3 Keys to Nipping Emotional Eating

Where is it coming from?

“I know which foods are good for me, and I know which are not,” goes the common admission. “Still, sometimes I just can’t stop myself.” 

When I first started working as the editor at Wellspring Magazine, we placed a heavy emphasis on nutritional education, with a large chunk of the content highlighting the benefits of particular nutrients. Eat more of this and less of that, and you’re good to go. Nice message, but then the feedback started coming in. Readers wanted to understand why, even after they’ve learned that vegetables do this and sugar does that, were they still having such a hard time maintaining the healthy diet they really wanted for themselves. 

Before long, an emotional eating column was taking center stage in the publication, running for years before other wellbeing articles took its space.

Because—and if you’ve been around for long enough you know this too—it’s not about knowing which foods are good for us that will make the difference in our food choices. 

Sure, knowing what constitutes a healthy lifestyle is a cornerstone to being able to pursue it, but it’s being aware of what drives us to eat foods in quantities or qualities that aren’t good for us that goes a long way in enabling us to maintain that healthy diet. 

Any time we consume more than our body needs to sustain itself and function optimally, or foods that hinder this functioning, we’re engaging in emotional eating. We’re not eating because we’re physically hungry (though we may very well be); rather, we’re eating to fill a void. I can have the most nutritionally sound, balanced, highly acclaimed meal guidance, but if the emotional piece is not in place, I will find myself constantly falling back on my commitment to my health. 

And our commitment to our health is no small matter. Besides for the Torah’s commandment of venishmartem me’od lenafshoseichem, we don’t need anyone to tell us the many benefits we enjoy when we’re eating within boundaries, when we make wise choices, when we feel that we’re choosing our food and not the other way around. Physical health (and weight loss) benefits aside, maintaining a healthy diet from a place of self-appreciation (not self-loathing) facilitates a deeply positive impact on our wellbeing and relationships. So how can we finally achieve that?

Internalizing the following 3 key pointers will enable us to initiate lasting change regarding this self-sabotaging habit. 

1. Overeating is a result, not a cause.

As long as we see overeating as the issue, we’re bound to stay stuck in the habit. None of us engages in self-sabotaging behavior because we sat down and figured out that this makes sense for us. Rather, something other than logic has been driving us to reach for those chocolate caramel chewies.

Overeating is not the core of the challenge; it’s actually a symptom. Of what? In Alei Shur, Rav Shlomo Wolbe teaches that all of us humans, and especially Yidden, are pleasure seekers (a trait whose ultimate goal is to drive us toward feeling the pleasure of all pleasures in our relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu). Since our mission in life is to seek pleasure and escape pain, teaches Rav Wolbe, we’ll do whatever it takes to be in that state—whatever it takes. For many of us, the pleasure we’ve been conditioned to seeking out, especially when our feelings are unpleasant or hard to make sense of, is… food. Is the pleasure fleeting? Oh yes. Can it have serious repercussions? Yes to that too—if the quantity or quality of the food isn’t good for us. But in that moment in time, when the goodie touches down on our taste buds, we’re getting a dose of instant pleasure. And that’s why, as insensible as it may seem, we keep coming back for more… and then some more.

With the understanding that overeating is a result of something deeper comes the recognition that when I’m engaging in this habit, I’m not doing it with intention. I’m not finishing that family pack of potato chips or tub of ice cream because I’m out to spite myself. Rather, I have a need for pleasure or escaping pain that hasn’t been addressed. Seeing myself through this lens fills me with self-compassion, not self-loathing. Instead of berating myself for being a (all the untoward adjectives we women call ourselves after a binge), we can see ourselves with eyes of validation. True, what I did wasn’t good for me, but when I’m aware that this was a result, I can let myself be. As counter-intuitive as it seems, it’s this kind of treatment that has much greater chances of stopping the binge cycle. In the work I do with women—and emotional eating is one of the most common symptoms in our community (for good reason—as frum women, food is of the most “kosher” pain-numbers and pleasure-givers), I keep noticing time and again how positive the results of self-compassion are particularly to this issue. The more we are able to accept ourselves for seeking to fill our void, the more of a healthy sense of self we develop. And the healthier our sense of self, the more we want to take care of the vessel of our neshama from a place of desire and self-appreciation. This is when eating healthy becomes a given for us, with the help of Hashem.

2. Acknowledge your humanness.

We women have a knack for setting the bar high. Whether it’s tablescapes, shidduchim, or anything in between, only the best will do. And so, that inner bar is high as well. If we’re watching our food intake, for example, we expect ourselves to have such clarity about the importance of our endeavor that nothing is allowed to tempt us anymore. 

But Hashem, who understands our psyche best, knows better. When we Yidden left Mitzrayim, Hashem instructed Moshe to lead us on a roundabout route so we wouldn’t have easy access to return to Mitzrayim. Remove the temptation, was the message. Lo al yedei nisayon, we daven every morning. It’s important for us to recognize that since we’re human, we want to do what we can to avoid temptation in the first place. If we know that particular foods or food groups are hard for us to consume in healthy quantities, we’re best off avoiding them. Why put ourselves in a nisayon if we don’t have to?

On the day Rav Eliyahu Dessler zt”l stopped smoking, upon learning of its health hazards, he told everyone in his presence, “Did you hear that I stopped smoking?” By publicizing his commitment, he built boundaries that would make it harder for him to fall back. How validating! Among many other similar teachings, Chazal instruct, harcheik mishachein ra, distance yourself from negative influences. It’s commands like these that send us a message regarding the wisdom of self-awareness. Don’t stay with that neighbor and expect yourself to remain unaffected. 

Often, we set the bar so high that we end up losing it all. We expect ourselves to be angels. I want to have the food in front of me, and to not even entertain the thought of partaking from it. Is that realistic at all? Recognize that you’re human and don’t make this endeavor harder for yourself. In regards to overeating, clear out your kitchen as much as possible from foods that you find irresistible, and avoid the nisyonos as much as possible outside of your home, as well. Yes, over time, if you’ll keep making healthy choices from self-appreciation, those temptations will decrease. There will probably come a day when you’ll find yourself baking a cake without being tempted to taste the batter, but work from where you’re at. 

3. Lay the weapons down.

Many of us make the mistake of attributing the success of overcoming overeating to willpower. “If I’ll work hard, I’ll have what to show for it.” But it’s this fallacy that often makes the success short-lived. 

The word willpower conjures an image of a warrior in battle, sweating and panting. The one who fights hardest emerges victorious. When this is our approach to eating right, we’re bound to drop out of the competition, sooner or later. How long can we keep torturing ourselves for? If what I really want is chocolate and pizza all day, and here I am, warrior of all time, waging this battle, pretty soon I’m left feeling weary and deprived. As long as we’re feeling deprived, poor me that I can’t have that, we’re still at battle. 

One sign that we’re still at war is when our reward for making healthy choices is a food that isn’t good for us. The subliminal message in a “prize” like this (I’ll treat myself to that donut when I reach that number…) is “Really, I would love to keep eating donuts, but I’m forcing myself to stay away…” 

If waging war isn’t the right approach, what is the effective perspective? It’s when our decision to pursue a healthy lifestyle (including exercise) emanates from a positive desire, from a true want to do what is good for me. And if you’ll say, “My true desire is to eat chocolate and cake, but what can I do if these foods don’t love me back?” know that there’s a place within that you haven’t yet tapped into. It’s a good place! Let yourself go there.

Deep within, what we want most of all is to treat our body and nefesh properly, to fill up on the true pleasures in life. We’re very much human, so of course sugar-loaded foods will always taste good on our tongue, but when our emotional health is in good shape, we want what’s really good, what won’t leave us with unpleasant side effects. Often, we ourselves aren’t aware to this place because we’ve been using food for too long as a means of self-soothing and distracting from unpleasant emotion. We’ve become so numb to our true self that it’s hard for us to know what’s there. And so, tapping into this place of desire takes intention. It takes noticing that it’s there, waiting to be unearthed, and acting upon it. When we pursue a healthy lifestyle from this place, it doesn’t feel hard at all. It feels right and good and yes, even easy.

Our eating is so much more than about the calories we consume; it’s a manifestation of our inner world. When our meals are nourishing, flavorful, and within the boundaries that are right for us—which happens when we pay attention to our inner world— we can derive pleasure from them and function optimally not only physically, but also emotionally. Just like with sleep, when we get too much of it, we feel awfully sleep-logged. When we get too little, we’re drained. But when we give ourselves just the right amount, we can be our best selves—refreshed and vibrant. 

As with every challenge Hashem sends our way, if our eating patterns are weighing down on us (if you know, you know!), finding meaning in the struggle helps us not only overcome it but also grow from it. By channeling how we feel about our eating/health/size/self into our relationship with Hashem, we’re doing just that. The beauty of this intervention is two-pronged: First, He is the only One who can help, so there’s no better address to turn to. In our daily conversations with Hashem, we can ask Him to grant us the clarity and wisdom to make choices that are good for us; to be compassionate to ourselves when we don’t; to fill our void with true pleasures—more fulfilling relationships with ourselves, others, and Him; to help us get in touch with that place within that wants more than chocolate (she’s selective like that!); and to connect us to the right shlichim who can help us on our journey toward a healthier inner self. And second, by channeling this challenge into our relationship with Hashem, we’re ushering in the ultimate pleasure one can experience in this world: kirvas Elokim. When we feel close to Hashem, which happens when we initiate the connection (He’s already right there, waiting!), we’re simply living on a different plane. There’s so much joy, contentment, and inner peace in that! And the more full we are from this kind of connection, the less we’ll find ourselves reaching for counterfeit fillers. 

May Hashem grant us the wisdom to tend to the vessel of our neshama with just what it needs so we can look and feel our very best, and bring what only we can to this world. 

Dear BCP readers and friends,

If you’d like to learn more about how to address emotional eating so you can finally free yourself from this self-sabotaging behavior, I invite you to join us for an illuminating 3-hour seminar this coming Monday, June 5, in Brooklyn (I’ll be visiting from Yerushalayim). At this crash course, which will also include a soul-stirring musical experience, we’ll take a journey inward and come away with insights that will iyH enable us to lead the healthy life we want and deserve. 

For more information, please visit https://lahavinitiative.org/projects/#light

, call 718-757-9329, or write to info@lahavinitiative.org. 

*BONUS! Enter code BCP at checkout for a $20 discount.*