How to Overcome Emotional Eating Triggers | #383

Fitness is 20% workouts, nutrition, and supplements. But it's 80% managing your emotions. So many people focus on what workouts do I have to do? What meal plan do I need to follow? What macros are gonna be best for me? What supplements do I need to take in order to lose weight and build the muscle? But you need to forget about all of that stuff if you cannot deal with your emotions properly. Because anybody can follow a plan when life is good. Anybody can. But not everybody can follow the plan when life is bad, when work is crazy, when the kids are sick, when you're stressed out of your mind. Those are the moments that count. And I truly believe that fitness is actually more of like a spiritual, internal process that's disguised as a physical one. So for a lot of us, we think, oh, fitness is just this physical thing, I gotta do this, this, this. But the reality is, if you can't fix the way you think about yourself, you can't fix what you're thinking inside, you can't learn how to deal with your emotions, you're never gonna get the body that you truly want. So if you're stuck in emotional eating and you feel like food is your comfort, you feel like food is your escape, you use food as your reward, then this is gonna be for you. Because emotional eating isn't about food, it's about your triggers. I used to be that guy. So for me, the times when I would struggle with food the most was typically after a hard workout, because one of my limiting beliefs that I had for myself was that I deserved to eat this food. It was this sense of entitlement with food. I went to the gym, I was working super hard, and if I felt like I had a really good, really hard workout, then for some reason there was this dopamine release in my brain where I was like, oh, I deserve a burger and fries and a shake and this, because I burned so many calories and I worked so hard and I'm so sore. And so for me, I went through this perpetual cycle of rewarding myself with food over and over and over and over again, because I thought that I could outwork a bad diet. I didn't think nutrition mattered as much as it did. Another thing I really struggled with was eating ice cream late at night. So sweets are like my kryptonite. And I remember I would feel stressed, overwhelmed, or just the sense of like, I just wanna escape something, and I would go to food. And I think for a lot of us, maybe you struggled with things like drugs and alcohol in your past, and so that's something that I've struggled with in my past. But now, for you, the struggle might be food. So you got rid of drugs and alcohol out of your life. Congratulations, it's amazing. But now when you are dealing with something emotional, instead of going to those things, maybe you go to food now, or maybe you go to the TV, or maybe you go to doom-scrolling social media. So it's these things that aren't inherently bad, but the way you use them is inherently bad. Social media is not inherently bad, but when you doom-scroll to escape your emotions, it is. Food is not inherently bad, but when you run to the pantry or to the freezer, to the fridge, when you just had a blowout fight with your spouse, then it's bad. So it's not necessarily the thing that you're doing, it's why you did it in the first place. If you truly want to overcome your struggles with emotional eating, you really have to understand the difference between physical hunger and cravings. I think we confuse the two. Hunger and cravings are not the same thing. Hunger is physical. So hunger, like a physical hunger, is your stomach growling, you feel low energy, it's your body's cry for more nutrients. Your body's like, I need fuel, we need more energy, we need more calories. Hunger builds slowly. It shows up even if you're eating clean. So hunger, especially on a weight loss journey, is not a bad thing at all. Matter of fact, I would say hunger is a good thing. You should be a little hungry when you're trying to lose weight. Now cravings, cravings are mental. So hunger is physical, but cravings are mental. Cravings typically are sudden. So you're just going up throughout your day, not really thinking about food, and then all of a sudden, boom, that craving hits. Chocolate, pizza, chips, whatever the thing that you crave the most is. It's specific. A craving is specific. It's like, I need chocolate. That's a craving. Hunger, you don't really care. You're just like, I need to eat something. I want ice cream, craving. Cravings are not about fuel. They're about your emotions. They're about boredom. They're about a habit. One of the best ways to differentiate hunger and cravings is to do what I call the protein test. So if I'm hungry for something, I'm like, okay, my stomach is growling. Like I desire food, but I don't know if I'm actually hungry or if I'm just craving something, do the protein test. Ask yourself, could I eat a grilled chicken breast right now and be totally satisfied? If the answer is yes, then you're probably hungry. If the answer is no, like the chicken breast would not suffice me, it's probably a craving. Can I just drink a plain protein shake, just like a chocolate protein shake, and that's it, and I'll be good? The answer is yes, it's probably hunger. The answer is no, it's probably cravings. So you do the protein test, and then after that, ask yourself, could I just eat an apple right now? If the answer is yes, then it's probably hunger. The answer is no, then it's probably cravings. So whenever I feel like I'm craving something, I'll either go to protein first, and then I'll go to some type of fruit. And if that's not enough, then I know it's a craving. And cravings, you don't have to obey them. So just because you're craving something doesn't mean you have to fall victim to it. Most people eat when they're craving something, not because their body needs fuel, but they eat because something triggered you. This might be stress, this might be loneliness, this might be boredom, this might be frustration, or maybe you do it because it's simply a habit. So you opened up the pantry, not because you're low on calories, but because you're low on coping skills. That's the reason why the pantry's open. And let's talk about the real triggers, because all of us have stuff going on in life, and all of us deal with the stressors of life differently. And the only people in life that don't have stress in their life are the people who are dead. And so learning how to deal with your stress, learning how to deal with your emotions is a high-level human skill that all of us need to do. I have four kids myself, obviously I'm a business owner. My life is always stressful. But what's changed is how I handle that stress. In my past, praise God, I'm 12 years sober, in my past, I used to deal with stress with drugs and alcohol, now I don't. So I overcame drugs and alcohol, and then when I did that, I went to food, and I was like, oh, this is fine, I can deal with stress with food. And then I realized, oh, actually, this is not okay. I should not be going through this thing to deal with stress either. And I overcame that. And so for most people, their triggers in life come down to this. I would say the first one is stress. So think work stress, family stress, maybe even hormonal changes, so like legitimate stress, cortisol. You feel overwhelmed. Food gives you a sense of control. So a lot of times we go to food because I can control my food. I can't control that thing that's happening in my life. So if you feel like your life is spinning, sometimes you'll run to food because you just want the sense of control. Like I can eat this thing, I wanna eat this thing, I'm gonna open up the pantry so I can feel the sense of relief. So the stress of life. Another one is loneliness. So think about when you struggle with emotional eating the most. People typically struggle with emotional eating late at night. This is when you're not around people. You're home alone, the house is quiet, kitchen is right next to you, and before you know it, your elbows deep in a pint of ice cream. Another one is reward thinking. And this is the one that I struggled with a lot where I would reward myself with food because, oh, I had a hard day today. Like today was so hard, I just need a little bit of chocolate or I just had a super hard workout so I just need this thing. I would do that all the time. I would justify my eating with food. Oh, I work. super hard this week. It's Friday night. Let me just reward myself with a burger, with this, with that. The thing that really changed my reward center was when I was convicted on the belief that food wasn't the reward. The reward I was getting was the body I was going to see 90 days from now. And I realized my reward for this hard workout, my reward for the work I'm putting in isn't food. It's actually the fruit that I get to bear 90 days from now, 120 days from now, whether from the work I'm putting in or from the workouts that I'm doing. That's the true reward. Another thing is people will go to emotional eating out of habit. So think about it. You're watching Love is Blind, and typically when you watch Love is Blind, what are you eating? Chips. You're eating ice cream. So you eat things at certain times because that is just your norm. That's your habit. So you've got to break a habit. Another reason why people will struggle with emotional eating and another main trigger is guilt. So you ate something bad earlier, so now your whole day is ruined. So this is really self-sabotaging. So I made a bad mistake with my eating, and then I spiral, and I allow that one bad mistake to turn into two, three, four, five, six, and it's a whole bad week. So you're like, man, whatever. It doesn't even matter. I ate bad on Saturday, so Sunday is just a wash. Monday, I'll just wait until next week, and you just keep eating bad. It's a spiral. Now, how do you overcome this? The first step is awareness. You've got to become aware of this because emotional eating, it's a subconscious thing. It's not something you really think through. Think about how many times you just grab food and you're not even conscious of it. For some people, you just black out. You're like, whoa, I just ate a half a bag of Doritos. How did I do that? I don't even remember opening the bag before you know it, you're half a bag of Doritos in. The only way you remember you're eating the Doritos is because you looked at your finger and you got Doritos fingers. That's the only way. So I've got to first become aware of it, when it happens, why it happens, and what I go to. Start asking yourself, what was I feeling before I grabbed the snack? Not what you ate, not how much, but why? Why did I eat this thing? What was the true reason? If you can't identify the true reason, and I think breaking it down into one of those five things, stress, loneliness, reward thinking, habit, or guilt. If I'm like, I ate this because I felt guilty, boom. Now that's going to be your first step to changing it. If you're like, I ate this simply because of habit. Every Saturday night at 8 p.m. when I'm watching a movie, I eat this thing. Now you're realizing this pattern that's keeping you stuck. You're like, I drink this every time I have a fight with my wife or with my husband. You're like, okay, cool. Now I know when these things happen, this is what I go to. Then I think, now I keep a trigger log. I look at my past week. Okay, when did I struggle with emotional eating and why did I struggle with it? Oh, I struggled with it after a 12-hour workday. Okay, now I know on 12-hour workdays I need to prepare a little better. What did I eat? What time was it? How did I feel right before? This simple step will start exposing your patterns because it's just a weekly pattern. All of us go through the same patterns every week. Most of the time you're just doing the same thing over and over and over again. Awareness is the first key because you can't just try harder to not eat the food. You can't. So you're trying harder like, oh, I'm just going to build up this willpower to stop eating the cookies at 9 p.m. at night. I'm just going to build up the willpower so I won't eat the full bag of chips. No, willpower can only take you so far. You got to change the way you think. You got to change your internal thoughts. You need an interruption plan, something you do instead of eating when a trigger hits. So here's what actually works. The trigger hits, I'm craving food. I know it's not hunger. I know it's a craving. Go on a walk for five minutes and then if you come back and you're still hungry, go ahead and eat. Brush your teeth. Drink a glass of water. Text an accountability buddy like a friend or a coach. Journal. Write about it. Willpower will not cut it. Like you have to figure out a way to break the cycle and to break the loop. And then what I got to do is I have to clean house. I got to clean house. If you have chips, cookies, pizza, ice cream in your house and that's the same exact thing that you crave late at night and that like causes you to fall victim to it. You got to get that thing out of your house. You have to. So what do you think alcoholics are supposed to do? One of the first things they're supposed to do is get rid of alcohol. Get rid of alcohol out of their environment. They're not supposed to go to bars. They're not supposed to have alcohol at home. So like when you join a 12-step program, like you're not allowed to be around alcohol. Now obviously it's different, food versus alcohol, but the principles are pretty similar. If you struggle with ice cream, this is literally what I did. This changed the game for me because like I said before, my struggle used to be ice cream. But the only reason I struggled with ice cream is because I had a pint of ice cream in my freezer at all times. And if your pantry looks like a gas station, you're setting yourself up for failure. Here's what people don't realize or understand. If you have food at home in your pantry or in your fridge or in your freezer that you know you shouldn't be eating or even alcohol, for example, like you know you shouldn't be drinking alcohol, but you got it around the house, all over the place. Every time you look at that thing, even if it's in the middle of the day and you know you're not going to eat it, every time you look at it, you have to make a subconscious decision to say no to that thing. So let's say you open up your pantry multiple times a day and you're staring at the Reese's Pieces or the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, whatever it is for you. Every time you make eye contact with it, you have to make a decision in your brain to say no. Now, dozens and dozens of decisions later, you hit decision fatigue. Then by the time it's 8 o'clock or 9 o'clock at night and you open up the pantry again, you're like, why not? I'll just grab it this time. Not a big deal. Get it out of the house. Like one of the best investments you can make into your health and to fixing your nutrition is buying trash bags. You buy trash bags. You go to the grocery store. You don't buy any snacks. You buy some trash bags. You take the trash bags home. You open up the trash bag. You open up your pantry, your freezer, and you ask yourself, what foods do I have at home that are not helping me become a better version of myself? And you grab those foods and you throw them in the trash. I don't care if it's a lot of food and you're like, oh, this is going to be a waste of money. No, it's a waste of money by you even having it in the first place. Don't buy it. No, I'm not saying you can never eat it. I'm just saying you can't have it at home. Do I eat ice cream? Yes, I love eating ice cream. Ice cream is my favorite dessert, but I don't eat it at home. If I have to get it, I have to go to the store to buy it. So it's not like it's just something I have laying around the house all the time. Clean it up, get it out of the house, buy yourself some trash bags. It'll change your life. All right. Most emotional eating happens at night. And here's the thing. A lot of people, I truly believe that skipping breakfast is very overrated for fat loss, because here's what happens for most people. You skip breakfast, you're like, oh, I'm going to do this intermittent fasting thing. You eat a pretty minimal lunch because you're really busy. Maybe you have something as a snack. And by let's say 3 o'clock in the afternoon, you're 500 to 800 calories in, but you're busy all day. So you don't really think about it because you're at work. You get off work, you have like pretty light dinner because you don't have a big appetite. Then 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock rolls around. Your body's like, hold up. I need nutrients. And your cravings go through the roof. So this is for a lot of people that I've worked with. I found one of the best solutions to overcoming late night eating is actually fueling yourself for breakfast. So you front load your nutrition. And if you get 30 to 40 grams of protein in for breakfast, and by 8 o'clock or 9 o'clock at night, you've hit your protein goals, you're going to find that your cravings are a lot lower. Your body's not just screaming for nutrients. So, the perfect storm for overeating is to starve yourself all day and then allow yourself to eat whatever you want at 8 o'clock or 9 o'clock at night. It's not a good cycle to go through. So, make sure you are getting a high-protein breakfast if this is your struggle. Emotional eating at night, you need a good breakfast in the morning. Now how do you rewire yourself for rewarding yourself with food? You're not a dog, so you don't need treats. For some reason we think we're dogs, oh, I did really good, pat on the back. My pat on the back is food. You don't deserve, in quotes, deserve pizza because you made it through Monday. Cool. You don't deserve donuts and burgers and pasta because you had a hard workout. Don't reward yourself with food. It's okay to celebrate with food. I also believe food is a great source of celebration, you know, if you got a raise at work or you just went to a wedding. I love celebrating with food, but I don't like rewarding myself on a regular basis for normal tasks that I do every day. So, it's not like, oh, I got through Monday, it was a hard day, I deserve ice cream. No. Find other ways to reward yourself. Read a book, go on a walk, do 10 minutes with no phone, no noise. Figure out a different way to overcome that emotion without having to go to food. Food can still be fun, but it shouldn't be the vice that controls your emotions. That's the difference. Train your brain to associate success with self-respect. So if I achieve something and I had a very productive day, I don't have to reward it with food. I can reward myself with self-respect. Now, one of the main issues with emotional eating is your emotions. Why do you go to food when you're feeling emotional? Because you don't know how to deal with your emotions without food. Most people struggle with emotional eating late at night or on the weekends. Think about it. No one emotionally eats, most people at least. They don't emotionally eat during the day, during a work day. They do it when they're not at work or on the weekends. Why? Because all the noise is gone. When you're not at work, the world shuts off, your brain turns on, and it's just you and your thoughts. You don't know how to deal with your thoughts. You don't know how to deal with your emotions. So you need something to escape them. One of the things that changed my life was learning to deal with my emotions without having to use food to do so. One of the things I've been doing recently, at least, is sitting with myself and being present for at least 10 minutes at the end of the day, not just in the mornings. So I always spend time with God in the morning, praying and reading the Bible. But I think something that's also important is throughout the day, having times of presence. So if you can't sit with yourself for five minutes without the need to be on your phone or without the need to shoot off a text or do whatever, then it's going to be really hard for you to deal with your emotions when the world shuts off. So whatever that looks like for you to deal with those emotions, whether that's journaling, whether that's meditating, whether that's praying, face your emotions head on. Food is just an escape that makes whatever you're feeling worse. Every time you run to food to deal with a negative emotion, it literally makes the problem worse. Every time. If you run to food, you feel good for a couple of minutes, but the second you're done chewing, you're like, oh, that was not worth it. I always remind myself that I'm like, okay, I'm stressed out, I'm overwhelmed, I'm anxious, but food is not going to solve this problem. And when you're on this journey of fixing your emotional eating, you need to understand that when you do mess up, don't, don't tear yourself down. Move forward. You're not going to be perfect. You're going to have moments of lapse, a bad judgment, and this is going to be something you have to work on for the rest of your life. So there may be some hiccups along the way, but don't allow one bad decision or one bad meal to turn into two. So if you messed up, if you mess up tonight, okay, what is the lesson from this? And move forward. Don't live in regret and live in the past. That's what causes you to spiral. Emotional eating is real, but it is beatable. You can do this. You don't need a perfect diet. You need a better system. You don't need more willpower. You need to deal with your emotions head on. Interrupt the patterns and honor your body instead of punishing it. No shame, no guilt, just truth. Track, interrupt, replace, repeat. Let's do this. I believe in you. I hope you got some value from this episode. If you did, there's two ways you can support. Way number one is you can follow the episode, the podcast on Spotify, or you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple, and that's a no cost way for you to support if this has been valuable to you at all. Way number two is you can leave the podcast, a genuine five-star review anywhere that you listen to it. And so much love. Thank you so much for tuning in, and I'll see you on the next one. Peace. Thank you so much for tuning in. I really hope this episode helped you. If you would like something a little more personalized and you want to work directly with me to lose weight and build lean muscle without restrictive dieting, what I want you to do is fill out the free application that is linked to this podcast episode, and if you check out the description, you will find it exactly there. And what I'll do is I'll reach out directly to you to see if I can help.