Stop Trying to Distract Yourself from Emotional Eating

Heal the heart, and the body will follow.

I was on the phone with a woman this week who was really struggling to “get back on track” and felt totally out of control with eating after work.

We’ve had several conversations around this, and she’s fully present to the fact that it’s emotionally driven and a strategy to create comfort. Despite knowing this, she struggled to come up with alternative activities that would “do the job as well as eating.”

We hung up the phone with a challenge: Create alternatives that work.

Then, as I was laying in bed, her words, “…do the job as well as eating,” were ringing through my head. Something about that sentence was digging at me. Then, it hit me, and I shared this email with her:

Something occurred to me as I was laying down to go to sleep.

The sentence you said at the end of our call — “I just don’t know what will be good enough to take the place of food,” (when I asked you to come up with the list of actions for your project). And it occurred to me where there may be a gap.

There is perhaps nothing that will satisfy as much as food.

No — thing. As in, not one thing, one time.

It may be the addition of a new, subtle action repeated over time.

It may be just adding in many different things done only a few times each, randomly, that give you joy.

What you’re not really looking for is a replacement activity for the moments when you are compelled to eat.

RATHER, you’re seeking small, simple activities to do, whenever you want, that will create moments of joy, peace, balance, and fun that over time, combined, will eliminate the compulsion to eat later.

What difference does this make for you?

Heal the heart, and the body will follow.