7 Strategies to Curb Emotional Eating During Covid-19

It’s challenging – you’re working from home, possibly with a houseful of family members, the news of the virus is terrible and overwhelming, the economy is taking a big hit, and uncertainty about the future is palpable. Or perhaps you are part of the essential workforce and you are arriving home, tired and stressed from carrying out your duties on the frontlines. Food offers a little solace, a respite from the awfulness of the world situation and a feeling of control. If we’re fortunate enough to have both sufficient food and the luxury of choosing what to eat, eating offers a momentary sense of empowerment: I get to decide what to eat, I get to eat something I like, I get to savor the flavors and texture of my food. 

It is enticing to indulge in food as a source of comfort. And food is a source of comfort, and pleasure, in good times and in bad. But there is an important difference between enjoying food that we plan to eat, and that we eat for fuel and sustenance, and emotional eating, which is eating driven by the desire to calm our nerves and sooth our ragged emotions. Emotional eating gives us that illusory feeling of control—it distracts us from our thoughts and feelings, if only for a moment, and it is our prize for enduring fatigue, overwhelm, frustration and fear. However, emotional eating can set us up for negative consequences, whether guilt and self-criticism, or unwanted weight gain and possible self-harm.

Food is a necessity. The goal is to use food to maintain our health and well-being, not to undermine our health or sabotage our self-esteem. And this is true at all times, not just when we are dealing with Covid-19. In this difficult time, food may be calling to us more frequently than usual, because the situation is daunting and uncertain, and our feelings can be intense and overwhelming. Below are 7 strategies to help you curb emotional eating during this difficult time.

1 - Structure your time, including your meals.

If you are stuck at home with what seems like endless time, the day ahead may seem like an eternity. This may feel good for some people, but for others, that expanse of time can be filled with landmines. Sometimes more time means more opportunities to get stuck in scary or unpleasant thoughts, particularly when the news we hear is frightening. If you plan a few specific things you need or want to accomplish in the course of a day, and decide when you will do them, your life can feel more manageable. You can sort and reorganize the contents of a drawer, clean the area by your front door, finish a project that’s been nagging at you for a while, or read the articles that are languishing in the stack of magazines stashed in a corner. Perhaps there’s something you can do for a neighbor, or for your neighborhood, at a safe social distance. Completing a task bestows a sense of satisfaction, which can help offset stress-induced blues. When you establish some structure for your day, it can help you feel more in control, particularly when there is so much else around you that you can’t control.

Scheduling your meals helps provide much-needed routine in a time of a lot of uncertainty and change. When you know when your next meal will be, it can deter you from snacking and emotional eating and provide something to look forward to. Eating at regular times keeps you from getting too hungry and minimizes the tendency to graze. Grazing is not inherently bad, but you can end up eating more than you intended to—it doesn’t look like that much food when you eat just a little bit at a time. Multiply a brief foray to refrigerator by the number of times during the day you’re tempted to graze, and it can add up to a lot of extra food. Plus with grazing, eating tends to be mindless—you are probably standing in front of the open refrigerator, or hanging out over the kitchen counter or sink, and telling yourself “it’s just a little bit.” You may even feel guilty while you are eating, which undermines your original intent of using food to comfort yourself.

It’s important to plan not only when your meals will be, but what foods you will prepare and where you will eat. Being specific in planning your menu can keep you from improvising along unhealthy lines or feeling bad because you’ve eaten in a haphazard way. Food decisions are best done in advance—if you wait until you are famished to decide what to eat, you are unlikely to make good choices. Then once your food is prepared, set the stage to enjoy your meal. If you sit at a table, and use a plate, silverware and a napkin, it allows you to make your meal a pleasurable event, a time to be present and intentional. And if you are at home with other family members, they will doubtless appreciate a pleasant mealtime as well.

2 - Stay in touch with other people.

Depending on who else is living in your home, “sheltering in place” can be a pretty lonely affair. Even if you have loved ones who share your living space, that small troupe of players can become tiring. But don’t isolate! We all need supportive human contact. Instead of using food to manage uncomfortable feelings, reach out to another person, someone who can be present and attentive to you. The comfort gained by emotional eating tends to be brief and fleeting. But, if you talk with a trusted friend or family member, the impact of a heartfelt connection with another person can offer much greater and longer-lasting sustenance than emotional eating provides. Connecting with others via phone or facetime or zoom can be grounding and soothing. The isolation that is necessary to minimize spread of the virus can be challenging on a human level, but thankfully, opportunities for remote connection exist,  and staying connected to loving others, even by phone, can be reassuring.

Don’t hesitate to seek professional help. Refraining from emotional eating can be challenging in “normal” times when we are dealing with “normal” stressors, and we all need extra support and encouragement in this highly stressful time. Phone-based and online therapy are available.

3 - Find non-food sources of comfort and solace.

What are the ways you like to nurture yourself? It may even help to make a list, and be as specific as possible: if you enjoy reading, which book or magazine or article do you want to read? If you enjoy listening to music, what kind of music to you prefer? Maybe it’s music you can dance to, or maybe it’s Brahms or Chopin that draw you in. Specify the artist and the piece of music you enjoy. Or perhaps you like playing music. Or drawing, taking photographs, gardening if that’s available to you, or repairing things. Sometimes it helps to schedule brief interludes of a pleasurable activity to look forward to after completing a task; other times, getting yourself calm and centered by doing something you enjoy first may be the best prelude to your day or to a project. Any hobby you enjoy and can do at home, or in nature at a safe distance from others, is fair game, so long as you have the equipment and space available and won’t get in the way of others’ activities.

4 - Stay out of the kitchen!

This may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s harder to avoid the kitchen when we are at home, particularly if we are bored, anxious, frustrated, or lonely. These are the very emotions that trigger emotional eating: we turn to food to assuage our discomfort. The kitchen beckons to us. It reminds us of the comfort of food and the joy of cooking. But make the kitchen off-limits except during the times you are preparing a meal or cleaning up. It’s easier to abstain from snacking and grazing if food is not within arm’s reach.

5 - Move Your Body.

Moving helps us feel grounded in our bodies and releases some of the feel-good endorphins that offset urges to eat for emotional reasons. If you can get outside to walk or run or bike, keeping appropriate social distance between yourself and others, being in nature can also boost to your mood.  If you cannot go outside, there are activities that you can do inside that require minimum space, such as stretching, yoga, jumping jacks, or running in place. Some of these may seem ridiculous…but you will feel better for doing them! Or if jumping and running and yoga won’t work for you, try something that will…arm circles and shoulder shrugs, for example. Even slow, deliberate, breathing, noticing the rise and fall of your chest as you inhale and exhale, can help. Get creative and find something that works for you and that you enjoy enough to actually do.

6 - Notice your body cues and sensations.

When we succumb to emotional eating, it’s rarely triggered by physical hunger. Rather, a desire to quell uncomfortable feelings sends us to food in search of comfort and solace. By paying attention to our own body sensations before and during eating, we can notice when we are actually hungry, and when we are satisfied and have eaten enough. How hungry were you when you began eating? Sometimes it helps to rate your hunger level from zero (not at all hungry) to 5 (very hungry). Do you notice yourself becoming satisfied? When we eat quickly and mindlessly, we don’t really notice what our body is telling us, and it’s easy to overeat, even if we are eating a planned meal. Sometimes we don’t notice when we’ve had enough—maybe we’re distracted by watching TV or reading while eating. For some us, it’s hard to stop eating once we’ve started, as though we’ve set in motion an activity (eating) and now that there’s momentum, it’s hard to put on the brakes (stopping eating). This is when it helps to pause, take a breath, notice how your body feels, then engage your thinking mind and choose whether you want to make yourself physically uncomfortable from overeating. Of course, knowing that we may end up uncomfortable may not provide sufficient motivation to stop eating—the desire for distraction or for relief from emotional upset can override our best thinking. This is a good time to yell “Stop!” to yourself, move away from the food—go in another room, if possible—and engage in an absorbing activity.

7 - Savor the food you eat.

Emotional eating often means eating mindlessly. We may notice the first bite, and it’s so scrumptious that the second, third and fourth bites continue in rapid succession. Plus, the very act of eating can make us feel like we’ve taken a positive action—or at least exercised some choice and agency—at a time when we may feel overwhelmed or helpless. However, eating quickly and without really appreciating the nuances of the food we eat can set us up to want more. . . and more. If you can slow down and notice the fragrance, texture, and variety of flavors that make this particular food unique and delicious, what you eat can feel much more satisfying. Without pausing to truly enjoy the food you are eating, it’s easy to overeat. Eating slowly and mindfully gives you the opportunity to enjoy the food you eat rather than leaving you craving more food because you haven’t noticed what you’ve already eaten.

These are challenging and difficult times. Covid-19 has brought tremendous uncertainty. It is precisely because we feel overwhelmed or anxious that we succumb to emotional eating—emotional eating becomes more enticing in trying times. And these are trying times. But emotional eating provides transitory relief at best, often with unwanted consequences. Instead of turning to food, turn to your loved ones, to what you can enjoy and do and feel grateful for, to engaging in pursuits that will help you stay healthy—eating well and being active in the ways that you can.

Call me today at 415-602-1403 for help with emotional eating. I provide phone-based and  online therapy.