How to Manage Emotional Food Cravings Along Your Path to Making Peace with Food

We all have food cravings. You know, that feeling where you just want something sweet, or salty or crunchy, or maybe all three in one! But why do we have these cravings and what can we do about them? Occasional food cravings are normal, however if you struggle with emotional eating, the cravings may be emotionally driven. It is vital to become emotionally aware in order to differentiate what type of craving your are experiencing. This will allow you to make a conscious choice in the moment of a craving. 

A general food craving is a message from your body. It may be trying to send you the message that you are dehydrated, that you have a nutritional deficiency, or that your energy dip may be related to a blood sugar imbalance. These are all really useful messages that are important to notice. When you truly listen to your body, you receive and understand these messages with clarity. A general food craving may also indicate that your daily diet is boring, uninspired, dull in flavor and lacking in a wide range of nutrients. The good news is, you can do something about all of this!

An emotional craving is different. An emotional craving is due to experiencing an emotion and not wanting to be present with it. There is a big difference. If you are experiencing a general food craving, you might be satisfied by having a small amount of what you are craving or a healthier version of what you are craving. With an emotional craving, this is often not the case as the food serves to numb the emotion only temporarily.

An emotional craving is far more difficult to manage and can lead to mindless overeating, weight gain and negative feelings about yourself and your body. The challenge is to begin to allow yourself to experience your emotions and have an alternative behavior aside from eating in order to manage your emotions.

When emotional eating has become deeply engrained as a behavior and your primary go-to coping skill to manage your emotions, it can take a long time to effectively manage and change it. If emotional cravings that lead to emotional eating do not become managed, it can lead to eating disorders, depression, anxiety and a low self-esteem.

Here are some examples of common emotional cravings:

• When you are feeling lonely, food will be your friend and keep you company.

• When you are feeling anxious, food helps to calm you down and temporarily occupy your mind.

• When you are feeling sad, food becomes your comfort.

• When you are feeling bored, food gives you something to do with your time.

• When you are feeling down, food becomes your pleasure.

One strategy to begin to understand what may be driving your food cravings is keeping an emotional cravings journal. This is a place to write down, acknowledge and process your emotions in order to more deeply understand the why underneath and at the root of your craving. Another strategy is having a supportive person to talk to. This may be someone you trust, or someone such as a therapist or health coach to provide support as you work through your emotional cravings. Learning to manage, accept and experience your emotions will help you heal your relationship with food.

As a Wholistic Food Therapist, my focus is working with women who struggle with emotional eating. I have put together a 3-Step Emotional Cravings Protocol that helps to stop the cycle of deeply rooted emotional eating patterns. If you would like a FREE copy, sign up for my newsletter on my website so you can begin managing your emotional food cravings today.

Making peace with food is possible. If you find you would like more support along your path to healing, contact me as I have a number of ways to help support you along your journey to a healthy relationship with food as well as with yourself.

Mindful Eating

Have you ever finished eating an entire meal and you don’t remember tasting one bite? Have you ever gotten to the bottom of a bag of chips and wondered how you got there? These are examples of mind-less eating. Mindful eating is just the opposite. Mindful eating is offering yourself the time to savor your food. Mindful eating is pausing for a moment to be grateful for your food. It is taking the time to notice the aromas of your food, to chew your food thoroughly and really taste your food. When you eat mindfully you notice the impact your food choices have on your body and your mind.

To understand mindful eating, it is helpful to understand mindfulness as a practice. Mindfulness is paying attention from moment to moment with a nonjudgmental awareness. It is being completely grounded and present in the here and the now. The past can only exist as a memory within your mind and the future can only exist as a fantasy within your mind. When you engage with the present moment, you are truly aware and awake in your life. When you bring this concept into every aspect of your life, you become more peaceful and content.

Living mindfully allows you to be conscious and clear as you make any choice. When you bring mindfulness into your mealtimes, you will be more in tune, conscious and clear about what you choose to eat. Remaining nonjudgmental is essential. When you are calm and grounded while eating, you are more likely to assimilate the nutrients in your food. Digestion begins before you even take a bite. Allowing this process to be peaceful, mindful and pleasurable will enhance your life in many ways.

When you tune out the stressors such as your cell phone, TV, emails and social media, and tune into your experience of eating, you will create a closer relationship with your food. When eating mindfully, you will notice your hunger and full cues with more awareness. This creates freedom to make a choice in the present moment. Eating mindfully offers the opportunity to recognize how your food choices make you feel: mentally, physically, emotionally, energetically and spiritually. Mindful eating is extremely powerful and helps to reduce and heal emotional, stress and disordered eating.

To begin integrating mindful eating into your daily life, try this practice starting today. Begin with one meal or snack and commit to eating it mindfully. Turn off your cell phone and any other distractions such as the TV or loud music. Take a few slow, steady and deep breaths. Look at your food, take a moment to be grateful for it. Notice the aromas of your food. As you begin to eat, become aware of the textures of your food. If you are eating with your hands, place your food down between bites. If you are using a utensil, place it down between bites. Practice chewing slowly and thoroughly, really tasting and savoring your food.

When you are finished with your meal or snack, reflect on the impact of your food choice. Tune into the physical sensations you experience after eating this food. Take some slow, deep breaths and notice if you feel satisfied by what you ate and how full you feel. Notice if you enjoyed what you ate. Become aware of your energy and mood following this mindful eating practice. Thank yourself for taking this time to eat mindfully and to tune into your body. As you continue to bring mindful eating into your daily routine, notice the impact on your relationship with food as well as with yourself.

How Mindfulness and the Creative Process Will Help You Heal Your Relationship With Food (and with Yourself!)

Mindfulness is paying attention from moment to moment with a non-judgmental awareness. The creative process is when you are fully immersed—in mind, body, and spirit—in the act of creating. Both states are healing and life enhancing, and offer direct access to the deepest roots of emotional eating. When truly engaged in the creative process, it’s an act of mindfulness, as well as an opening to become aware of the messages your emotions provide you.

Quieting your mind and engaging with a sense of flow allows for you to access creativity at the deepest (or highest) level. When truly connected to the creative process in a mindful state, everything else dissolves. This offers a sense of timelessness, a complete absorption that is truly powerful. This space of complete absorption, or flow, is where the healing happens. In this state you can connect with your true self and begin to have deeper, richer, and fuller emotional understanding and awareness.

Engaging with the creative process is not limited to making art! While art making is certainly a powerful faction of creativity, there are absolutely no limits to the creative process. The definition of creativity is: the ability to make new things or think of new ideas.

Making music, singing, writing, painting, drawing, working with clay, cooking, dancing, moving, digging in the earth, communing with nature, photography, how you decorate your home, how you express yourself through your personal style... -creativity really is limitless. When immersed in the creative process, you are connected to something beyond the realm of self. Mindfully engaging in the creative process allows you to become more comfortable and aware of your true self and your emotions rather than attempting to escape them with food.

The outcome of the creative process is not the focus. While the outcome may hold value for you, the process is where the healing occurs. Integrating the creative process with mindfulness, you can explore the challenge of emotional eating through your experience of the present moment, emotional awareness, and an expanded consciousness. Engaging with the creative process in a mindful manner will bring you in touch with your inner emotional world and offer a way to witness it, explore it, experience it and let it go. Often the driving force behind emotional eating is fear and avoidance. The creative process addresses those head on and mindfulness creates a renewed perspective on your emotions within the here and the now.

When you give yourself permission to tune into your emotions creatively, you free yourself from the fear and avoidance that drives you to soothe with food. Your personal process may be writing a poem, story, song, or in a journal where you can connect with and release your emotions. Creating an art piece with any art materials offers a space for the psyche to rest, where emotions can be held, witnessed and respected. A physical movement or dance can depict, express and physically relieve deep emotional experiences. Allowing yourself the opportunity to connect with the rich internal world of emotions helps to reduce fear surrounding facing emotions and is empowering.

Allow time and space for your mindful and creative process to unfold. Whatever emotion is present, let it flow freely from within. You will become more and more comfortable with your emotions over time while beginning to see more clearly what messages your emotions are there to provide. Engaging mindfully with your creative self is life affirming and powerful. No matter what creative medium you connect with, no matter how you express your internal experience, tap into the creative process and see what magic may unfold for you along your path to healing your relationship with food.

As you allow yourself the opportunity to know yourself through the inner-workings of your mind, heart and soul, you will live with a deep sense of peace and contentment. When you are at peace with yourself you are at peace with food.