Food Can’t Hug You Back: Lessons in Emotional Eating

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Before I tell you anything else, let me tell you about my relationship with Pop Tarts.

 

For at least four years, those little toaster pastries were the bane of my existence. Why? Because they were my personal favorite binge food. Whenever I felt stressed or lonely or sad, I’d tear into a box of them, furiously clawing away at the shiny silver wrappers.

 

I couldn’t stuff them into my mouth fast enough.

 

My relationship with Pop Tarts clearly exemplifies the way that I have used (or, more accurately, abused) food in the past. Whenever I was faced with an uncomfortable emotion – say, I was worried about an upcoming meeting or apprehensive about a difficult social situation – I found myself cramming cake or cookies or brownies into my mouth at lightning speed.

 

But Pop Tarts were my favorite. Particularly the Brown Sugar Cinnamon kind.

 

Of course, my weight climbed higher and higher in response to those binge eating episodes, which only made me more miserable than I already was. What am I doing? I thought. Why do I keep going back to the kitchen pantry again and again and again?

 

The truth is that I was a full-blown, out-of-control emotional eater. McDonald’s was my comfort and Dairy Queen was my solace. The easiest way to distract myself from whatever uncomfortable emotion I was feeling was to eat and eat and eat until I couldn’t focus on anything except the pain in my stomach.

 

I preferred that pain, I guess.

Eventually I decided that I didn’t want to keep living my life from binge to binge. I was tired of hiding secret stashes of candy in my desk or claiming I needed to buy milk when I was really buying chocolate éclairs. Where did that get me, anyway? No where except right back to Dunkin’ Donuts.

 

I finally admitted to myself that food couldn’t solve my problems. It couldn’t keep me company when I was lonely. It couldn’t give me a hug when I was sad. I needed something more.

 

These days I’m happy to say that I don’t reach for the cookie jar in the face of anxiety or the ice cream scoop in the face of stress. Instead, I’ve learned a bunch of other coping strategies that are much healthier and way more effective. Like exercising my body to release tension and frustration. Or journaling to cope with anger and irritation. Deep breathing when I feel nervous, and novel-reading when I feel overwhelmed.

 

Some of these options may seem obvious, and yet how many times do we dismiss them in favor of a trip to the refrigerator?

 

The good thing about emotional eating is that there are ways to overcome it, a fact of which I am living proof. There are plenty of practices to do and exercises to complete that can teach anyone how to use food for sustenance rather than for comfort.

 

We all know that life isn’t easy. There are plenty of curves in the path and bumps along the road. These days I’m learning to navigate those curves and bumps all on my own, no Pop Tarts required.

 

Katie McLaughlin blogs about all things healthy living at Health for the Whole Self. Her e-book is titled Taking Action: 30 Specific Strategies for Overcoming Emotional Eating, which is available as a PDF Download or through the Amazon Kindle store.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Comments

  2. So true. I think the key is really finding other activities that actually help you FEEL better during tough times vs. the temporary fix of eating something “naughty”. I love your blog MF 🙂

  4. That was my fav flavor of pop tart too! As a kid, I loved those things!!!!

    Emotional eating is such a hard thing but we can find our way if we really want to – willingness as Carla says! 🙂

  5. As usualy, you are right. I have foud macaroni and cheese and mashed potatoes, and bread, and..well, any carb to be my best friends when I am feelng low. But then I would feel worse after eating those things. It’s a terrible cycle.

  8. Great post!

    Yep, my favorite were the un-frosted brown sugar cinnamon ones. Luckily my son likes the frosted ones, which are too sweet for my tastes.

    I also used mindless munching as a distraction. Then, instead of worrying about whatever the real issue was, I just worried about how many calories I just inhaled and how the heck I was going to burn them off and when the heck I would ever learn.

    Once I recognized that I was using food a coping mechanism, I started to try to stop and ask myself what I was avoiding, etc. But usually I kept munching. Eventually, I realized that food wasn’t the *worst* coping mechanism, and somehow once I un-demonized it, it had less of a hold over me.

  9. Thanks for sharing, very well said. This was my struggle too. I always thought I just needed to quit doing it. Only when I realized I needed to replace those behaviors with healthier ones did I start to make good progress.

  10. Congratulations, from someone who used to say, truthfully, that sugar was her drug of choice.

  11. Excellent post Katie.

    I wonder if we could all collaborate and have one day where we all post our non-food coping mechanisms to show others who are not reading to give up food the wide variety of activities that are available.

  12. I relate(d) to the frantic ripping open of packages, hands shaking. Sometimes I’m barely in the car after grocery shopping, fumbling between the package and my keys. Sometimes it was hard to swallow while choking back tears.

    Been there.

    Thanks for sharing. I’m gonna check out your blog and book.

  13. Oh my gosh, Chocolate Poptarts were and are a downfall of mine. If I get the “itch” to eat and their here, its all over with.

    Thanks for sharing your story, loved the post!

  14. Wow, this post really hit home! I am a recovering binge eater who used Pop Tarts as my favorite binge food, along with a 16 oz. glass of chocolate milk! Sometimes I’d eat a sleeve or two of Oreos with milk if I were out of Pop Tarts.

    Tonight I used an alternative technique to squelch my urge to binge. I first did some core balance exercises and then got into my workout clothes and headed to the gym. I did an hour of cardio and now I have ZERO desire to binge.

    Thank you letting me know (and all who have posted) that I was not alone in my love of the Evil Pop Tarts!

  15. What a great post, and so many of us can relate. I, too, love those cinnamon, brown sugar frosted Pop Tarts.

    When my grandkids come to visit, I always buy the Pop Tarts for them, hoping I’ll get a chance to eat some too. Making other choices and remembering Mindful Eating was (and sometimes still is) a hard thing to do.

    Congrats on maneuvering that bumpy road to success.

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