If you’re regularly feeling guilty about the food you’re eating, it can eventually lead to unhealthy eating habits. This can be harmful to both your body and your mental state. It takes you away from appreciating your food and the many roles it has.
It’s common to feel guilty about food, so it’s important to understand why this happens and how to deal with it. Learn why food guilt is not serving you and the first steps you can take to begin overcoming feelings of guilt around food.
What is emotional eating?
We don’t always eat just to satisfy physical hunger. We often eat for reasons other than hunger, such as when we’re bored, stressed, or feeling emotional. When we get stressed, we tend to craving unhealthy foods like junk food, sweets, etc. You could try to improve your mood by eating a pint of ice cream, ordering a pizza, or going to the drive-through.
Emotional eating is eating for reasons other than hunger. People often turn to food to make themselves feel better—to cope with their emotions. Unfortunately, emotional eating doesn’t fix emotional problems. In fact, it usually makes you feel worse. The original emotional issue remains after overeating, as well as feeling guilty.
Are you an emotional eater?
- Do you eat more when you’re feeling stressed?
- Do you eat when you’re not hungry or when you’re full?
- Do you eat to feel better (to calm and soothe yourself when you’re sad, mad, bored, anxious, etc.)?
- Do you reward yourself with food?
- Do you regularly eat until you’ve stuffed yourself?
- Does food make you feel safe? Do you feel like food is a friend?
- Do you feel powerless or out of control around food?
The emotional eating cycle
Every now and then it’s okay to use food as a pick-me-up, a reward, or to celebrate. Whenever you feel any negative emotion, your first reaction is to eat, instead of addressing the actual issue. This creates an unhealthy cycle where the emotion is never actually dealt with.
Emotional hunger can’t be filled with food. Even though you may feel good after eating, the initial feelings that caused you to eat are still there. You often feel worse after eating because of the extra calories you’ve consumed. You are angry at yourself for making a mistake and not having more self-control.
Not only does the problem remain unchanged, but you also stop learning how to deal with your emotions in a healthier way. This makes it more difficult to control your weight and you feel increasingly hopeless about both food and your emotions. Although you may feel powerless to control your food intake and emotions, it is possible to make a positive change. You can learn how to deal with your emotions in a healthier way, how to avoid triggers, how to conquer cravings, and how to finally put a stop to emotional eating.
The difference between emotional hunger and physical hunger
In order to free yourself from the cycle of emotional eating, you need to first be able to distinguish emotional hunger from physical hunger. If you find yourself using food to deal with your feelings, it can be difficult to stop this behavior.
When you’re feeling stressed or bored, it’s easy to mistake that feeling for hunger and start eating even though your body doesn’t need the food. You can tell the difference between physical and emotional hunger by looking for certain clues.
Emotional hunger comes on suddenly. It happens suddenly and feels very intense and important. Physical hunger comes on more gradually than other types of hunger. The feeling of hunger is not as intense or urgent as it feels when you haven’t eaten in a while.
Emotional hunger craves specific comfort foods. When you’re hungry, you’re likely to want to eat anything, even if it’s something healthy like vegetables. However, emotional hunger desires unhealthy junk food or sugary snacks that create an immediate high. When you have a craving for a specific food, nothing else will satisfy you.
Emotional hunger often leads to mindless eating. You can eat an entire bag of chips or pint of ice cream without noticing or enjoying it. You’re more likely to be aware of what you’re doing when you’re eating because you’re physically hungry.
Emotional hunger isn’t satisfied once you’re full. You continue to want more and more food, often eating until you’re too full. Physical hunger can be controlled and doesn’t need to be overeaten. You feel satisfied when your stomach is full.
Emotional hunger isn’t located in the stomach. Instead of hunger being felt as a physical sensation, you experience it as a thought that you can’t get out of your head. You’re focused on specific textures, tastes, and smells.
Emotional hunger often leads to regret, guilt, or shame. If you’re eating because you’re physically hungry, you probably won’t feel guilty or ashamed because you’re just giving your body what it needs. If you’re feeling guilty after you eat, it’s probably because you know, on some level, that you’re not eating for purely nutritional reasons.
HOW TO STOP FEELING FOOD GUILTY
Overcoming food guilt is a process that will take some time. But it’s absolutely possible to accomplish!
Use the following steps to start removing guilt and calling it out when it occurs. You will gradually become more comfortable and relaxed with the food choices you make.
1. Bring Awareness to When and Why You’re Experiencing Food Guilt
The first step is to bring awareness to the situation. There are typically two common causes of guilt after consuming certain foods.
You may have made a mindless choice and didn’t realize it until after the fact
You may feel guilty if you make a food choice that is not what you really want or need. We often don’t realize when outside factors influence our food choices. There are several common factors that can affect our emotions, such as stress, boredom, or even our environment. Another factor is eating while distracted.
Sometimes people make decisions that they later regret. This may happen if the decision was made impulsively, without thinking it through. This guilt is not caused by the food, but by your own actions.
You may have food rules
People feel guilty after eating foods that they think are bad for them. Even if you choose to eat something because you enjoy it, you can still end up overeating. Anytime we eat something we’ve deemed as “wrong,” we feel shame. We’ve been trained to think of some foods as being better than others.
Compassionately reflect to inflict change
You can use a reflective journal to bring awareness to the causes of your food guilt and when you experience it. To find a food journal prompt, please download our free guide.
Instead of focusing on things like calories or whether foods are good or bad, a reflective journal takes a different approach. The focus is not on what you ate, but on how you felt before, during, and after eating. This allows you to be aware of when and where you feel guilty.
These insights can help you learn how to best support yourself. If you’re only focused on feeling guilty, you’ll never have the opportunity to learn more about yourself. This guilt continues to cause a cycle.
2. Let Go of The Food Rules
What would happen if you were not allowed to do something when you were a kid? How would you react?
I bet you were tempted to do what they said not to, and you really wanted to do it. The same series of events that occur with food rules also occur with this. It’s simply human nature.
By telling ourselves that we can’t have a food item that is bad for us, we are putting it on a pedestal. A pedestal is something that we put something on to make it seem more important than it actually is. In this case, the author is saying that we do this with food, and that by doing so, we end up wanting it more than we would if we just allowed ourselves to have it.
If we have the food item that we have been wanting, we are more likely to eat too much of it and feel guilty afterwards.
When we no longer have rules around food, and we don’t see it as something special, it will no longer have control over us. The guilt cycle stops because we no longer feel out of control around the substance.
If you stop worrying about following strict food rules, you will also stop feeling guilty about not following them.
3. Slow Down Before Meals
Practice slowing down before your meals. Sometimes, guilt about food can come from eating without thinking. If you find yourself eating even when you’re not hungry, it may be because you’re distracted or because the situation you’re in has triggered a desire to eat.
Before you eat, it’s important to pause and check in with yourself. This simple act can be very powerful. Your body is able to communicate what it needs and wants to you. This will allow you to be more conscious of the external factors affecting your food choices.
When you take a break to eat, think about why you feel the need to eat. Are you bored, stressed, or in a specific situation where you feel the need to eat, or are you actually physically hungry? Are you eating out of intention and mindfulness? Or is it unintentional and mindless?
Choose what you eat based on what you want, not what others want. If you feel guilty after eating certain foods, this break can allow you to give yourself the permission to choose and enjoy that food on purpose.
4. Grant Yourself Permission to Reduce Food Guilt
The best way to enjoy food is to create an experience around it that allows you to fully appreciate what you’re eating. This means taking the time to savor the flavor, texture, and aroma of the food, and being present in the moment to fully enjoy the experience.
For example, let’s say you’ve decided to have dessert. You should sit down at the table with very few distractions and take the time to enjoy and taste every bite. You should allow yourself to enjoy your food, whether it is something that is emotionally satisfying or something that is packed with nutrients. This will make your overall experience much more positive.
By changing your perspective, you can avoid feeling guilty and instead feel satisfied.
5. Practice Compassionate Curiosity
The more we learn as we get older, the more we realize that life doesn’t always go the way we want it to. Every once in a while, things will take an unexpected turn without our intention. If you find yourself feeling guilty, practicing compassionate curiosity can help break the cycle.
Instead of thinking negative thoughts about yourself, pause and reflect on the situation when things don’t go the way you want them to. Think about why the event happened without judging yourself. Consider if there was anything you could have done to prevent it and what you might do differently in the future.
You can better plan for success in the future by reflecting on the past with compassion and curiosity, rather than dwelling on it.
Alternatives to emotional eating
If you are feeling depressed or lonely, you can try to improve your mood by calling a friend, spending time with a pet, or looking at a favorite picture.
If you are feeling anxious, try to expend that energy by doing something active like dancing to your favorite song, squeezing a stress ball, or going for a brisk walk.
If you find yourself feeling exhausted, try treating yourself with a hot cup of tea, a relaxing bath, some scented candles, or wrapping yourself up in a warm blanket.
If you are bored, try to find something that you would enjoy doing, such as reading a book, watching a comedy show, exploring the outdoors, or doing a hobby that you like.
Pause when cravings hit and check in with yourself
Most emotional eaters feel powerless over their food cravings. You can’t think about anything else when you’re feeling the urge to eat. You’re feeling a great amount of tension that needs to be relieved immediately! You think that you can’t resist because you have failed in the past. Although it may seem like you have no control over your cravings, you actually have more power than you realize.
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