food for thought: how emotional eating derails weight loss
6 minute read
this disorder affects all ages, sociodemographic groups and ethnicities, she adds, setting the record straight on the western myth that only middle-aged white women suffer from emotional eating.
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if you’re living with obesity or extra weight, you might be facing a number of related health complications down the road. but how do you lose weight in a world where you’re surrounded by ultra-palatable food and a hectic lifestyle that leaves little room for self-care?
the science shows the complexity of weight management goes far beyond the simplistic, outdated notion of calories in and calories out (eating more greens and getting to the gym). weight loss is not only physical, but also psychological.
in other words, how you think plays a significant role in shaping your weight loss journey. some experts say that the improvement of psychological well-being may be central to the long-term effectiveness of weight management programs.
how you think affects weight loss
“what most of us have heard is in terms of blame, ‘if you are overweight, it’s your fault. just eat less and go to the gym and be like the rest of us who are thin.’ and that is probably one of the most inaccurate as well as unfair things to be told or to hear,” says dr. katie dashtban, a clinical health psychologist at the pain and wellness centre in vaughan, ontario.
she has deep experience helping people work through the psychological factors that contribute to weight management, emphasizing that the mind part of what we call the “mind-body connection” is an effective starting point to address behaviours and perceptions around weight. finding psychological well-being is empowering.
for example, emotional eating is a common thread in conversations around obesity and overweight.
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“you do see patterns of eating that are not necessarily associated with hunger or with a need for nourishment,” she says of the emotional eating that can drive weight gain. this disorder affects all ages, sociodemographic groups and ethnicities, she adds, setting the record straight on the western myth that only middle-aged white women suffer from emotional eating.
as well, she points out that emotional eating is like any substance addiction.
“people are physiologically at first attached to the substance, in this case, certain kinds of food, and then ultimately psychologically addicted.” and when it comes to addiction, food is a complex substance where the psychological addiction is a bigger part of the behaviour than the physiological one.
surrounded by processed foods
as you might expect, those pastries at every corner coffee shop and the super-gooey cheese pizza for delivery don’t make emotional eating easy to overcome. she talks about how food corruption stacks the deck against us from eating whole foods and cooking at home.
“we’re still bombarded with processed food, essentially food that has been taken from its original source, the way that it either grows in the ground or comes from the animal, and has been shaped in multiple different ways to become palatable,” she says. “you can’t just kill a cow and chew on the meat,” but ultra processing is problematic. that’s because three main ingredients—fat, salt and sugar—are “far more potentially addictive both emotionally and physically in the way that food becomes palatable.”
counselling can help dig into the roots of addiction. dashtban doesn’t start her therapy with patients talking about food because that would lead to a lot of back and forth about why bother to change when eating certain kinds of foods that are addictive and bring pleasure. that comes much later during therapy.
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rather, she focuses on the concept of self-advocacy: when people need help to look after themselves, especially when their health is at stake, it’s important to identify any problems they may have with advocating for themselves. speaking up and reaching out for help is not easy to do.
“that becomes a more complex psychological and emotional concept,” she explains, noting the self-advocacy piece is negotiated and explored in depth.
the power of asking for help
self-advocacy is tied into mindset, intention, self-acceptance and self-worth—the foundation that helps people get the help and confidence they need to make healthy changes in their lives. as psychology today explains, “mindsets are a lens through which we see ourselves and the world around us. these mindsets fall along a continuum. a fixed mindset indicates a belief that traits, abilities and conditions can’t be changed. for example, you may feel that no matter how many dance classes you take, you’ll always have two left feet. in contrast, a growth mindset indicates a belief that these things can change with time, effort and the right strategies.”
after working toward self-advocacy, dashtban helps people face the hardship of the withdrawal from reducing fat, salt and sugar and the behavioural changes that come with healthy eating.
“like ‘what? i actually have to go buy everything pretty much raw and chop and cook?’ and then all the resistances: ‘i don’t have the time. i don’t have the money. it’s too expensive. it’s too timely. i have four kids i need to feed. i live in a rural area and i don’t have access.’ all of these are factors that are going to come into the picture.”
she points out that changing addictive behaviour is like pulling teeth at first, much like someone addicted to alcohol might say that if they go to a barbecue and all their friends are drinking, what are they going to hold in their hand? and how weird is it going to be that they’re sober and can hardly mingle or laugh or socialize?
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the same thing can be said if we don’t put a display of desserts and delicacies at a dinner party, then are we going to sit over water, nuts and seeds?
“so, there is the need for a lot of self-advocacy in order to be able to change that may also be tied to cultural components,” she says.
the typical routine of wanting to relax in front of the tv at 9 p.m. is probably the one thing that needs to go to avoid emotional eating, or perhaps you need to force-feed yourself an egg in the morning when you don’t have an appetite for breakfast. kickstarting your metabolism is important.
dashtban understands the addictive quality of certain foods herself. “for me, it’s not a strange thing to have sugar withdrawals. i’ve had them in the past where you are cutting down everything and just throwing everything out of your house, and then like literally walking around the house going, ‘what can i have that may be almost sweet?’ so, it is a habit that can be quite difficult to break away from.” she says the physical withdrawal can be as fast as two or three days, but the psychological aspect is far more challenging.
weight loss is discomfort
bottom line, there’s a lot of discomfort in making changes for better weight management overall. an article from harvard medical school emphasizes that discomfort is inevitable in weight loss:
“what we can say for certain is that for any and all of us, maintaining weight loss necessitates getting comfortable with discomfort—the discomfort of occasionally feeling hungry, of exercising instead of stress eating, of honestly deciphering reward-seeking versus real hunger, and resisting the ubiquitous lure of ultra-palatable foods. this is no easy task, as it often goes against environmental cues, cultural customs, family upbringing, social influences and our genetic wiring.”
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how you think can change your weight loss journey, but it won’t come without effort.
“the longer the period of time that you have been feeding the unlikable emotions by food, the more difficult it’ll be to come off it, because now you have to find a whole lot of substitute ways, including cognitive changes and behavioural changes,” dashtban says. she compares it to cutting the grass in your yard in a certain way that is an established pattern for 20 years, and then working to change that pattern.
“literally your brain carves out these neural pathways, so it becomes very difficult to change the default mode to another default mode.”
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