Hey friends! Welcome back to another episode of Nourish to Bloom. Do you find yourself reaching for food when life feels overwhelming? Or perhaps you've realized that emotional eating has become a default coping mechanism? Well, today's episode, "Running to God, Not Food," is designed with you in mind!
We're getting to the root of emotional eating and why it happens, but more importantly, how you can begin to shift focus from food to faith. If you're ready to break free from this cycle, I'm you through five pivotal steps to face emotions head-on with grace and strength straight from God.
Key Take Aways:
👩🏻🏫 Understanding emotional eating as a learned behavior, not a personal flaw.
📆 The role of busy, chaotic lives in driving us towards food for comfort.
🫠 The impact of diet culture on emotional eating patterns.
🕊️ Learning to view emotions as gifts and signals from God, guiding us to deeper truths and connections.
🧰 Five practical steps to move from emotional eating to a faith-driven approach:
- Notice your patterns and get curious about your emotions.
- Give yourself permission to choose eating or not, freeing you from restriction's grip.
- Find other ways to cope, using tools like prayer, journaling, or confiding in God.
- Ensure you're nourishing your body with enough food, not mistaking hunger for emotional needs.
- Offer yourself grace, knowing change is a journey and God walks it with you.
📣 Exciting news! We're still ongoing with our Fasting from Diet Culture 40 Day Lenten Challenge, including live Q&A sessions on Wednesdays at 1:00 PM Central. Sign up at lent.karatrochta.com to join us and gain more insights on aligning your eating habits with your faith.
Next Steps:
**Join the Fasting from Diet Culture 40 Day Lenten Challenge: lent.karatrochta.com
Book your FREE Faith-Focused Wellness Session at calendly.com/karatrochta
Join the Nourished to Bloom Community: community.karatrochta.com
Nourished to Bloom Show Notes: nourishedtobloom.com
Connect on Instagram: instagram.com/karatrochta
Join The Nourished to Bloom Community: www.community.karatrochta.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/karatrochta
The Nourished to Bloom Podcast Show Notes: www.podcast.karatrochta.com/shownotes
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If you've been feeling stuck in a cycle of
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emotional eating, meaning you're turning to food when you're feeling
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stressed or overwhelmed or just plain
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exhausted, then today's episode is for you.
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And let me just say, I 100% get the
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emotional eating struggle. I've been there too. But
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today I want to encourage you that emotional eating doesn't
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mean you're broken and it definitely doesn't mean that you lack
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willpower. I want you to think of it as it simply being
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a signal, a message from your body that something
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deeper is going on. So we're going to talk about this
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together and I want to help you understand really what's
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happening when you find yourself in this emotional eating cycle
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and how you can find a more peaceful way forward
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in being able to deal and process your emotions.
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Welcome to the Nourish to Bloom podcast where your faith meets
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your health. I'm your host, Kara Trochta, a registered dietitian
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and certified Catholic coach, and I'm here to help you cultivate a deeper
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connection with your body, your spirit, and the nourishment that sustains
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them both. In a world filled with noise and
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confusion about food, health and body image, this podcast
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offers truth and healing from a Christ centered perspective.
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Together, we'll untangle the deep roots of diet culture and discover
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what it means to truly care for ourselves through joyful
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nourishment of mind, body and soul. We're here to dive into
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the transformative. Power of intuitive eating coupled with the. Rich teachings of our
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Christian faith. With every episode, I'll be cheering you on,
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offering insights, inspiration and practical tools to help you
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heal your relationship with food and embrace the beauty of
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your body as a temple of the Holy Spirit with confidence
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and courage that can only be found in Christ.
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Join me as we journey together towards a more holistic approach to wellness,
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one that honors the wisdom of your body as God's creation,
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the teachings of our faith, and the unique purpose you're called to
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fulfill. You were made to bloom,
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to come into full beauty and health in order to bear good fruit
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for the Lord with your life. So if you're ready to nourish your body,
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feed your soul and bloom into the best version of yourself, then you're.
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In the right place. And hey there, welcome back to the nurse. Welcome
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to Nourish to Bloom. I hope you are every day. Beautiful
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invitation so far and today we're going
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to talk about emotional eating. So I feel like
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the topics of emotional eating and body image are
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probably the top two struggles that my clients face.
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So if you've ever found yourself turning to food for
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comfort or to relieve stress or, I don't
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know, even as a reward after a hard day, you are not
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alone. Emotional eating is something that many
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people struggle with. I used to as well. And today we're
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really going to explore all about what the root
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cause of emotional eating is, why we're turning to food,
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and really get a better understanding of what's going on beneath the
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surface. And that really being the key to you moving
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forward in a more peaceful way, in a more. In a healthier
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way of being able to deal with your emotions.
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So first, I think we, like, really need to start by breaking
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this down and understanding what exactly is emotional
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eating? Well, to put it simply, it's
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when we use food to cope with our feelings rather than
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hunger. So maybe we are using it to cope with
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stress or boredom or sadness or I mean, even
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happiness. Like food becomes a way to
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soothe ourselves. We use it as a way to distract
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ourselves or numb those emotions. It's
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also something we call buffering, where we are just kind
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of avoiding dealing with whatever emotion we are
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feeling. And we turn to food. We can also turn to other
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things like shopping, scrolling social media, watching
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tv. Those are all different examples of buffering.
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So emotional eating is just one type of
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buffering. And really all that is is just that we're using food to
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avoid, distract, soothe, or numb those
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emotions that we may be experiencing.
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And I want you to know that there's no shame in this.
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I think when we think about emotional eating and maybe we,
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you know, identify as an emotional eater, it brings a lot about
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a. Brings about a lot of guilt and shame. But I
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want you to know that we all, every single person
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uses food emotionally sometimes, right? Food is
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one of the most. And eating is one of the most emotionally driven things
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that we do. Think about it, we use food to
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celebrate birthday with a cake, or sometimes, you know, we're
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cozying up with comfort food on a tough day, or we're
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seeking out that comfort food on maybe a really chilly day.
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Like all of this is completely normal, that our food
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has an emotional connection, right? We talk about this. That part of
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that feeling of fullness is the physical fullness that we feel
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in our body. But there's also that mental satisfaction
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piece. And so satisfaction can
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also be, you know, seen as pleasurable. And what we are eating and the meals
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that we are eating should be pleasurable. They should elicit some
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sort of, you know, happiness, comfort,
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satisfaction as an emotion. That is normal.
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The problem or the challenge is really when food
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becomes our only coping mechanism.
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That when we are feeling tough emotions or we're wanting
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to distract or, you know, disengage
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from coping with whatever we are
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feeling, and we're only turning to food, that's when we get stuck in
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this emotional eating cycle. And that's really the challenge.
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When we feel out of control around it or rely on
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it to avoid dealing with what's really going on
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is really when we start to see that we have
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this struggle with emotional eating. So
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if that sounds familiar, please don't worry. Just know that
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you're not alone and there really is hope.
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And so now we're going to talk about really what might be driving this
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pattern that you're finding yourself in of turning to food
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when you are trying to deal with difficult
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situations. So what are some of the reasons why we turn
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to food for comfort or distraction? Well,
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truthfully, we all likely live a very chaotic
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life like this. Human life we're living can be pretty
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hard. We all go through difficult seasons.
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Some days just making it through that never ending to do list
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feels like a battle. We're constantly juggling all of our
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responsibilities, caring for kids, nurturing our
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marriages, managing financ, all
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while trying to keep up with and organize
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that chaos and noise of everyday life.
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So it's really no wonder that we often turn to food for
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comfort. Just a little bit of like a pat on the back saying,
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hey, you're doing a good job, a little bit of that, pick me up right?
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After all, we, I think, really long for something
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to soothe us or to calm that storm that we may find within
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us. We want to feel safe, we want to feel
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secure and, and really reassured that everything's going
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to be okay. And food can provide us with that
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momentary escape, but ultimately it doesn't
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satisfy our deeper needs. So then why
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do we do this? Why does it feel like food is the thing
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that we turn to when life gets hard? Well,
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there are a few reasons for this. First, food is
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quick and accessible. When you're stressed, reaching for something
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sweet or crunchy gives you that instant dopamine. Hit
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that little moment of relief. And our brains are wired
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to seek pleasure and to avoid discomfort. So food can
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really become an easy go to, because we can find food in our
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fridges, we can find it in the pantry, we can be out and about and
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find it anywhere, right? So a lot of the times
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we are turning to food because it's quick and accessible. It's an easy way to
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get that. Dopamine hit. It's an easy way to get that little bit of
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relief and to avoid feeling that discomfort.
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Now, reason number two is that diet culture
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and weight loss culture has actually set us up
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for emotional eating. Once you think about this, if
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you've ever restricted certain foods or felt guilty about eating
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foods that are labeled bad, it makes sense
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that when emotions hit, you might find yourself reaching for those
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same foods in this kind of rebellious or out of control
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way. And this diet culture and
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this restriction and deprivation cycle is one that many
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of us get stuck in. And finally,
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sometimes we just don't have other coping tools.
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We've never been taught, we've never learned how
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to process and manage our emotions.
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We are, in so many ways, emotionally stunted. We are
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not really attuned or connected with our emotions. Many of us
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have been raised to just push aside the things that we
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feel. You know, put on your big girl
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panties, pull them up by the bootstraps. Those are all mantras that many of us
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grew up with when it came to dealing with things that
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were uncomfortable or emotions that were, you know,
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not being happy all the time. We were taught that feeling
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sad, feeling anxious, nervous, all these negative emotions
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were bad and that we should just get over it and be
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happy. And so if we haven't been
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taught how to sit with these uncomfortable feelings or to process
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stress or negative emotions in a healthy way,
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or we've never really been taught to turn to God in those
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hard moments, then food has kind of naturally filled in
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that gap for us. Because like I said, it goes back to that first one.
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It's readily and easily accessible, and it gives us that
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quick sense of relief, but it doesn't bring lasting,
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sustainable resolution to our emotions. You can
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eat whatever it is that you're, you know, reaching for when you are feeling
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a difficult emotion, but at the end of it, that emotion still has
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not been resolved. But here's the good news.
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You can learn a different way, and it
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doesn't involve that restriction or that guilt. And so what
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does this really look like? Well, for years, I got
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stuck thinking that emotional eating was just part of my
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personality. That was just who I was. I was just an emotional
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eater. You know, like, broken heart, reach for that
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tub of ice cream, right? But I want you to stop and think
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about, like, emotional eating is a learned behavior.
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We see it on the movies all the time, right? Woman has a broken
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heart, reach for the cookie dough or the ice cream, she's going to feel better,
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right? So that is a learned behavior. This behavior
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has Been something that we have seen and have been, we've been
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exposed to over and over and over again. And so if emotional eating is a
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learned behavior, it means that that can also be
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unlearned. So every time we've used food
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to soothe a scraped meat, to celebrate a victory or
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distract ourselves from sadness, we've strengthened that
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emotional connection to eating. We have created this
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like, connection that I feel this, I eat this,
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I feel better. But remember, it's only
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temporary. Over time, food has become our go to for
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comfort. But it's a temporary fix that
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often leads us to feeling even more disconnected
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from what it is that we truly need to resolve
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those emotions. And so if we dig a little
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deeper and we start to look at some of these root cause of this causes
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of those emotional eating, we can see that a lot of it is based off
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of our thoughts, because our thoughts shape our
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emotions. So when we think this certain thing, it elicits a
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certain emotion. And when we feel this way, we act a certain
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way. So if we have this belief that food will
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bring us peace or comfort or soothe us, we're going
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to continue reaching for it when we're struggling.
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But we have to start replacing that belief
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with God's truth. And when we do that, we will begin
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to learn to reach for him instead run to
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him instead of food. In those times of difficulty or
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when we are wanting and seeking peace. A lot of times
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what I tell clients is that there's this little. This moment
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in there, right, where we have this thought that this food is going to bring
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us comfort and that we want this
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peace. And so we think this food is going to bring us peace. But there's
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really this disconnect there in that emotion. A better
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question is really trying to determine what are you
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seeking in this moment? Right. And that's
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really what our emotions can be used for, is that
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they become clues for us. We have to understand,
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despite what we have been conditioned to believe for
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years, our emotions aren't bad.
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They're really these gifts from God that are designed to
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give us insight, clues and wisdom
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into what's really happening in our hearts and our minds.
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The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that emotions are a
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natural component of the human soul,
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that they connect our physical and our spiritual lives.
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It's like these emotions bridge that gap between our physical and
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spiritual lives. So when we feel emotions like
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sadness, anxiety, and even joy, they're all going
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to have this physical manifestation in our bodies. They're all
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going to present somewhere physically in our bodies.
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But instead of fearing or suppressing these emotions, we can
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learn to process them in a healthier way. So the
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next time that you are feeling drawn to food for
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comfort, you can instead ask yourself, what am I
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really feeling? What is this emotion
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trying to tell me? If it's a clue from God, what is God
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trying to tell me with this emotion? How can I
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invite God into this moment? And then what
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are you really seeking? What are you
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truly craving? Because the likelihood is that. That
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you're not really wanting that ice cream, and you're not really wanting those
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chips. You're wanting and longing for something
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deeper. I once heard someone say that when
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we're stuck in emotional eating, we're trying to feed our
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souls like they're hungry stomachs,
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right? We're just trying to suppress that, right? We're trying
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to make that hunger go away. But what if the hunger we feel
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isn't physical? What if it's spiritual
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hunger? Psalm 62,
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verse 8 reminds us, Trust in him at all
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times, O people. Pour out your heart before
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him. God is a refuge for us,
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y'all. God is our true source of comfort, of peace,
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of even distraction, of soothing,
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of everything that we are seeking. When we find
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ourselves turning to food, when we seek him
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first, we find really lasting peace
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and a sense of security. Again, that sense of refuge,
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a sense that everything will be okay. What we are actually
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wanting and desiring, we are. We will
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find it if we seek Him. And that is really something
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that food can never provide. The
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emotions that lead us to food, if we
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let them, can actually lead us back to God, if only we allow
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them to. So what do we do instead?
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How do we start to break free from emotional eating without
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falling into another diet trap? Well, so here are a
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few things that really have made a huge difference for me and so
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many of the women that I work with. The first is to
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notice the pattern. The next
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time that you find yourself reaching for food, when you're not physically
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hungry, try to pause for a second.
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Even if you have already reached for the food and you're currently eating
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it, and you have this moment of like, huh, I'm really not even
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hungry. Why am I eating this? That is that pause that you
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need. No judgment, no shame. Just
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get curious. Ask yourself,
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what am I actually feeling right now?
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Or what do I really want? What am I actually
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seeking? And sometimes when we can simply
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name the emotion either we're feeling or that we're seeking,
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it takes away some of that power that that emotion had
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over us. It gives us a Sense of that pause gives us a sense to
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just stop and look at things from
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curiosity with no judgment, and to be able to make a.
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An informed choice in that moment to either
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yes, continue eating this or say no. I recognize
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that I am emotionally eating and I know that if I go do
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this other thing instead, I'm going to have a
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longer lasting sense of peace. Okay. The
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second thing that really helps is giving yourself
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permission to eat. Okay, now this might sound a
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little counterintuitive, right? But we know that restriction actually
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can fuel emotional eating. If you know that you can
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have these comfort foods at any time.
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When we learn to make peace with them, it loses its grip over
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you. And so the goal is to not ever is
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to. The goal is. The goal
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isn't to never eat emotionally, but rather to have the
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freedom to choose in that moment rather than feeling powerless.
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The freedom to say, okay, you know what, for right now, I do
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need these extra bites of whatever and
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then I maybe I can go process that emotion, right? Especially
00:19:14
if you're new to this. One of the things that I find that helps a
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lot of clients is that they might need a little bit
00:19:21
of that food that they have turned to in the past
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to kind of like be a
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starting point, right? Where if they jump into trying
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to use a new coping mechanism that they've never used
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before, their brain may be like sending that signal of like
00:19:40
craving that particular food. So I kind of challenge clients
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that if you find yourself in that situation where you're wanting to use this new
00:19:47
coping mechanism, that all you can focus on is, you know,
00:19:50
wanting this food, then take a moment and like have
00:19:54
a couple of bites of whatever it is. It's going to kind of normalize things
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for you. And then you can incorporate that
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new emotional coping mechanism. And what you'll start to see
00:20:06
is that you'll need less and less of that food because you're building this new
00:20:09
coping habit. And that leads us into again, finding
00:20:13
other ways to cope, knowing that food is one tool that's available
00:20:17
to you, but it's not the only one.
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Isn't that like a marvel idea, right? That food is one
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tool, but it's not the only one. So really
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getting curious and, and asking the question, what
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else would help you feel supported and care for in that
00:20:35
moment? Maybe it's prayer,
00:20:38
maybe it's journaling, maybe it's taking a walk,
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listening to worship music or calling a friend,
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and most importantly, turning to God, saying, lord,
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this is what I'm feeling. Just being able to lay those
00:20:54
emotions at the foot of his cross, knowing that he
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has engaged in the most ultimate
00:21:02
form of suffering and he can handle your
00:21:05
emotions, he invites us to bring these burdens
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to him and he promises that he will give us rest.
00:21:14
And then tip number four is to make sure that
00:21:18
you are actually nourishing yourself. Because this is
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something that is often overlooked. Are you actually
00:21:25
eating enough during the day? Because if you're under fueling
00:21:29
yourself throughout the day, whether intentionally or
00:21:32
unintentionally, your body is going to turn on that drive
00:21:36
to eat and it's going to feel emotional and it's
00:21:40
going to feel urgent, right? This is what we call that
00:21:44
ravenously hungry, right? That hangry. And it
00:21:47
feels very emotional, it feels very urgent. But the reality is, is
00:21:51
that it's a biological drive. So if you are eating enough
00:21:55
throughout the day and you feel this sense
00:21:59
of urgency or this emotional pull towards food, you can, in that
00:22:02
moment, I recognize, hey, this is an emotional eating
00:22:06
struggle. This is not a the fact that I haven't
00:22:10
eaten enough throughout the day, right? So this is why regular
00:22:13
satisfying meals are also key to help you breaking the
00:22:17
cycle and then last, giving
00:22:20
yourself grace and compassion. Guys,
00:22:24
ending an emotional eating battle,
00:22:28
it's a journey. There is not a quick fix for
00:22:31
it. It is a learned habit. It's something that you have built up over
00:22:35
time. And so it's going to take some time to tear that those habits back
00:22:39
down. And just know that some days are going to be easier
00:22:43
than others and that's okay. But just remember that God's
00:22:46
grace is sufficient and that it's bigger than any struggle and
00:22:50
that he's walking this with you.
00:22:54
That he is using this
00:22:58
moment as your invitation to come in alongside you
00:23:02
and say, hey, I'm right here with you. I got this. We're going to do
00:23:05
this together. So if
00:23:09
you're struggling with emotional eating, please don't beat yourself
00:23:12
up. Instead, I want you to
00:23:16
recognize that you've been doing the best that you
00:23:19
can with the tools that you have had for now.
00:23:23
But now, after talking through the things
00:23:27
today, you have this opportunity to try something different.
00:23:31
Some tools to help you run to God instead of food.
00:23:35
Tools to help you process emotions instead of numbing
00:23:38
them and to seek lasting comfort in
00:23:42
Christ, not in food.
00:23:47
So I just want to close with this prayer. Heavenly Father,
00:23:51
thank you for being our refuge and our strength. When we feel
00:23:55
overwhelmed, remind us to turn to you instead of food.
00:23:59
Help us to see our emotions as gifts that point us towards
00:24:02
you. Please give us the wisdom to pause
00:24:05
to pray and to seek your presence in our moments of
00:24:09
struggle. We ask that you fill our hearts with your
00:24:12
peace and teach us to find true comfort in you alone.
00:24:16
Amen. Again, thanks so much for
00:24:20
joining me today. Do not forget that our Fasting from
00:24:24
diet culture 40 day limitations Linton Challenge is still going
00:24:27
on. You can join us on Wednesdays for our live Q
00:24:31
A at 1:00pm Central Standard Time. To get all
00:24:35
the information, go to lint.caratrocta.com
00:24:39
Fill out the form. You will get an email with all the information on how
00:24:42
you can join us for those weekly Q and A sessions. So I hope
00:24:46
to see you in there. I will see you here next week.
00:24:50
Thanks again for being here. And remember, beauty held is a
00:24:54
seed, beauty shared is the flower. It is your time
00:24:57
to bloom. Take care and God bless. We'll talk soon.
00:25:01
Bye.