The Opportunity of a Lifetime

Most people experience “emotional eating” as a curse.

But it’s actually the opportunity of a lifetime.

It’s like the check-engine light in your car that tells you to inspect your engine. The engine in this analogy is your life.

Comfort-compensatory eating is a very common way of dealing with unmet needs.

And it’s a huge factor in weight gain, stubborn weight loss, and all forms of metabolic dysfunction.

Most people try to swear it off. And most people get nowhere.

Because it works very well. As long as you can live with the problems it creates.

If you’re willing to courageously explore how you’re currently comforting yourself, how you’re currently compensating for unmet needs, and what you might do differently, you have the opportunity to experience much more than putting “emotional eating” behind you.

Here’s how I help my clients get started:

1. When you find yourself reaching for food when you’re not hungry, ask yourself, “What do I truly need right now?”
2. Then, do your best to meet that need.

They often discover that being bored, lonely, stressed, and/or tired is driving their food cravings.

And they start to practice ways of being un-bored, un-lonely, un-stressed, and/or un-tired. That is, they start to proactively meet more of their needs more of the time.

And they start feeling better.

Here’s how I help my clients take this further:

1. Do an honest audit of your work life.
2. Do an honest audit of your relationships.
3. Brick by brick, gradually do the work to optimize your work life and your relationships.
4. Notice how “emotional eating” fades away as you do. Notice how you no longer need food for comfort because you’re no longer compensating for unmet needs.

Here’s how this works.

If you merely swear off “emotional eating” and continually summon your willpower, you’ll probably struggle with it for the rest of your life.

If you apply yourself to learning to proactively meet more of your needs more of the time, you’ll probably:

1. Put “emotional eating” behind you
2. No longer struggle with the problems “emotional eating” was creating for you, including weight problems
3. Have a better work life in ways you never thought possible
4. Have better relationships in ways you never thought possible

If you let “emotional eating” be your check-engine light and point you to your unmet needs so you can practice meeting them better, you can turn “emotional eating” into the opportunity of a lifetime.

“The maintenance of health really depends on knowing who you are, getting in touch with your body, getting in touch with yourself, being mindful of all of that, and honoring who you are.”
—Gabor Mate

Author’s note: I put “emotional eating” in quotes because it doesn’t accurately describe the phenomenon. First, it implies irrationality, and the phenomenon actually makes perfect sense. Second, it disregards the reality of body-heart-mind unity. Yes, “emotional eating” is “emotional” since it involves emotions. It’s also “mental” since it involves thoughts and “physical” since it involves hormones, reward chemicals, and other overtly “physical” substances and processes.

About Jason Gootman
Jason Gootman is a Mayo Clinic Certified Wellness Coach and National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach as well as a certified nutritionist and certified exercise physiologist. Jason helps people reverse and prevent type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other ailments with evidence-based approaches to nutrition, exercise, stress reduction, holistic wellness, and, most importantly, lasting behavior improvement and positive habit formation. As part of this work, Jason often helps people lose weight and keep it off, in part by helping them overcome the common challenges of yo-yo dieting and emotional eating. Jason helps people go from knowing what to do and having good intentions to consistently taking great care of themselves in ways that help them add years to their lives and life to their years.