Eating Your Feelings? You Can Learn to Stop Emotional Eating

Eating your feelings doesn’t need to be the ruin of your healthy eating plan. You can learn to stop emotional eating. Here are 4 strategies.


I slammed my car door and drove straight from work to Wendy’s. I fidgeted impatiently while waiting for my order of about a thousand calories. Then I quickly scarfed it down in a matter of minutes.

That was my old life – when eating my feelings was common. These days, thank goodness, I rarely eat my feelings.

I’ve got 4 strategies that can help you too learn to stop eating your feelings.

Woman eating pasta because she's stressed or unhappy

Photo credit: Artem Labunsky

Cupcakes to soothe anger. Pasta to tamp down frustration. Ooey-gooey cheesy dishes to numb hurt feelings. Emotional eating, for sure.

And it works. If emotional eating didn’t at least temporarily relieve life’s distresses, no one would eat emotionally. But an unwelcome side effect of eating your feelings is that it delays or prevents us from achieving our health goals. And it does nothing to deal with the problems that are truly bugging us.

4 Ways to Stop Eating Your Feelings

Emotional eating is common. For many of us, breaking free of emotional eating takes lots of hard work. For others, it takes a lot of hard work and the help of a trained psychotherapist. Both biology and psychology are at play, so don’t be shy about seeking help. Here are a few steps to help you shake free from emotional eating.

1. Recognize emotional eating. Record what you eat along with your mood for a week or so. Identify the thoughts, emotions or behaviors that led to your overeating. Was it boredom eating? Did you eat out of worry, frustration, or embarrassment?

cupcakes on display emotional eating

A trip to the cupcake shop may sound like a good idea after a stressful day, but it won’t solve your problems.

2. Label your emotions. Negative emotions aren’t bad. In fact, having negative emotions is normal. But allowing irritation, worry, sadness or loneliness to be the reason you polish off a bag of salty, crunchy snacks is unhelpful and potentially dangerous. Practice noticing and labeling your emotions. How exactly do you feel? Is it anger, sadness, fear, anxiety, embarrassment? Naming your feelings and observing them without judgment helps you learn about them.

Is it worry? Embarrassment? Naming your emotion can help stop emotional eating.Click To Tweet

Try naming your whole range of emotions. As an experiment, stop at least 3 times today to check in with your emotions. Set a reminder on your phone or computer at random times. When you get the reminder, pause to reflect on how you feel. Agitated? Bored? Excited? Sad? Interested? Remember you can have more than one emotion at a time.

3. Feel the joy. If ice cream is how you treat yourself regularly, I beg you to make time for little joys throughout your day. This is a definite game changer! I promise.

I’m lifted several times a day simply because I have a mutt with superpowers. (I think all dogs probably have superpowers.) Benny makes me laugh, he warms my heart, and he warms my feet in the winter. He’s good at playing and even better at cuddling. Spending time with him is one of my usual strategies to soothe myself without calories.

Develop an arsenal of coping strategies to help you deal with difficult emotions. But don’t reserve them only for moments of panic. Treat yourself throughout your day. When you have many joys, you don’t have to count on ice cream, pizza or Wendy’s to take care of you.

A few ideas:

  • listen to soothing or uplifting music
  • chat with a friend
  • buy yourself flowers
  • go for a walk
  • sip soothing, fragrant tea
  • exercise your coloring skills
  • create art
  • practice yoga, meditation or prayer
Playing soccer with a pup, a non-food coping strategy

Playing with Benny is my way to recharge and reset. He helps me shake off a bad mood.

For more about soothing without food, check out Reset Your Day in 5 Minutes or Less. How you choose to soothe yourself is as individual as you are.

4. Build in food treats. I get resistance on this strategy, but it may actually be the most important one. Whatever food you reach for when stressed probably has some special meaning to you, and at one time or another, you probably labeled it taboo. Is it chocolate (my fave), mac and cheese, pizza, hot-from-the-oven cookies, French fries? Whatever it is, eat some without guilt. Don’t reward yourself with it. That reaffirms it’s a “bad food.” Eat it simply because you like it. Practice enjoying your favorite food in a reasonable amount, perhaps as part of a balanced meal. You’ll learn it’s okay to treat yourself. We all deserve treats, but cheats are the wrong mindset.

These 4 strategies are just a start to help you break free of emotional eating. And here’s more about negative self talk. Please seek professional help if you struggle quite a bit with eating your emotions. It doesn’t need to be in your future.

If you have trouble staying consistent with your healthy eating and exercise goals, check out the video course Stick With It: Build Motivation & Willpower for Healthy Habits & Get the Results You Want.

Jill-Weisenberger_about-image-2
Jill Weisenberger

I'm Jill, and I believe simple changes in your mindset and health habits can bring life-changing rewards. And I don't believe in willpower. It's waaaay overrated. As a food-loving registered dietitian nutritionist, certified diabetes care and education specialist and certified health and wellness coach, I've helped thousands of people solve their food and nutrition problems. If you're looking for a better way to master this whole healthy eating/healthy living thing or if you're trying to prevent or manage diabetes or heart problems, you'll find plenty of resources right here.

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1 Comment

  1. Deepti on August 19, 2021 at 8:57 am

    Hello Jill, Thank you for sharing amazing content

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Hi there! I'm Jill, a nutrition & diabetes expert and the author of 4 books.

Jill Weisenberger

I believe simple changes in health habits can bring you life-changing rewards.

And I believe willpower is way overrated.

Right here is where you can discover the mindset and habits to stick with healthy lifestyle choices most of the time - and drop the guilt when you don't.

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