End Emotional Eating- Kim McLaughlin

by | Feb 8, 2018 | Podcast

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

Do you find you are an emotional eater?

There is hope and there is help. Check out this video to help you decide if counseling might help you.

 

Kim McLaughlin, MA is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who specializes in helping people with eating issues and eating disorders.  She provides counseling services in the Roseville and greater Sacramento CA area. If you are concerned that about overeating, weight or your use of food in general please contact her here.

Sign up for her FREE Top Tips to End Emotional Eating here. Check out her website at www.FeedYourSoulTherapy.com.

 

What is your biggest question about emotional eating? Post it in the comment section below.

What Is Emotional Eating?

by | Sep 15, 2016 | Podcast

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

I get asked this all the time, “How do I know if I am an emotional eater?” It is a question that is personal and individual. It can be hard to know. I think of emotional eating as a puzzle with many pieces. Here are some of the clues for you to see what emotional eating is:

  1. Eating when you are not hungry.
  2. Using food to comfort yourself.
  3. Using food to help with situations that feel uncomfortable.
  4. Eating to overfull.
  5. Feeling bad about what you eat and your overeating.
  6. Calling food good and bad.
  7. Feeling bad about your body and your weight.

Any of these signs by themselves are not necessarily indicative of emotional eating. You might be someone who engages in emotional eating, at times, and it does not cause you a problem. It is socially acceptable to overeat at holidays and family celebrations that happen sporadically. There are people whose overeating is the exception rather than the rule. They may find one or two of the above questions are a yes, but not many more than that.

Knowing if you are an emotional eater or not is helpful, because then you can begin to get a direction to end the emotional eating. It can be important to know if you are an emotional eater, because many emotional eater are prone to join on the diet bandwagon. I have seen this happen over and over again. Dieting is the socially acceptable way to manage food and weight issues. Right? Problem is if you are eating for emotional reasons, a diet does not help you.

If you find the answers to many of the above questions are a yes, you might be an emotional eating. If so, you do not need to worry. Now you have a name to the problem and that can lead you to a solution. Many of us have the same problem and there is a solution. Knowing there is a problem and naming it is the first step to the freedom that I know you are looking for.

Kim McLaughlin, MA is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who specializes in helping people with eating issues and eating disorders.  If you are concerned that about overeating, weight or your use of food in general please contact her here. Sign up for her FREE Top Tips to End Emotional Eating here. Check out her website at www.FeedYourSoulTherapy.com.

Ending Emotional Eating: Leftover Halloween candy

by | Nov 5, 2015 | Podcast

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

Ending Emotional Eating: Leftover Halloween candy

I just saw a video from Jimmy Kimmel of an annual prank where he encourages parents to video themselves telling their kids that they ate all of the kids Halloween candy. I must admit it was funny to see the kids have such expressive (sad, mad) reactions. It also made me think of the torment some of us experience after the kids go Trick or Treating and now we are faced with lots of candy in the house or left over candy bought to give out to the kids. This situation can be really difficult for anyone with emotional eating issues. Just having the candy in the house can lead to overeating, obsessive thoughts (“do I eat it or don’t I”) and wondering how we can hide that we ate the candy.

Emotional eating means we eat to help ourselves deal with emotions, and some emotions can revolve around the fear of having candy in the house. We can become sneaky and shame ridden when we do eat someone else’s Halloween candy or eat more than we think we should. When I was a child, I remember taking some of my brothers Halloween candy. He would ask who took it and I did not tell the truth. He then started to count the candy and then I could not keep taking it without being caught. I felt ashamed that I engaged in that kind of behavior and did not tell the truth about it.

I consider Halloween as the start of the holiday season, which can be very challenging for emotional eaters. Sugar can often be the go to choice when emotions arise. Now we are done with Halloween, but not with the candy. There is a full bowl of it in my house and it is now not a concern for me. If you struggle with this like I have (read more on my Halloween story here), let me give you some tips to get through it.

  1. I like to tell myself, “It is not mine to take or eat.” That thought keeps me out of my child’s candy. Think up a statement that you will tell yourself which can help redirect you or use mine.
  2. Do you really need that much candy in the house? Local dentists collect (and sometimes pay for) candy which they send to the troops. Engage your child (if it is their candy) in the idea we have plenty and we can share or make it a rule that we only keep a certain amount and the rest we give away. It is nice to give others a sweet treat.
  3. Ask yourself why you really want the candy. Sounds simple, but some moments of questioning ourselves, our feelings, and our desire to have the candy can help use become more mindful of our decisions.

These tips can be very effective in the short term process of managing the thoughts and behaviors around sweets. Since this is the start of the holiday season, really consider a plan of action for yourself for the next 2 months. Developing an understanding of your emotional eating and a plan of action is a great way to start the holidays. It is possible to have an enjoyable holiday without the struggle over food.

Have some tips about how you handle leftover Halloween candy? Let us know in the comments below.

Kim McLaughlin, MA is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who specializes in helping people with eating issues and eating disorders.  If you are concerned that about overeating, weight or your use of food in general please contact her here. Sign up for her FREE Top Tips to End Emotional Eating here. Check out her website at www.FeedYourSoulTherapy.com.