Break Free from Emotional Eating

If you ever feel like you know what to do but have a hard time actually doing it, this blog is for you. This is the technique that helped me quit alcohol and stop the cycle of emotional eating. Learning this simple tool has paid off significantly, and it can be applied to so many areas of your life.

I’m talking about the Think-Feel-Act cycle. This is a cognitive-behavioral concept that suggests that what we think influences our feelings, and our feelings influence our actions. If we’re constantly doing something that we don’t want to do, like grazing on junk food before bed, we can look to our thoughts and our feelings to help us break the cycle.

Think

The first stage of the Think-Feel-Act cycle involves our thoughts and beliefs. This is usually a thought like, “I’ve had a hard day, so I deserve to have a few drinks or some treats.” We create a mental narrative that justifies turning to food or alcohol as a coping mechanism.

Feel

What are the emotions that are triggered by your thoughts? Maladaptive patterns usually arise as a protective response that we use to alleviate negative emotions such as stress, anxiety, loneliness, or boredom. Eating or drinking (or scrolling, or any other addictive pattern) can provide a temporary sense of relief, distraction, or numbing to allow us to escape from emotional discomfort.

Act

The final stage of the Think-Feel-Act cycle is the behavior we engage in to cope with our thoughts and emotions. While indulging a craving can lead to momentary relief, the downside is that doing so can create guilt, shame, and a perpetuation of the very behaviors we actually want to cut out.

So how do we break the cycle? Awareness is our greatest superpower. The first step is to acknowledge your thoughts in real time and pay attention to the triggers that preceded your emotional eating or drinking. Did you have a bad day? Were you bored or anxious? Writing these triggers down can be helpful so you learn when to expect your negative feelings to pop up.

The second way to break out of negative cycles is to have alternative things at hand that you can turn to for relief. I call this my “toolbox.” Instead of eating or drinking, I’ll go for a walk, or take a bath, call a friend, or watch a show – I keep a list on my phone. Find healthy ways to get the support that you need, while acknowledging that it’s okay to feel your emotions. When you let your emotions move through you without doing anything to numb them, you’ll be better able to confront them next time they arise.

Finally, challenge your thoughts. Thoughts and feelings seem real in the moment, but they can often be reframed in ways that are less hurtful. For instance, instead of beating yourself up for making a mistake, you could reframe that thought to say that you’re on a journey to improve. Both are true, but the later version is more forgiving, so you can choose to hang onto that one.

So if you’ve been caught in the cycle of emotional eating or drinking, forgive yourself. It’s not your fault. You were just doing something you know how to do to make life safe and tolerable. You can be okay when you feel your emotions. You can process your feelings without having to stuff them down with food and drink. When you disconnect the link between your emotions and your response, you break the cycle. You are in control of your thoughts and your feelings, not the other way around. There is so much freedom in that.

In good health,

Gina