Is emotional eating bad?

Nope. And it’s not good either. 

All eating, emotional or otherwise, is 100% neutral.

It has no morality attached to it whatsoever.

Which is awesome news because you know what that means? 

It means you’re not bad for doing it. And you’re not good for not doing it. Your eating habits are 100% neutral.

When we label our eating as bad we tend to personalize it and make ourselves bad for doing it. 

Instead of it being an action we do that we’d like to change (or not), we make it mean there’s something wrong with us.

And when you make it mean there’s something wrong with you, you feel terrible.

I completely judged my eating as bad. And then I’d feel ashamed, embarrassed, and so out of control. I also felt stupid because I was supposed to know better (I’ve got lots of coaching, health, fitness, and nutrition qualifications to “prove” my stupidity, but that’s a story for another day).

And what did I do when I felt terrible, ashamed, embarrassed, and stupid? You got it… I ate my face off to feel better. Vicious cycle, right?

So how do we disconnect the action of eating with what we make it mean about us?

One way is to look at how emotional eating has worked for you.

For example, eating my emotions got me through some of the worst times of my life. It’s all I had to cope with emotions I simply didn’t know how to deal with and I’m actually pretty grateful for it in hindsight.

That feeling of gratitude allows me to have some grace for myself and disconnect the action from meaning anything about me. It’s something I did… it’s not who I am.

So where has emotional eating worked for you? How did it help you in the moment?

You’re going to want to argue and say it hasn’t worked for you… all you got was a lot of pain and misery… and maybe a bigger ass.

But challenge yourself and dig deeper. Where was eating the solution to a problem you were having that you didn’t know how else to cope with?

You don’t even have to go so far as feeling grace or gratitude for it. Simply understanding why you did it will get you a long way closer to feeling neutral about it.

And feeling neutral about it will get you a long way closer to changing the behavior, if that’s your goal.