AAT: Effective Emotional Eating

In this chapter author Linda Craighead describes how to manage emotional eating and how to make emotional eating 'effective' to minimize 'harm done'.

EMOTIONAL EATING: attempts to fill psychological needs, rather than satisfy physical hunger. You may use this kind of eating when (1) "you don't really feel hungry (but) you just feel like eating; (2) you crave a particular treat food; (3) you know you recently ate, so you can't be biologically hungry. Because "from early on, we have all been given food for many reasons besides hunger", we associate food with feeling better. So when we feel bad psychologically, we think we must be 'hungry' for food that will make us feel better. "If (we) eat normally most of the time and do not binge, (we) will be able to maintain a stable weight even if (we) occasionally eat for emotional reasons. However, if (we) want to lose weight, (we) may need to reduce the frequency of emotional eating."

AAT EMOTIONAL EATING GUIDELINES: "Stay tuned into your stomach no matter why you start eating. Your stomach is quite reliable and will not lead you astray ... Over time, you (will) develop better self-care skills (besides eating) ... (So that) you won't need to eat for emotional reasons as often as you do now. In the meantime, use your stomach fullness signal to protect yourself from excessive emotional eating that wil only amplify (any) weight concerns ... Unlike other approaches to emotional eating ... designed to help you resolve your underlying emotional issues so you won't feel the need to eat (emotioinally) so intentensively, AAT starts by taking decisions about eating out of the emotional realm. How much you 'want' is not longer the basis for your eating decisions. Instead, you choose to use hunger and fullness to decide when to eat and stop eating. Rather than simply giving in to emotionally driven urges to eat, you (tell yourself):

"It doesn't matter if I feel anxous, upset, or bored, or I am celebrating and enjoying food. I have made a commitment to stop as soon as I feel stomach distention. At that point, food has done all the good it can do for me. Continuing to eat will detract from whatever good the food can do for me and wil create more negative feelings. In the moment, it may be hard for me to remember that I will feel worsel ater. that is why I use my stomach as a stop sign, instead of allowing my mind to make excuses to eat more. Of course I don't want to stop eating. Right now, I think more food will make me feel better. But I know that is magnical thinking. I wish more food would make me feel better, but it's won't. Getting stuffed always makeS me feel worse."

THAT AFFIRMATION CAN EMPOWER YOU TO GO BEYOND ANY PSYCHOLOGICAL REASON TO EAT!!!

HOW TO HANDLE URGES TO EAT FOR EMOTIONAL REASONS: When you have urges to eat, when you are not physically hungry, you can: (1) try distractions; (2) urge surf (acknowledge and observe your urge to eat w/o acting on it, (3) tolerate the feeling w/o eating; or decide to 'use' the food, but do so effectively (stop at moderate fullness).

DEPRIVATION LEADS TO EMOTIONAL EATING: "If you have been dieting a ong time, particularly if you have been folllowing a strict diet, you are likely to have a backlog of deprivation feelings. AAT Guidelines tell you "to eat what you want and get moderately full" ... However, if you have been higly sensitized to the feeling of deprivation, it may takeseveral months of normal eating for your general feeling of deprivation to diminish ... With AAT, you will still feel tempted to eat when your favorite treats are available, but (you can) eat treats sufficiently frequently so that your general deprivation level remains love. Then urges are not overwhelming (and) you con't have to binge. You can choose to eat treats sometimes, especially as part of your scheduled meals and snacks, and you can choose not to eat treats at other times ... Deprivation is tricker when (it's unrelated to) choosing foods you want. If you feel deprived, but can't identify any specific food you crave, your ... deprivation probably comes from not allowing yourself adequate pleasure in other areas of your life, rather than simply ... restricting kinds of foods you eat.

USE EFFECTIVE EMOTIONAL EATING TO LIMIT THE HARM DONE: "You can learn to use food more effectively to feel better occasionally without relying on it to fix all your feeling ... Effective emotional eating means you give up using emotions as an excuse to get stuffed ... When nonfood alternatives are not easily available or are not working for you, you (can consciously decide) to allow yourself self-soothing eating. Each time you (succeed) in using food to soothe yourself without getting stuffed, you limit the harm done and you gain confidence in your ability to use, not abuse, food ... If you (don't want to) stop at moderate fullness, at least stay awre so you can identify the point of diminishing returns and stop as soon as you feel uncomfortable. Using conscious decisions to eat teaches you to notice when the pleasure of eating diminishes, the point at which food has done all it can do for you and you need to try some other strategy. When you feel worse after having a treat, you know you have NOT used food effectively."

MANAGE EMOTIONAL EATING AND LIFE STRESSES: "You may manage your eating ... as long as life is going well, but you may not ... maintain your focus on eating when something significant ... disrupt(s) your routine ... You probably feel as though you (can) only cope with one area of your life at a time. So you alternate bettween working on ... eating and dealing iwth other issues. This either/or approach leads back to yo-yo dieting and weight loss and regain." AAT encourages you to deal with eating and life issues simultaneously. Choose to eat normally no matter what else happens in your life. "Whether there is (excess) food available or (your) emotions ... trigger eating, you (can) stay tuned into your stomach and allow it to tell you when to stop eating. You never (rationalize) getting completely stuffed." You may need to eat emotionally, "but as long as you don't get stuffed, you are not likely to gain weight."

This chapter offers a step by step aproach to manage urges to eat. The author suggests ways to cope with various kinds of urges:

(1) For weak urges to eat emotionally, "try distraction (and) get rid of tempting foods or leave the environment;

(2) For moderate urges, "practice urge surfing or "acknowledge you want to eat and just observe your desire to eat without acting on it ...(so that) the urge initially increases, peaks and starts to decrease (and help you realize urges are just feelings which fade on their own if you acknowledge them).

(3) For strong or persistent urges (which return), "acknowledge it and make a conscious decision ot eat. Remember you already (know) you are not feeling physically hunger (and) are eating only for taste ... (So) you need to obtain the most pleasure possible from (whatever you eat) ... Thus it is critical that you eat the right type of food you want and that you eat slowly and mindfully (in order) to enmoy what you eat to the fullest, so the food (can) do its job ... to make you feel better.

Next the author lists activities to alter physical sensations and emotions directly so you can self-soothe without eating and activities that are highly positive or engaging (to) distract you or provide pleasure without eating.

Then the author asks you to "identify and challenge (1) thoughts that are encouraging you to eat even though you aren't hungry; (2) excuses to keep you from trying an activity besides eating; (3) what interferes when you try to tolerate an urge to eat without acting on it.

Finally the author emphasizes "DON'T TRY HARDER; TRY DIFFERENT ... You already try hard not to eat when you aren't hungry." Rather than repeat the 'same old things that don't work ... figure out what works for you now. There is always something else you can try ... just be willing."