The Life You Want Read online

  Successfully switching over to healthy coping mechanisms won’t be easy, but it is doable. A key to this process is understanding that if you’re an emotional eater, your relationship to food mirrors your relationship to people, including yourself. For instance, in the first example with the chips on the previous page, your heart’s hunger for companionship manifests as your stomach’s hunger for food. In the second case, the parallel takes on a different form. Not setting limits with others or setting excessive expectations for yourself translates into not respecting the boundaries of your physical fullness. Basically, if you can’t say no to people, you can’t say no to food, regardless of whether you’re actually hungry or not. And if you deny your own needs in order to keep others happy or avoid conflict, as illustrated by the third example, you are apt to compensate by overeating. In order to develop a healthy relationship with food, you have to change not only the way you deal with your emotions but also the way you relate to others.

  If you’re feeling guilty, embarrassed, or ashamed about your emotional eating habit and how it has affected your life, you shouldn’t. Most Americans struggle with some form of this problem: Three-quarters of American women ages twenty-five to forty-five report disordered eating (emotional eating is considered disordered eating) and body image dissatisfaction; and 10 percent meet the criteria for clinical eating disorders, according to researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Disordered eating is a subclinical eating disorder; people with disordered eating display some irregular eating behaviors but do not suffer the full range of psychological traits usually associated with a full-blown clinical eating disorder.) These stats may provide you with some degree of relief; it can be a comfort to know that many people are dealing with some of the same issues as you are. But don’t let this information make you complacent—you’ll never be able to get your weight in check and live a healthy and fulfilled life until you can break the spell that food has over you.

  To do that, you’ll have to embark on a life-changing journey. This might sound intimidating, but don’t be overwhelmed; you’ll find lots of great advice and techniques in this chapter and throughout the book. Plus, you have the power to make these important changes. Before we begin, let’s take a closer look at what emotional eating is and how it develops. Understanding these factors can help you tease out your specific issue(s) and work toward resolving it.

  EMOTIONAL EATING: USING FOOD TO COPE

  For emotional eaters, food can become a quick fix that distracts attention from deeper issues that are festering inside. Unresolved problems at work, in your marriage, and other family members or friends can trigger emotional eating. Financial stress, depression (see page 54 for more on depression), boredom, loneliness, body dissatisfaction, fear—these can all lead to emotional eating as well. When you eat for emotional reasons, food becomes your multipurpose elixir, filling you up when and where others have let you down, or making you feel calm and safe. Emotional eating might take the form of a bag of chips from the office vending machine or a few extra cookies after dinner. It could be a full-scale binge (see “The Breakdown of a Binge” on page 71). Or it might be somewhere in between.

  You might think that you overeat because you lack willpower, but that’s usually not the case. Many outside factors set us up to overeat for emotional reasons, or, at the very least, they feed the problem. Take, for example, our culture. Forget about the fact that there’s a fast-food restaurant on practically every corner. Sure, that’s an issue, but it’s not only that food—particularly fast, cheap, and unhealthy food—is abundant, it’s also that time is scarce and effective coping skills are in short supply. We’re all stretched to the limit. Perhaps we’re caring for our children, who are overscheduled themselves, between all their after-school sports, clubs, playdates, study groups, and more. Maybe we’re looking after aging parents. We’re responsible for our significant others and our homes. To make matters worse, many of us are working more hours than ever before, leaving us even less time to fit in all of these responsibilities, let alone any extra time to work on fulfilling ourselves. Think about it: When was the last time you sat down to a quiet, leisurely home-cooked dinner with your family? More often than not, we eat in shifts: Your children might eat dinner right before their basketball or soccer game, you may pick up something on the way home for yourself, and your spouse might grab some leftovers once he or she gets home from work.

  Family dinner isn’t the only victim of our frazzled and fast-paced culture. We’re becoming more and more disconnected from one another in general: family, friends, even our neighbors. Not too long ago, our neighbors were almost like an extension of our family. We all knew one another well, looked out for one another, socialized with one another. Now we’re lucky if we know our neighbors’ names.

  But a shortage of time is only partly to blame for this distancing from friends and family. There are other issues at work, too, such as technologies like cell phones and computers. These are supposed to make staying in touch with loved ones easier and more convenient, but they can actually make us more disconnected. Texting and emailing lack the personal, intimate quality of a get-together or even a phone call. So while emailing a photo of your kids to the grandparents who live across the country is good, it’s not a replacement for an embrace. It falls way short of the real thing—a face-to-face physical encounter—because in the end, it’s just a photo. This distance and disconnection from others can leave us feeling lonely, and many of us turn to food for comfort.

  Not to mention, eating is fast, easy, and acceptable—and, temporarily, it works. It makes us feel better and fills us up. Food can provide a much-needed break at the end of a busy day. It may become your only “secure” source of pleasure. Food can even offer a way to deal with positive emotions and situations: Maybe you reward yourself with food for an accomplishment, or it serves as a form of entertainment. You may be conditioned to associate food with happy times and celebrations, occasions where food is served and everyone is having a good time. This is a common occurrence at holidays, but it can unwittingly become a habit. When any of this happens, a critical shift has occurred: Food is not simply food anymore. It’s your constant companion. It’s both predictable and safe; you know for certain that the sweetness or saltiness of each bite will hit your tongue and the sensation of comfort will envelop you. David Thompson,* a thirty-five-year-old single carpenter who struggles with emotional eating, says, “After a tough day when I am frustrated, food is the only thing I look forward to. I eat a large meal, watch my favorite TV shows, and then I start to feel relaxed and sleepy.”

  Food helps boost your mood and relieve anxiety because it temporarily changes the chemical balance in the body. You may choose to fill up on food loaded with sugar, in particular, because eating carbohydrate-heavy foods boosts levels of serotonin, a brain chemical that regulates mood. Some foods increase levels of another brain chemical, endorphins, which in turn creates a sense of contentment and emotional balance.

  Unfortunately, these good feelings don’t last. Every emotional eater knows the dark side of using food to cope; there’s weight gain, shame, and increasing feelings of hopelessness and failure. The first step toward breaking this cycle is to identify your triggers. You might already have an idea of what yours are, or you might need a little help figuring it out—the Lifestyle Log (appendix 1) is a good place to start. Reviewing some of the more common barriers to overcoming emotional eating (starting on page 48) and using some of the exercises in this chapter can also help clue you in.

  If you’ve kept a log in the past and it has been helpful, then you know why it’s so important to record. If you’re thinking “been there, done that, and it didn’t help,” I’m urging you to try it again. This time, try not to think of it as a chore or as a reminder of your failures (“I’m so weak for scarfing down those chips”). Instead, use it as an opportunity to get to know yourself better and to view your behaviors with interest and compassion (“Wow, I must have bee
n really nervous to have devoured that bag of chips without thinking”). In this chapter and in the upcoming ones, we’ll help you use the information in your log to free yourself from being ruled by food or from an exercise aversion or other issues standing in your way.

  You’ll also work on coming up with one or several reasons why giving up emotional eating is important to you. This is critical: You need to believe that overcoming your emotional eating is crucial to your health and well-being. Then you’ll check in with yourself to see how ready you are to make important changes to conquer the problem. Finally, we’ll start to work on developing strategies that will help you better manage your specific triggers and encourage you to make the switch to healthy ways of coping that don’t involve food.

  Your first step: Take a look at what you have to gain from changing your behaviors, using the “Why List” on the following page.

  FIND YOUR MOTIVATION

  You’ll be using the following exercises to tap into your intrinsic motivation. Your first task is to review the Why List, which will provide you with one or more motivating reasons to conquer your emotional eating.

  THE WHY LIST: TWELVE REASONS TO STOP USING FOOD TO COPE WITH EMOTIONS (PICK AT LEAST ONE)

  The brain rewiring involved in tackling emotional eating is hard work, but when you have a deep belief that it’s the right thing to do, the going is easier, because motivation hinges on a sincere belief that you’ll benefit from changing your behaviors and that you’re capable of making the changes. Just because your doctor, your spouse, your sister, or this book tells you to quit using food to cope, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you truly believe you need to or should. You have to find compelling reasons that resonate for you. Check out our reasons in the list below; some might click for you. If we’ve missed any that are meaningful to you, write them down in the blank spaces at the end of the list. When you feel your motivation start to dip, these are the reasons you’ll go back to time and again to regain your resolve:

  1. You’ll be at a healthier body weight.

  2. You’ll have a better lab report. Binge foods are notoriously high in sugar and fat; when you put a lid on them, you’ll most likely lower your LDL (low-density lipoprotein), or “bad” cholesterol; triglycerides, a heart-harming blood fat; blood pressure; and blood sugar.

  3. You’ll stop feeling guilty about food.

  4. You’ll feel better about your body and weight.

  5. you’ll have more energy.

  6. You’ll save money.

  7. You’ll be a good role model for your children, your spouse, your friends, your coworkers, or someone else.

  8. You’ll feel more in control over your life.

  9. You’ll feel a sense of accomplishment.

  10. You’ll respect yourself and take your needs seriously.

  11. You’ll be able to really enjoy food as food.

  12. You’ll not only develop more effective ways of coping with feelings, stress, and relationships, you’ll have a better understanding of them as well.

  Add your own reasons here:

  13.__________________________________________

  14.__________________________________________

  15.__________________________________________

  ASSESS YOUR READINESS FOR

  (AND RESISTANCE TO) CHANGE

  You want to put an end to emotional eating, but how ready are you to change? That’s what the following questions, referred to by psychologists as the motivational interview, will assess. This self-evaluation serves a dual purpose: In addition to showing you how prepared you are to change, it also presents a picture of how your life might improve as you stop using food to cope. The motivational interview has become an important tool for psychologists helping clients make difficult changes, such as ending alcohol or drug abuse, or losing weight.

  Our twist on this tool is that you’re acting as both therapist and client. You’ll question yourself without being judgmental and answer honestly. As therapist, feel free to ask yourself follow-up questions, especially when you sense resistance to change. For instance, in question 3, if you answer “not at all important,” you could follow up with “And why is that?” That’s a great way to unearth a barrier that you can start working on. As client, keep an open mind and be willing to change it. For instance, you might have always told yourself, “I freak out when there are no cookies in the house.” But answering question 8 with an open mind, you might say, “Well, maybe I could try one night without cookies, or put the cookies in the trunk of my car so they’re harder to get.”

  Write down your answers to the following questions in a notebook or journal. Every so often, go back to the answers to see if you’ve made progress and to draw inspiration.

  ARE YOU MOTIVATED? GAUGE HOW MUCH

  1. How is my current weight affecting my life right now?

  2. How is my emotional eating affecting my life right now?

  3. On a scale of 0 to 10 (with 0 being not at all important and 10 being critically important), how important is it for me to overcome my emotional eating?

  4. What kinds of things have I done in the past to break the habit?

  5. Which of these strategies worked and which didn’t? Why?

  6. Some people say that they’re divided: They want to stop emotional eating, but part of them doesn’t really want to change. Is this at all true for me?

  7. On a scale of 0 to 10 (with 0 being not ready at all and 10 being very ready), how ready am I to work on my emotional eating?

  8. What could I start doing today or tomorrow to overcome emotional eating (for instance, identify overeating triggers or try healthier coping mechanisms)?

  9. What was my life like before I engaged in emotional eating?

  10. How much does it worry me that I might return to old patterns of emotional eating once I change them?

  11. What makes me feel like I can sustain my progress?

  12. What are my hopes for the future if I am able to end emotional eating and/or lose some weight?

  13. How would my life be different if I stopped using food to cope and/or lost weight and adopted a healthier lifestyle?

  INTERPRETING YOUR ANSWERS

  Questions 1 and 2: How is my current weight affecting my life right now? How is my emotional eating affecting my life right now?

  Sometimes it takes getting really fed up with feeling paralyzed by your body or your relationship with food to take action and change your situation. Motivation comes from many sources: some positive (“I love going out with friends; it’s more enjoyable than sitting at home alone with a big bag of chips”) and some negative (“Being overweight and out of shape is causing me more pain than quitting my nighttime eating”). While answering these questions, make a list of the negative consequences of emotional eating; you can return to this list when you need a reminder.

  Question 3: On a scale of 0 to 10 (with 0 being not at all important and 10 being critically important), how important is it for me to overcome my emotional eating?

  If you’re an emotional eater, the more importance you place on ending the problem, the more motivated you’ll be to do so. So a higher number bodes better for your progress. However, if, even after going through the Why List, you answered this question with a 5 or less, then revisit it after you finish this chapter. And then go back to the question again after you start making some changes. You might find that it takes on more importance with time.

  Questions 4, 5, 10, and 11: What kinds of things have I done in the past to break the habit? Which of these strategies worked and which didn’t? Why? How much does it worry me that I might return to old patterns of emotional eating once I change them? What makes me feel like I can sustain my progress?

  In order to stay motivated, you must believe that you have the skills and ability to change your behavior. Psychologists call this “self-efficacy.” For instance, most nuclear physicists wouldn’t have a clue how to cut and style hair, while most stylists wouldn’t have the foggiest
idea how to smash an atom. Neither would have a sense of self-efficacy if asked to do the other’s job. Fortunately, everyone can manage the steps necessary to overcome emotional eating. You will need to set your own pace, and the progress may not happen all at once, but all the abilities required to overcome emotional eating are already inside of you! We’re here to give you the tools to tap into them.

  Questions 4 and 5 will help you recall what did and didn’t work in the past, and questions 10 and 11 will help you ascertain your confidence about moving forward. Even if you stopped emotional eating for only one day, how did you do it? If you’ve never tried to stop, then think of some other accomplishment—passing a test, teaching your child something, designing your kitchen, completing a project at work, and so on. You used skills such as organization, patience, and perseverance. You might have left your comfort zone and learned new skills. Could you apply those to overcoming emotional eating?