My Experience with Emotional & Disordered Eating

by Melanie | Jun 22, 2019 | Blog, Health, Home, Wellness

Life has been far from perfect—but it always is.  While I can be incredibly self-motivated, I can also be the single thing that stands in my way.  During this past Gemini season, I was all about unveiling my different sides.  It felt like push had come to shove and if I want to uplevel, it was time for me to face the aspects of my personality that I’ve been ignoring and failing to integrate.

Today’s blog post is about my experience with emotional eating at this point in my life and how I work to pinpoint the underlying issue beyond the food.

I’ve talked about growing up with the feeling that I had separate selves.  I’m still working through identifying those but many have drives attached to growth while other sides of me feel overwhelmed with self-doubt.  The shadowy self, as I call it, embodies traits and insecurities that only serve to hold me back.  The biggest trait that I’d see come up was emotional eating.  At its smallest, it is just a petty habit that provides short-term pleasure.  However, when given any power, it will prevent me from tuning into my own voice and true intuition.  If I allow it to hold space, emotional eating becomes what fills my void instead of me seeking to fill it through what I really want: personal development and growth!

In the past, I’ve shared a bit about some anxieties I’ve had around food.  It is something I deal with on and off but recently it had been an ON issue for me. The interesting thing about emotional eating is that the hardest part is facing what’s really bothering you. 

Once you know you are turning to food as a way to consolidate your emotional state, it brings you that much closer to identifying why you’re doing it.

Emotional eating is different from disordered eating.

While the two aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, they do have some overlap.  Before going any further, let’s be clear about the fact that eating is a basic need for everyone.  So, where problems arise is not due to the act of eating itself, it’s the thoughts and behaviors surrounding eating.

• • Emotional eating is defined as eating that comes in response to negative affections.  Oftentimes, stressful situations or fluctuating moods can be instigators for one to reach for food as a coping mechanism.
  • Disordered eating is a bit more complex to define but it involves frequent behaviors, thoughts, and habits about food which severely impact the functionality of a person’s life.  Many people can have disordered eating habits but only the severity to which they impact livelihood is a strong enough determinant of the existence of a problem and possible eating disorder.

I think I’ve had issues with disordered eating before I ever even recognized my own emotional eating patterns.  Google has certainly received a fair amount of my “What classifies an eating disorder?” types of questions.  If there’s anything I’ve learned from my holistic approach to nutrition, it is that labeling a disorder or illness isn’t the answer.  The thing to target is the WHY behind the symptoms. 

The way I personally gauge when I have a problem with emotional eating is when I frequently eat way past the point of simply satisfying hunger or pleasure.  And yes, it is totally okay to eat out of pleasure!  Food is meant to be enjoyed.  Eating out of pleasure only becomes problematic when food becomes the main and/or only source of pleasure.

I compensated for my discomfort in self-growth by turning to food.

I realized, through some To Be Magnetic Shadow work, that my emotional eating tendencies come from being afraid to be seen and challenge myself.  It’s cringe-y for me to admit that but it’s even more uncomfortable to think of some occasions when I consume a ridiculous amount of nut butter spoonfuls in one sitting (my vice!) and make myself sick. Or the nights I’ve gone to bed with a full, and painfully distended belly because I had a binge.

I was scared to be out of my house around meal times.  If I was, I needed to have snacks on me at all times.  I obsessively planned what my meals would be in my head.  Heck, my money management app even shows that the food and groceries are where the largest chunk of $$ goes.  Again, I don’t think caring about what you eat, planning meals, or packing snacks are bad things.  I do think each person has different boundaries regarding that.  

You need to disseminate if you are controlling when you think about food or if you’re feeling controlled by thoughts about food and eating.

So, that’s precisely what I did.  In Shadow work, we ask, how is this keeping you small?  I needed to find out what it was covering up. 

To do so, I’d ask myself questions like:

• • What am I not facing?
  • What person/situation/thing brought this on?
  • What feeling am I trying to avoid feeling?

I’ve nailed down what I see as two main reasons why I have engaged in emotional and disordered eating behaviors.

A) I was sad or downtrodden about something in my life so I turned to food as a “happy” distraction.

B) The moment something seemed to be on the rise for me, I felt nervous about the changes and resorted to food. At this time in my life the latter reason is what had been affecting me most.

In my case, I had the desire for growth but was limiting the amount of rope to climb up (aka GROW) by holding onto bad habits. I use the term “bad” not to diminish the value of food or eating out of pleasure.  Rather, the emotional eating is bad for me because the way I was approaching food was really hindering progression of my life.

Once I identified the habit that was keeping me small, it was time to work through it.

• • Is it within my control to change?
  • What small action can I take to rise above the patterns?
  • Or if it feels like I’m sailing through uncontrollable tides, I ask if these things I’m pursuing are truly what I want?
  • Am I putting undo pressure on myself to fulfill some *expectation* or is this slightly discomforting thing just a step toward that thing I really want?
  • Is there a way I can chunk it down so it isn’t as overwhelming?

Many times I find that when the thought of doing something or being with a certain person stresses me out beyond comprehension it is a sign that whatever it is does not speak to my AUTHENTICITY.  

I mean, yeah, we can go into a panic when we do something new because we are nervous.  However, there is a difference between simply being anxious and legitimately going against your natural path. The life and actions I was trying to follow before were not right for me and every cell in my body was just screaming NO.  That’s why I resorted to old habits and that’s why I turned to food as a distraction.

I notice when I say that something is “weighing on me” it often literally feels like there is a weight IN me, too.  

The weight is resistance.  It is the culmination of old habits ready to be let go of and clinging on for dear life.  These aren’t the sort of things that go away overnight.  Patterns that have been conditioned out of comfort rarely are.  The things that once weren’t a problem can become a problem if abused.  Just know that if you can identify it, you can also change it.

The behaviors and parts of myself that I was forced to face in recent time were signaling to me that I was off my path.  Once I let go of the habits holding me back, I had room to see what I really wanted for myself and my life moving forward.