I’m often asked how I help women overcome “emotional eating,” and I thought I’d take a moment to explain my point of view on this topic, as I’m sure many of you are curious…

First off,

The term “emotional eating” can be used for both good and evil. 

On the one hand, realizing that we use food – both restricting it and consuming it — for emotional reasons, rather than physical reasons, is an important step towards making “healthier” choices with food after we stop dieting.

When we understand that we’re being driven to eat by emotional triggers, we have an opportunity to do something about it...like deal with our real feelings and address what’s actually going on. 

That being said, our cultural obsession with controlling and manipulating weight, has lead us to villainize emotional eating. We’ve turned a relatively benign form of coping into a crime — another way in which women’s desires are wrong and not to be trusted.

This is incredibly problematic, and probably my greatest criticism of how emotional eating is treated by conventional wisdom.

When we turn emotional eating into a sin — another behavior to be avoided at all costs — we fall into the same diet mentality that almost always leads to binge-eating and other dysfunctional behaviors with food. 

My mission as a coach is to offer another perspective: a way to heal our emotional relationship with food, without shaming and judging women’s instincts around food.

The goal here is not “to eat or not to eat—”

The goal is to connect more deeply to what we truly need, and make empowered choices accordingly. 

I hope that gives some insight into my position on the topic 🙂

I discuss this in far more depth in my free video training series, Stop Fighting Food. If any of you are interested in more advanced work with me, you’ll also learn about my Master Class when you sign up for the vids. The Master Class is the single most comprehensive program I offer in ending the crazy-around-food-cycle.

Hope to see you there!