The Test of Emotional Eating
by Rochelle Griffin
Tests. Life is a series of them. In the past, for most of my life, I dealt with the stress of tests with food. Unless you are a fellow emotional eater, it’s hard to understand the strange calmness that can come over you when you put the (_______________) in your mouth. Whatever you filled in the blank with really doesn’t matter…it’s the emotions behind it…the WHY. You aren’t physically hungry. Instead you are emotionally hungry for something else. The question is WHAT are you hungry for? Love, security, acknowledgment, acceptance?
Over the years, I’ve learned to recognize the feelings. It’s like this overwhelming urge…this feeling that I KNOW I’m going to reach for the pizza or the cookies or the leftover pasta even though I’m fighting it. Of course, I never reach for something good for me. It hasn’t been something that I’ve been able to control until this past year through the course of a lot of self-discovery.
Well, I’m currently doing The Ultimate Reset and have to eat a very specific way. In fact, I’m part of a test group so I don’t want to mess things up. I’m following it to a T to have accurate results. Anyways, in the midst of this, I was tested in a way that I haven’t been tested before…my child. Even writing about it now brings up intense emotions. I won’t go into a lot of detail and bore you, but things have come to light in my household the past few days. When I went to Tahiti, I went seeking clarity for my life. I got it. As a result, I’ve simplified things. What I didn’t realize is how everything is still connected to my husband’s deployment to Afghanistan 2 years ago. Let me explain…
Keith was deployed. He’s the rock in our family and left Jacob and me behind. It was the hardest year ever but we did what we needed to get by. For me, that meant a lot of traveling for my business. Was I running? Looking back now…yep. Was this fair to my child? Absolutely not. Cue the momma-guilt now.
After a year, Keith comes home. We had been married for 20 years, so I was naïve and thought we wouldn’t have a transition. Mistake #1. We struggled with our newfound roles but didn’t realize it. Instead of dealing with the stress with food, I continued to travel under the guise of business. After all, he’s home and with our child. Mistake #2.
So fast forward to the other day. Jacob started to act out BIG TIME. He’s done this from time to time, but it came to a head the other day when I realized that he TOOK OUT THE WIRES IN HIS BRACES!!!!! They had been gone for 10 days (I was in Tahiti.) He also was breaking things…big things. It was obvious to me that he needed me home. Well, then he pulled some pre-teen attitude and became utterly defiant. He did the worst thing you can do to a parent…RUN when told to come. Oooohhhhhh…I was TICKED. I chased him…(after thought…man, I was FAST. Thank you, Beachbody! I even impressed my kid with my speed.)
Anyways, when all was said and done, I had so many emotions surging thru me. I was literally pacing inside the house like a caged animal. BOOM. Out of the blue, I wanted to deal with those emotions with food…but I’m doing Reset. Crap. I open the fridge, I close the fridge. I think about my commitment. Fine…I won’t eat…but I so wanted to. Eat, drink, whatever to feel better. Nope, instead I had to DEAL with emotions, dammit.
Here’s where the good comes out of dealing with my emotions instead of stuffing them…once we all calmed down, we had one of the best family talks that we’ve had in 2 years. As tears flowed from all of us, we talked about the effects the deployment had on our family and how we’ve each coped with it. We recommitted to each other to pull together and love one-another…like we are supposed to. We actually sat down and had dinner as a family. As stressful as the day was, it was a very healing day too.
And here we are full-circle. Emotional eating. Stuffing our feelings. The urge never goes away…don’t expect it to because you are setting yourself up for disappointment. What you need to do is learn how to deal with the painful emotions head on. It’s not easy. It’s not pretty. It’s down-right messy. However it will not only benefit you, it will benefit your family. From one emotional-eater to another, trust me.
Do you deal with stress by emotional eating? Let me know in the comments below.
To Living Your Best Life,
Rochelle Griffin, RN BSN FDN-P
Rochelle Griffin, The Wellness Detective™, is a Registered Nurse (with over 22 years experience) & a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition™ Practitioner who has transitioned her love for fitness, health, & freedom into a 7-figure International company that now helps others live Their Best Life.
She founded Your Best Life, Inc with her husband Keith after stepping onto the edge of physical ruin with her health & the health of their young son. Having experienced a complete turn-around, they now desire to give hope & support to those who are dissatisfied with their current situation.
PS. If you found this post to be of any value to you, please COMMENT below!
Hello I have never been an emotional eater in fact I do the very opposite I stop eating all togetherwhich isn’t good either. Stop eating and the body slows down to conserve fuel.
I have used food as an emotional crutch for years. I, too am a nurse, which in itself makes for problems with eating- not enough time to eat, or eating too fast, on the run etc. But if I have had a bad – I eat. If I had a great day- I reward myself by eating. It has become such a cycle or even a habit, I don’t see how to get out of it – HELP!
Oh Lyne, I sooooo get it…every aspect of what you are saying. Keep your eye on my page tomorrow. I’m introducing something brand-new that will really help you. It helped me!
Lynn,
Check out my new Drop a Size Success bundle. It will help keep you on track in the craziness of life. 🙂
Thank you for being so open and honest Rochelle. I love how truthful you are in saying that the urge never goes away to emotionally eat, you just have to learn to deal with painful emotions head on. That is the first time I have ever heard that finally admitted by anyone . You usually hear that in time the urge disappears. I think it is like an ex alcoholic or ex smoker in that the urge is always present but it is up to them to daily make the decision not to have a cigarette or drink.
I do not know yet what my ” what am I hungry for?” is but maybe I do know but am to afraid to admit it to myself because it may be to painful. So there is some serious self discovery and soul searching needed. When I was in my 20s and 30s I used to deal with stress very well and used exercise to elleviate the effect it had on me. But now in my 40s I feel like I am just to tired to fight it so I tent to just deny it exists and push it down and not think about it or deal with it until the inevitable happens and then BAM ! it explodes and I deal with it by using food then feel like crap for doing so.
I guess I am a yoyo detoxer – retoxer. In January I did ultimate reset and lost 15 lbs, I was all good and ate well but then gained back 10 lbs in april after a bout of emotional eating over a couple weeks then did a juice cleanse and lost the 10bs but then in june gained back 10 after a week and a half binge of emotional eating, so I am back to where I started weight wise and planning an ultimate cleanse type on sept 2 for 10 days of eating awesome cleansing food.
I work well when I am following a program of some type because I don’t want to let the group down and I stick to it to a T but after its over however I see no problem in letting myself down though. Hmmmm weird how I think like that but it just seems to happen over and over .
Also I tend to emotionally eat premenstrually. I have heard people say well that’s just hormonal eating not emotional, they like to blame it on hormones and think then that makes it ok to binge. But to me it seems at least I have figured one thing out regarding this. It is that even though it may be hormonal, the surge of hormonal activity bring up emotional issues during this down time of my cycle in that this is a time of the cycle where things need to be let go of and purged so that is when certain emotional issues may come to the forefront to be dealt with. And if they are not dealt with they will come up again and again in future cycles until they are put to rest. Kind of likening it to tests God allows us to go through. He will test us in the same area over and over until we finally pass with flying colors and then move forward onto some other area we need work on.
Sorry this was so lengthy.
Rose,
Thank YOU for being so open and honest yourself. I get it…all of it. There is a great 21-Day Bible study that I’m doing called Made to Crave. You can get it free on the YouVersion.com. Check it out!
Thank you for being open and brave to share this. I really appreciate you providing home and concrete ways to move forward through the challenge of emotional eating
I have a lot of stress in my life,,and I do also run to sweets ,,,I currently lost 42 pounds in two months and had a hysterectomy in May ,,, I think that’s how I lost the weight ,,,but now find myself ” falling off” and due to stress ,,let me know how I can stay on track please
Cindy, grab my free Stress and Hormones ebook. It will give you lots of tips!
I am an emotional eater but when I go through this I cannot control myself. About 20 years ago I used to black out and then when I would come back to I would have seen wrappers from the box of moon pies, finish a gallon of ice cream, etc. I finally broke that. Now I am working on the other part. I feel like I need a police force to hold me back from eating everything in site.
The important piece is that you’re working on it! Great job, Linda!
I have been working really hard to lose weight and regain control of who I am. I am an emtional eater when I am stressed. I have learned this, thought I eorked through it and had it ubder control. This morning I had strawberries and greek yogurt for breakfast. Usual breakfast last me until lunch. 22 year old son drove me to work because he “needed” my car, we argued on the way to work over some poor decisions he is making and as I walked into the building just 30 minutes after breakfast I am thinking I sm starving what can I snack on. I realized I really was not hungry but wanted comfort food. Had to do a lot of talking, refocusing what I was thinking and wanting and finally ate a cutie orange to get the desire to go away. Still angry with him and myself but working hard not to give in to those food cravings when it is really just stress trying to tempt me, thought I was over it but realize I will never be totally over it. Something I will have to face every day but I am strong I can do this I will pick myself up each time and struggle on.