our way up that mental health spiral to a more positive place.  The lower you feel the less junk food we should be eating. 

It is important to understand that negative emotions are part of life and we need to learn to ride out the great with the not so great.  Once you start accepting that we do not need to blunt out all the negative then you put yourself in much better stead for a healthier, happier and more positive life. 

3. Stop mentally rehearsing failure and start mentally rehearsing success

If you say “I always binge in the evening” or “I am ‘good’ all day and then all hell breaks loose after work” or imagine doing so, then you are unintentionally practising something you do not want and studies have shown it is up to 90% more likely to happen. 

Instead, mentally rehearse an evening where you are calm and in control.  Be careful what you are mentally rehearsing – failure or success.  What you think is what you become.

4. Move your body EVERY SINGLE DAY

It’s no secret that moving your body is a great mood-booster.  If you are using food as a coping strategy for feelings and emotions it means that you are not managing and processing your emotions effectively. 

Exercise releases feel-good chemicals and endorphins but, unlike the high you get from fat and sugar (which immediately dumps you back on the ground much lower than you are before), these good feelings last for hours afterwards. Make exercise a priority, like a meeting, that’s a non-negotiable, make it fun, make it real world (yes walking the dog counts!) and most importantly make it consistent.  Little and often is my motto for exercise – Consistency is Queen!

5. Remove foods if possible that you are susceptible to overeating

The people that are most successful changing habits according to studies are those that make their environment work to support them.  Make life easier for yourself and make the food that you overeat on, more challenging to get hold of.  Never buy in bulk, go to the shop and buy one chocolate bar when you want it and keep the unhealthy foods out of eyeline.  Visuals such as photos of how you want to look or what you want to buy clothes wise for aspiration are also great for keeping your focus on the big picture.  Simple but effective. 

6. Maintain a nourishing and regular meal schedule and don’t restrict any foods

Regular, nourishing, tasty and healthy meals are your stepping stones to gaining control.  Even if you have overeaten all day, if you are under nourished then your body will keep on sending you out hunger signals.  One of my jobs as a Nutrition Coach for Perimenopausal and Menopausal ladies is to get rid of my client’s physiological cravings with smart nutrition.  Once these cravings are gone and your body is nourished and getting what it needs, then working on any emotional cravings is soooooo much easier. 

In addition, put nothing on the no list.  When we restrict food then when we do eat it, we then are vulnerable to overeating.  I say yes to chocolate, cake, takeaways, wine and frazzles 20% of the time, which means I do not feel restricted.

7. Manage midlife stress

Midlife is a time in our life when we are more susceptible to feeling stressed.  Most of us midlife ladies are all about the juggle (either career, kids, aging parents – or all of the above!).  In addition, we are also losing oestrogen and progesterone’s dampening effect on our cortisol levels. 

High stress can make us hungrier, can slow our metabolism and also is a major cause of excess belly fat.  It can also can potentially lead to using food as an emotional coping mechanism.

Know your nutritional triggers that raise your cortisol further such as alcohol, sugar and caffeine and really prioritise your sleep, happiness and self-care in midlife. Valuing yourself enough to prioritize your needs is a critical skill to master if you are to thrive in midlife. 

Banish Midlife Stress and Emotional Eating

TO WRAP UP…

Emotional and Stress Eating is usually a result of physiological cravings from either being underfed (starving ourselves) or under nourished (eating low nutrient foods), habit and also as a faulty coping mechanism to deal with the pressures of life. 

With some smart tweaks to your nutrition, commitment and a hell of a lot of self-care you can absolutely obliterate this health wrecking habit for good. 

Read my blog on 5 Smart Reasons to get a Weight Loss Coach and Nutrition Coach to find out how getting a Nutrition and Mindset expert on board who can support you through your journey is a no brainer in supercharging your success. 

If you would like to find out if my programs are right for you then contact me at karen@themidlifereset.co.uk or click on the contact form to arrange a FREE 20- minute telephone chat where I can find out more about your current challenges and answer any question you may have about my programs. 

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