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Emotional Eating: Overcoming the Urge -- Linda Spangle -- 11/12/03

By Linda Spangle, RN, MA WebMD Live Events Transcript

Food is a basic human need; we can't live without it. But when eating fills an emotional need, where love or comfort are lacking, it can lead to weight problems and eating disorders. Life is Hard, Food is Easy author Linda Spangle joined us to discuss food and feelings.

The opinions expressed herein are the guest's alone and have not been reviewed by a WebMD physician. If you have questions about your health, you should consult your personal physician. This event is meant for informational purposes only.

Member question: I've heard we need to learn to eat when we're hungry, and not at other times, in order to deal with emotional hunger. But it seems my mind "fools" me into thinking I'm hungry whenever I eat. I rarely think concretely "I'm sad, I'll eat" but I know I do it. So how do I learn when I'm actually hungry?

Spangle: Great question. First, I would encourage you to ask yourself, "Am I hungry or is this a desire to eat?" A lot of times that question, in itself, will slow you down and help you recognize that it's really an emotion prompting your desire to eat rather than true physical hunger.

Member question: If I'm usually depressed, how can I tell when it is not the depression but rather hunger?

Spangle: If depression is an ongoing issue, it would be important for you to deal with that with nonfood ways, and to learn to recognize that food is not going to fix depression. Now, granted, food will make you feel better, but it's temporary, and once you are finished eating the depression is still there. So learning to take care of your real needs by talking them out, seeing a counselor, and doing physical activity, such as taking a walk, those are all things that are going to deal with the real need, rather than using food to push it away.

See, part of the problem is that food works so well. So it's easy to get hooked into using food to avoid feeling or even avoid thinking. Yet unless you actually face those issues you'll continue to struggle with emotional eating. One of my clients described his eating as a way to push the mute button on his life. And all that does, of course, is cover it up rather than fix the real issue.

Member question: Isn't emotional eating a vicious cycle?

Spangle: Absolutely! The issue here is when you eat to feel better it works for a little bit, but then it makes you feel worse, so you eat again. Many times I've seen people eat to almost punish themselves for their bad eating. So even that becomes part of the cycle.

The only way to stop that pattern is to move forward in life, instead of in a circle, by really taking care of your true needs, such as needs for nurturing, needs for a reward, or needs for attention, or for communicating with people. In other words, take care of your true self, rather than just letting food do it for you.

Member question: Is emotional eating disordered eating, or is it less dire than that?

Spangle: I think emotional eating is one of the most common things we do. I don't believe it's a diagnosis or a severe problem mentally; it's a common behavior. When the kids go down for a nap, it's so easy to go look in the cupboard for something to eat. At night, when there's nothing on TV, a nice bowl of ice cream entertains us. See, those things are not in the category of eating disorders or severe problems, instead, they're common behaviors.

So to change those patterns, again you need to say, "What else can I do to fill empty times, to entertain myself, sometimes even to find meaning in life, instead of having food do all those things for me?"

Member question: Do people always eat out of emotional need? What about eating out of boredom?

Spangle: That's a great question. Eating out of boredom is emotional eating. You see, I define emotional eating as any time you reach for food when you're not physically hungry or actually needing nutrition. So whether you're eating because you are bored or because you are stressed or because you are lonely, those are all forms of emotional eating.

Now, understand something: I think food is wonderful; I think it can be a great enjoyable part of our life; and it's fine to be able to enjoy the tastes and appreciate flavors and simply love good food. So I don't suggest we try to never eat unless we're hungry, but instead that we recognize when food is filling an emotional need and cut down on the damage of eating every time we don't like how we feel. That might mean creating some new interests in life instead of letting boredom become a reason to eat.

Member question: Is there something in chocolate that acts like a drug to make you feel better? I know so many women that have to have chocolate when they are having a bad day (including me).

Spangle: Chocolate is definitely one of the most common comfort foods, especially for women. For many of us, chocolate has some type of memory associated with it, so it may be that we are trying to feel the way we did in those memories. Of course, there are also studies that show chocolate boosts serotonin, which explains why it makes us feel better, but trust me, after five or six pieces of chocolate your serotonin isn't going to go any higher. But that doesn't stop us; we keep eating anyway.

I go back to the real issue when you're having a bad day, which is not, "Where do I find some chocolate?" but instead, "What can I do to take care of myself?" A lot of times we, as women, want to be nurtured; it's one of our most common needs, and it's very often missing in our lives. I often ask women, where are the teddy bears in your life? You know, those things that make you feel cozy, snug, safe, and comforted, just like your stuffed animal did when you were a child. We have to create our own teddy bears.

For me, music is one of the ways that I've learned to nurture myself. Sometimes I do that by playing the piano. In fact, when I go a long stretch without playing the piano I'll realize I'm missing one of the best ways to keep myself out of the refrigerator. For some people, listening to music is very therapeutic. So putting on a headset along with a favorite CD and letting the music soak into your soul can be the secret to getting through a tough time. Music is very healing, and of course, so is chocolate. But the difference is, if you choose music way more than chocolate you won't be gaining weight.

Let me tell you about a technique that can make a huge difference in how you handle foods like chocolate. I call it the ""First Two Bites"" principle. Here's how it works: The first two bites of any food have the most flavor. After that, you are just feeding. So you can use this to be able to enjoy a piece of chocolate, for example, by taking the first bite and really paying attention to what it's like. Notice the distinct flavors, the texture, how it feels in your mouth, and how it feels as you swallow it. Think about whether this is great chocolate or is it sort of mediocre? Take a second bit and do the same thing. What's interesting is that when you eat any favorite food by focusing on the first two bites you'll find that you can get a lot of satisfaction from a small amount of food.

Now, you may keep eating after those first two bites, but in many cases you will find that you've got what you wanted from the food because you gave yourself a chance to really notice the food and appreciate the flavors. And that's the part that can help you stop and not eat the rest or go get another helping.

Here's one other piece of that: If you are eating something because you want to feel better, the first two bites are the only ones that have any nurturing power. After those first two bites you will have gotten whatever you're going to get from that food. So if you are eating to calm down, or to feel less lonely or depressed, you won't get any more benefit for those issues than you will from those first two bites. In other words, you won't feel better and better by eating more and more. Instead, you'll probably start feeling worse, because you'll be so frustrated with your eating.

Member question: If I do suffer from emotional eating how can I remedy it without radically changing my life?

Spangle: So how do we change patterns of emotional eating? My book, Life is Hard, Food is Easy, teaches steps that will help you change the ways you cope with emotions in your life:

First, you have to recognize you are eating emotionally. Work at catching it at the moment or if possible, before you even start. And before you take a bite of food simply ask yourself a few questions, such as, "What's going on that's making me want to eat?" If you can even take one minute before you put food in your mouth and ask that question, you'll probably be able to stop a lot of your emotional eating patterns.

It helps to know what type of emotional issues you're dealing with when you are about to reach for food. So let me describe the difference between two types of emotional hunger. With this technique you can identify what emotional need or feeling you're having based on the kind of food you are craving. Here's how it works: When you are wanting a food that is chewy or crunchy, such as nuts, potato chips, and candy bars, those kinds of food are associated with pressure-type emotions; things like anger, frustration, irritation, and simply stress.

When you realize you want something chewy or crunchy, ask yourself, "What is it in life right now that I want to chew on?" You'll probably know immediately. Maybe it's your boss or your kids or the project that's due in an hour. Once you identify what you want to chew on, ask yourself, will eating change this? Of course not. Your boss will still be yelling at you; your kids won't stop misbehaving; and the project won't go away just because you eat.

So simply think about what can you do instead to deal with that situation instead of eating. Maybe you need to take a walk or take a few deep breaths, but finding something other than food to cope is the goal. I call that type of emotional eating Head Hunger.

Now, here's the opposite one: When you are craving a food that is smooth, creamy, soft, or perhaps comfort food, you are probably dealing with an empty emotion. So think about foods such as ice cream, pasta, or donuts, those foods are typically associated with things like sadness, loneliness, restlessness, boredom, or other empty feelings or awareness that you are missing something in life. I call this Heart Hunger.

With this type of emotional need, ask yourself, "What's missing right now? What's empty? What am I wishing for?" Then see if you can do something to take care of those needs instead of grabbing food. Perhaps a phone call to a friend or taking a hot bath would be the solution. Go back to what I said about teddy bears. Look for things that will nurture and comfort you, rather than asking food to do it for you.

So now you can identify what emotional need you're having based on the food you crave and it gives you a much easier way to know what you need to do to keep yourself from eating. In working with issues of emotional eating, start by doing very tiny changes, instead of worrying about changing your whole life. For example, when you are feeling really stressed at work, instead of running to the vending machine for a candy bar, simply sit up straight and do what I call the Seven Breaths.

Here's how it works: You take seven slow deep breaths, making each one slower and deeper than the one before. By the time you reach number five, you will start to lose count, and by number seven, you'll find that you've gotten through the crisis and you will feel calmer, perhaps enough to carry on and not need the candy bar.

Member question: Does your book offer a "plan" for changing our habits or do you recommend counseling for anyone who has this problem?

Spangle: Yes it does. It's very possible that armed with my book and your own healthy eating plan you can completely shift the way you manage your weight and your eating patterns. I actually teach some unusual things about emotional eating, such as how to change your self-esteem in very simple ways and to have that prevent you reaching for food.

I teach how to work through grief and heal from grief issues so you don't need to use food to push those difficult feelings away. For me, this was one of my biggest learning areas. My grief was related to losing pregnancies and not being able to have children. For many years I ate instead of allowing myself to feel, and as a result had an ongoing struggle with yo-yo dieting and always gaining back weight. When I finally understood, through a counselor, that I was in her words, "eating my feelings," I realized I had to learn how to handle my grief issues differently or I would stay a victim of food.

I won't tell you that this process is always easy, but as you learn how to manage your emotions and your needs in healthier ways, food becomes far less necessary as a way to cope in life. By working on simply changing the patterns of how you cope with emotions, you can completely turn around your weight loss efforts that in the past kept getting sabotaged by emotional eating, and now almost guarantee you can be successful regardless of your specific diet plan.

In other words, as long as you are following a weight loss plan that is reasonable and healthy you now can make it work long term, because you will have conquered the part that always ruined it for you in the past.

Member question: I find myself eating "at" people sometimes, you know?

Spangle: When we find ourselves eating in unusual situations it helps to look at what are we doing with food. Sometimes we are eating to please other people. Sometimes we want to belong to a group or feel comfortable with our friends. I think of times when I've said to my friend, "I'll have dessert if you really want one." That's eating because we want to belong or please someone else. When your mother says, "I made this just for you," what do you do?

When you give in and eat food, especially if you eat a lot of it, you are eating out of an emotional need to make her happy. Again, these are not all horrible, it's just that when it's part of your routine every day you will really struggle with managing your weight, because you will usually eat way more than you intended to.

Member question: What if you've faced your issues but the eating still continues?

Spangle: Sometimes we will work on dealing with life issues such as anger or bitterness or even relationship problems and think we've handled them, but find we are still eating in response to them. I believe that emotions have layers. For example, you might have anger about a situation, talk it through, work it through, and think you've let it go, and the next day you're mad all over again. Now that doesn't necessarily mean you didn't process it correctly, it just means you got through one layer and you probably have to do some more work around it.

When you continue reaching for food around what looks like the same issue or emotion, you probably have some personal growth work to do yet to bring yourself to a place where you feel stronger.

I believe long-term success with managing your weight comes when you live every day with a consciousness of taking care of that part of your life. Here's an analogy: If you are a parent, you live aware of your children every single day, from when they're tiny to even when they're in college to even when they're grown and have children. You don't forget you have children. You live with awareness of their needs or problems and you will often address those at intervals during the day. Notice I didn't say you will be obsessed with your children, because that becomes unhealthy.

You see, healthy living and managing your weight are the same type of issue. As you train yourself to live daily with a consciousness about how you eat, how you cope, how you take care of needs of nurturing, etc., you can learn how to integrate that awareness so that it's simply a natural part of every day of your life.

Moderator: Before we end our discussion today, do you have any final comments for us?

Spangle: I would encourage those of you who struggle with emotional eating to take little steps every day to handle your life without using food as a solution. If possible, get a copy of the book, Life is Hard, Food is Easy, and use it as your textbook for changing your future in this area of life.

Moderator: Thanks to Linda Spangle, RN, MA, for sharing her expertise with us. Be sure to check out our numerous related articles and on WebMD, and visit our for advice and support on this and many other health issues.

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