Are You An Emotional Eater? 

Do you struggle with reaching for food any time you’re feeling not-so-great emotionally? Maybe you find comfort in food, or the feeling of eating food. In this article, we’re going to take you through 9 signs of emotional eating and some tips that you can dive into to overcome emotional eating! 

While it’s true that food can “soothe” our emotions, often times its only temporary. Emotional eating isn’t a bad thing, but it’s not a long-term helpful solution to negative emotions either.

Sometimes you may not even realize that you’re emotionally eating. You might just feel “off” and feel yourself just reaching for food. So with that being said, let’s dive into those signs of comfort eating, shall we? 

9 Signs of Emotional Eating  

1. You find yourself raiding the pantry after a stressful day.

• You had a long, frustrating day of work. You get home and reach for something from the pantry. “No I shouldn’t eat that.” *Grabs something else.* “I shouldn’t eat this either, but I really really want it.” You grab that food, eat some, put it back, grab something else, and the cycle repeats. 
• The origin of the above scenario was a frustrating, stressful day. So this could be called ‘emotional eating.’

2. When any big emotion comes up you instinctively want to reach for food. 

• Feeling upset? Food. Feeling uncomfortable? Food. Feeling lonely? Food. Feeling sad? Food. Feeling anxious? Food… You get the picture, the list goes on and on.
• Having that urge to just reach for food as soon as any uncomfortable emotion or feeling comes up is a telltale sign of emotional eating. 

3. You can’t stop putting food in your mouth when you’re bored.

• If you’re bored (especially if you’re uncomfortable being bored – hello mindset that’s rooted in productivity!) your brain might start to look for some kind of distraction. Something to keep it busy. Food can become that distraction. Food ends up “relieving” that boredom.
• This one can especially happen with foods that are easy to grab + pop in your mouth. Think candy, popcorn, M&Ms, chocolate chips, etc. But watch out, this can be where we start to “numb” with food and get really mindless with our eating.

4. Food makes you feel better briefly, but you still feel “off” after eating.

• This sign of comfort eating is actually a good one to distinguish between emotional hunger vs. physical hunger. 
• If you’re experiencing true physical hunger (your body needs energy and nourishment via food) that will usually be satisfied by food. You would feel satisfied, satiated, and full from eating a meal or snack. 
• On the other hand, if you’re experiencing ‘emotional hunger’ that feeling likely won’t be satisfied after you eat. You’re still left with the uncomfortable icky feeling. Food doesn’t fix emotions! 

5. You use food as a reward.

• A different kind of sneaky sign of emotional eating here. Important to note that this doesn’t always mean that it’s a “bad”  thing to use food as a reward. What is important is paying attention to the intention behind the choice. 
• Using food as a reward could look like getting a brownie solely because you tell yourself that you “deserve it” after going to the gym. Newsflash: you always deserve to eat any food! There doesn’t have to be a reason to “deserve” it. 

6. You feel an intense urge to eat something that came on suddenly. 

• If the emotion or feeling hits you out of nowhere – you get a crummy text, something triggers you, etc., then you may feel an immediate urge to go grab some food. This is potentially a “habit loop” that’s formed in your mind. *Feel uncomfortable = grab food = food provides (temporary) soothing.*
• Again on the flip side, physical hunger would usually come on a little more gradually than this intense emotional hunger! 

7. You want to eat even though you’re physically full.

• Another surefire sign of emotional eating. If you’re physically satiated and at a comfortable level of fullness and still wanting to grab the food, this very well could be out of emotional eating! 

8. You automatically reach for food but aren’t sure why. 

• Something to get curious about here. If you find yourself just completely gravitating towards the cupboard, fridge, freezer, or pantry, and you’re not sure why, start to explore what the reason might be. Get curious without judgment. 
• This very well could be due to emotional eating. You may just not even realize that you’re feeling emotional in the moment. Your brain may just sense something is off. But then gravitates you toward the food out of a learned behaviour that food is a coping mechanism. 

9. You celebrate with, find joy in, and connect over food. (Not all emotional eating is a “bad” thing!) 

• I love throwing this sign of comfort eating in there! The narrative is often that we have to “stop emotionally eating.” Whereas sometimes emotional eating is not even a “bad” thing, it can be a really beautiful thing too! 
• Think of birthday parties with cake. Thanksgiving with a feast. Having dear friends over for dinner. Celebrating an accomplishment by going out for dinner. Baking a nostalgic recipe of your grandmother’s and enjoying it fully. 
• There are so many facets to emotional eating. It can be very joyous and positive as well.

Disclaimer: Just with everything in life, everything mentioned here absolutely has lots of nuance that goes along with it. Take this information as learning, and always remember that you, your body, and your intuition know best. Take what resonates, leave what doesn’t. 

Tips to Overcome Emotional Eating 

Identify Your Emotions 

We have to know where we’re at in order to move forward. With that being said, if you’ve now identified that you think emotional eating might be going on, we first need to identify what emotion you’re experiencing. 

Identifying what emotion you’re feeling will help you to see what’s going on. Get curious about what the feeling is. Even if you’re unsure, maybe just guess, and go from there! Remember, there’s no such thing as perfect here. 

Ask “What Do I Need?” 

Once you’ve identified what emotion it is that you’re feeling, then we can take some action. This can look like asking yourself, “What do I need?” Then, based on what you’re feeling, what could help soothe or alleviate that emotion? 

What we’re getting at here is getting to the root of the emotional cause behind eating. And then (in some cases) doing a different kind of more helpful coping mechanism other than always reaching for the food. 

Note: sometimes grabbing the food isn’t always a bad thing! Remember, there’s lots of nuance here and no good or bad choices! 

Practice Self Compassion 

A cornerstone practice of all intuitive eating-related things is self-compassion. Self-compassion is all about being truly kind and respectful towards yourself. 

Diet culture teaches us to be really mean to ourselves. It’s almost as though we become our own worst critic. Let’s flip that script and see how you can bring in some self-compassion. Especially as it relates to overcoming emotional eating and coping with your emotions with kindness. 

Emotional Eating Resources

Free Resources 

Want to learn even more about emotional eating? Check out these additional resources: 

• Emotional Hunger vs. Physical Hunger: What’s the Difference?: A blog post that helps you build confidence in knowing whether you’re feeling emotional hunger or physical hunger. 
  
• 5 Tips To Stop Emotional Eating: A blog post that walks you more in depth through some strategies you can take to work through and feel better about emotional eating! Prefer to listen in podcast format? Click here for the podcast version of this article.
  
• Free Why Do You Binge Eat Quiz: I have a completely free quiz that will help you figure out what’s keeping you stuck in the binge eating cycle and holding you back from food freedom the most at this time (hint: emotional eating could be behind this!).
  

Emotional Eating Support

I have a highly supportive binge eating coaching program, Embodied Food Freedom, that is designed to help you take all the steps you need to so you can embody your version of food freedom. 

This program was built to help you specifically overcome binge eating, overeating, and emotional eating. If emotional eating is feeling really tough for you, you could benefit from this type of in-depth support!

Also, feel free to visit my intuitive eating coaching services page to explore all of what The Intuitive Nutritionist currently has to offer.