#188: Could Emotional Eating Be Sabotaging You?

Hey beautiful, it's Dr. Tabatha.

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I can't wait to see you in there. Hi, I'm Dr. Tabatha, the Gutsy Gynecologist. I'm a triple board-certified OB-GYN and functional medicine physician. I've embraced the world of functional medicine and wellness through my own personal health journey, and I'm super excited to share my wisdom and unique perspective as it pertains to women's health. After caring for thousands of women, I've come to realize that your gut health determines your gyn health and your overall And it's a super gutsy thing for me to go against conventional gynecology practice to bring you the truth. No more Band-Aid medicine, ladies. We're talking root cause resolution on this show. So if you're struggling with hormone imbalance, weight gain, period issues, anxiety, insomnia, you name it, then you've come to the right place. And I want to be your gutsy gynecologist. So welcome.

Thank you.

What is emotional eating? How do I know if I have it? What causes it? And how can I deal with it and stop it from happening? So what I've come to understand over many, many years of having my own food addictions, my own hang-ups, About my weight, my physical appearance, just like many millions of other women, is that emotional eating drives so much of our weight-loss journey and our self-love journey. And if you're like me, you've tried every diet, you know, and I hear this from all my patients too. They've tried every diet. It works for a little while, then they fall off the wagon, or it doesn't work anymore, or it's not sustainable because it's so restrictive. And it creates bigger problems. And oftentimes it's because we are emotionally eating. We're not eating for nourishment. We're not eating to give our body what it needs for fuel and function. We're feeding our feelings. And so I want to break all this down today because This could be a huge breakthrough for you. This could be like the missing piece of your puzzle that you need to finally transform and gain freedom from food, break up with sugar, break up with pop or junk food or alcohol or whatever it is that could be driving you to not feel your best, to be causing issues. And if you listened to the episode last week with my patient Amy, then you realize, like, it's not straightforward. It's complicated. There are all these multifactorial things happening. But if you can start to break it down and realize what the heck your body is telling you and how it is driving the ship, it is running the show instead of you actually being mindful and making decisions about things. So let's break this down. What is emotional eating? Essentially, it's this phenomenon where we turn to food for comfort, for stress relief, or distraction from emotional distress rather than eating for physical hunger or nutrition. So it's a complex behavior that can be influenced by a variety of factors. We're going to talk about all this, including psychological, physiological, meaning what's happening inside your cells, and environmental things. So there's 10 major causes of emotional eating, and number one is emotional distress. So emotional distress is when you are feeling certain things like stress, sadness, anxiety, you're bored, you're lonely. These negative feelings trigger the desire to eat, and it's because food is serving as a temporary distraction from those feelings and providing you a sense of comfort and good feelings. So emotional distress is probably one of the most common reasons that we overeat, especially women. And I remember a few years ago I was having a conversation with a 10-year-old girl who was very distraught over the fact that she had a weight issue at 10 years old and her friends did not. And She was very sad. She said she hated her body. She thought she was ugly and fat. And she made the comment, well, me and my mom, we eat our feelings, and I think that's why I'm fat. And that rocked me to the core. And I had a flashback of when I was 10 years old and what me and my friends were doing. And I realized that that is about the age where we become aware of our bodies outside of our souls. You know, before that, we're just playing and having fun and not really paying attention to what we look like or how we fit into clothes. And then there's this turning point and you become aware that you are potentially different than your friends or the girls on the magazines and on the TVs. And then you start to judge and compare. And you can quickly fall into this trap of, how do I get myself to look like everybody else? Because we all want to fit in. We all want to be accepted and belong, right? And so as early as 8 or 10 years old, girls are realizing that their bodies are either acceptable or they're not. And they quickly— unfortunately, the majority quickly learn that they're not acceptable in either their eyes or society's eyes. And it sends them down this path of trying to stuff away those bad feelings. So it's not that necessarily you even have to be overweight to have these feelings. When I look back at pictures of myself at 10 years old, I was a stick. Like, I was like, my knees were so big because my thighs were so little. And unfortunately, I thought I was fat. I had a distorted view of what my body looked like and how it was perceived because I was stuck in comparison as well. So I had just as much body dysmorphia. as the next girl. And that also led to emotional distress eating. And so you don't always have to be overweight. You don't have to, you know, have that problem. But there's so many ways that we are trained as young girls to turn to food as a distraction from our feelings. And so— If that resonates with you, like, just shout me out, send me a DM, let me know, oh my gosh, I totally get you on that one. When I'm stressed out, I grab food to calm down, or I, after a long day, I have a glass of wine because I deserve it and I need to numb these stressful feelings, right? So that's number one. Number 2 is conditioning. Over time, we learn to associate eating with certain emotions. This is super common.

I—

every time that I would hang out with my grandma when I was little, I would get ice cream because we went for ice cream. And so I conditioned myself to equate ice cream with feelings of love and security that I got from being with my grandma. And so, as grown-ups, we continue that conditioning of like, oh, well, if I just eat the ice cream, then I'll feel good inside. And it temporarily works. It really does. But it's not healthy, necessarily. Number 3 reason for emotional eating is cultural factors, social factors. So you go out to a party or an event and there's food and you know that if you have a cocktail in your hand that you're going to be more comfortable and you're going to be able to break out of your shell or you're going to be able to mingle with strangers. And so we rely on that to get us through that experience. Or we actually can have some peer pressure. I know a lot of women are afraid to stop drinking alcohol because their friends are going to call them out on it and, and ask like, why aren't you having a cocktail? What's wrong with you? Why aren't you drinking? And that can bring up feelings for those people and make them feel judged because they are drinking. And so all of these social factors really can cause us to drink and eat things that we don't want to or shouldn't be. Number 4, habits. So we just develop habits in response to certain emotions, even if it's not conscious. Most of the time we're not even aware of this connection. It's just kind of an automatic response. So For me, for a long time, I had a habit of eating popcorn in the evening. Like, it became so mindless. I literally never had a thought. I just would be watching TV. I would get up, I'd put the popcorn in the microwave, I'd take it out, and I would eat it and barely remember that I ate it. Sometimes I'd be like, oh wait, did I already have my popcorn? So it can be this major habit that you're just mindlessly doing things. Number 5, neurochemical responses. So for me, this is a big one with gluten. Gluten causes glutamorphin production, and those are feel-good chemicals that go to my brain and cause a little euphoria, and they make me actually feel good. It's like the morphine receptors from the drug morphine. It gives you a little bit of a high. So gluten makes me feel good. Sugar does the same thing for a lot of people. We get this sugar high and then, unfortunately, the sugar crash, but we release these chemicals that give us a positive associating association with eating these foods. Number 6, lack of coping strategies. Okay, so I think this one is really common. If we don't have another way to cope with our stress or our anxiety or our loss or our sadness, then we can turn to food to manage those feelings. You know, I think about the fact that when someone dies, One of the common things to do in this country is to make a meal and send a meal to them. And part of it is, yes, they shouldn't have to think about what they're going to make for themselves and, you know, feed themselves. And that's the loving gift that we're giving to them. But it also relieves some of their pain to have that food, especially if it's made in a loving way by, you know, loving people. But that can spill over into more of a long-term habit or conditioning again. So we just want to realize that we need other coping strategies to deal with our emotions, and we need to stop turning to food as a coping mechanism because that is driving a lot of our health issues. So I kind of mentioned this one before— lack of awareness. You're just not realizing that your behavior is driving your eating. And so it's kind of a mindlessness, you know? It's like you're feeling stressed out, so you grab that food and you just start eating it. Number 8, a perceived reward. Oh my goodness. So eating can be seen as a reward for dealing with difficult emotions. And this can create a vicious cycle. I see this all the time with children. Okay? You, you take your kid to the grocery store, and if they behave, you give them a sucker. And if they are misbehaving and they won't stop being crazy, then you give them a sucker to distract them. So either way, we're using food. As a reward or as a coping mechanism. And so I just want you to be mindful of the habits and the beliefs that you're passing on to your children, because most of these we just kind of inherited. Our parents taught us, their parents taught them. Now we're teaching our kids, and we don't mean anything bad by it. But sometimes, because we haven't stopped to think about the consequence, Then we end up with emotional eating issues. And so be careful on that reward thing, okay? Number 9, environmental cues. So sometimes advertisements, smelling food, being in certain locations can trigger emotional eating. This one is huge for me. Anytime I travel, like, as soon as I'm in an airport, I think I have to have Starbucks. Oh my gosh. It wasn't until just a couple months ago that I realized that association. I was like, oh my gosh, I don't need coffee right now. I just had coffee. Every time I get into this airport, I want to go to Starbucks. I just have that association. And so again, getting back to the mindfulness, breaking the bad habits. Gaining some awareness and just watching those environmental cues—that's huge. And then number ten, biological factors—the functioning of how our body's functioning. Are your hormones cycling and shifting? We do know that when your hormones drop before your menstrual period, that does cause cravings for carbohydrates. Especially, you know, you want that more immediate release of sugar into the bloodstream when those hormone levels drop. And just knowing that can be super powerful. Like, if you're tracking your period every month and you know, okay, now's the time, then you can give yourself some grace and choose to enjoy something a little bit sweeter and not feel guilty about it, and then move on the next day and be fine with it because That's not going to hurt you. It's when you get down into a tailspin of beating yourself up and, oh my gosh, I just fell off the wagon. I might as well just not even bother. And you get into this mental spiral of, you know, just throwing out everything because you messed up one day. Like, you cannot allow yourself to do that. It's really important to give yourself grace. And some leeway now and again. And the more mindful you are and the more you understand how your body works and your cycles and everything else, the easier it gets. So if you didn't listen to my episode last week with my patient Amy, please listen to it because journaling, like even quick, just sentences about what you ate and then how you felt the next day and the next day, That can be a game changer for you. You can start to see your patterns. And women who do this, especially with their, you know, writing down their cycle information along with it, you will gain so much understanding of how your body is functioning and responding to things. And that can be the game changer. That is super powerful. So please listen to that episode if you have not. I encourage you, like, really dive in and figure out who you are and how you work, how your body works with your brain. Okay, so I just want to go on to talk about the more important piece of it. How do we stop emotional eating, right? Like, if all of these things are driving us to eat when we shouldn't, what we shouldn't— Too much of what, you know, of anything, even a good thing. How do we stop it? So this piece is really important. And this is what I love seeing my health coach do in my practice with my patients. We, as a team, are really diving in and helping you figure this piece out because that's the missing piece in all the weight-loss programs, right? I can tell you which diet to do and how to count your macros and do all that stuff, but if you aren't actually asking why you do the things you do and changing it, you're always going to come up short or backslide. So there are 10 ways to help stop emotional eating. Number 1, Increase your self-awareness, okay? So start recognizing your emotional triggers. Know what you're feeling and what's triggering that feeling. Pay attention to when you're reaching for food. Hmm, why am I reaching for that? I'm not hungry, right? Am I? Oh my gosh, I just had a fight, or I just had an uncomfortable situation with a coworker. Or I am stressed because I didn't make a deadline, or I can't wrangle around all my kids and their activities, or I haven't, you know, had intercourse with my husband in 2 months and I'm super lonely and cut off. And just figure out your why. So if you can figure out every time you reach for something, Just ask yourself, why am I going for this? Why am I drinking this pop? Why am I going through the drive-through? Why am I, like, hounding the cupboards and looking for something right now? And get super real. Write it down in a journal. Only takes a few minutes. Just carry it around with you. And you don't have to write a dissertation. You don't have to, like, get all deep. Just write down the words, the emotions that you're feeling, the food that you tried to grab, and then what you felt like the next day. Okay? Number 2, find alternative coping strategies. So when you're feeling the feelings that are uncomfortable that you're trying to avoid, find a different activity besides eating. to manage those feelings. So for me, when I have a lot of pent-up energy and I feel like the clock is ticking, there's no way I can meet a deadline, I can't do all the things that are on my to-do list, you know what I do? I go running. I don't sit there and try to check off my to-do list. I go running and I Take out the mental trash. I take out the mental garbage and I open myself up and I say, okay, God, I'm ready. I'm ready to tackle that list and do all those things. And I'll tell you, I used to eat the candy bar and I used to eat a box of crackers or a thing of Goldfish or anything that I could find. Like, I would just— Eat, eat, eat all the carbohydrates and try to plow through my list and try to make the deadlines. And I tried to just like— it was such a struggle. And then the more I ate, especially carbohydrates and gluten, the less my brain would work and the more frustrated I would become because I couldn't finish what I was trying to work on and finish. So once I figured out a different activity to handle my emotions, Like running de-stresses me. Running calms me down and prepares me for the mental job I need to do. That was a game changer for me, you guys. So I almost became addicted to running. You can become addicted to different things. So you have to be mindful in that, obviously. But finding a healthier coping mechanism. So Talking to a friend, doing breathing techniques, doing guided meditations on your phones, reaching out and talking to a friend, journaling, doing long journaling, like writing down everything you're thinking and feeling. It's so cathartic. It's so wonderful. I love finding alternative coping strategies. And different things work for different people. So if you have found one, that works for you, I want to know about it, especially if I haven't listed it. Like, you need to DM me and tell me what's working for you because this is sisterhood, right? We need to just lift each other up and support each other the best way we can. So I want to hear what's working for you because I don't have all the answers, right? Okay. Number 3, how to stop emotional eating: practice mindful eating. So eat with awareness and attention. Pay attention to your food. Smell your food. Cook your food. I tell patients this every day. Put your fork down between bites. That is really helpful. I personally used to shovel in my food as I was running to a delivery or in between patients when I was already an hour behind and there's naked girls sitting in the exam room with their paper drape over them, right? I'm like, I have literally 90 seconds to eat this entire plate. And I would just wolf it down. It was very mindless. I would just grab M&Ms at the nurse's station, donuts in the break room, just to give me energy because I was so sleep deprived and to calm down my stress because I felt so bad that I was always so behind and patients were waiting and frustrated. So when I got mindful about all of that and I just accepted the fact that I need to slow down, I need to appreciate the food that God has given me to eat, I need to enjoy the food, that shifted not only my mental health but my gut. I started losing weight, but my bowels worked again because I was actually allowing my stomach time to make digestive enzymes and my stomach acid and everything because when you're eating so quickly and you're stuck in this sympathetic state, you're not in rest-and-digest mode. You're not in parasympathetic mode that you need to be to eat your food and digest your food. So mindful eating is helpful for so many things, okay? So everybody should be doing that. Number 4, create a support system. So you need a network of friends to talk to when you're having these emotions. Instead of turning to food, turn to your girlfriend, turn to your spouse, turn to your mom, turn to the sisterhood, like my Fast to Faith group. The women in that group, we talk every single day on WhatsApp. Like, we are there for each other. I'm in the conversation too. And We're supporting things like emotional eating and how to deal with difficult emotions in more, you know, structured, helpful, healthy ways. And so I love being that support system for women. So if you want to join us, it's a game changer. Okay. Number 6, develop healthy eating habits. Okay, this I cannot stress enough. You have to break up with sugar. You have to break up with all the Frankenfoods, all those foods that are in the boxes and the bags and all the middle aisles of the grocery store that are made in a factory. Like, it's not healthy. It's not nourishing your body. That's why you can eat a bag of Doritos, but you can't eat more than a cup of broccoli because There's no nutritional value. Your body's saying, oh, we're still starving. You didn't give us healthy fats. We're still starving. There was no protein in those chips. You have to nourish your body first and you will feel satiated. You will feel full longer if you eat protein and fats. It's incredible. So we would love to help you with that if you need help with that. Okay?

Ah.

Pause before eating, like I mentioned, but also have Gratitude for your food. I say that is number 7. Like, have gratitude that someone actually had to stand in a field and pick those berries, and then they had to be washed and they had to be transported to you. Take the time to realize that— That animal had to give its life for you and that you are really blessed To be able to eat this grass-fed steak. You know, just get into gratitude and really appreciate your food. And if you do that, you'll realize that you don't need to eat those Frankenfoods because there's nothing to appreciate about them. They're just bringing you disease, not health. Okay. Number 8, practice stress management. Okay, if you've heard me in other episodes, you know that we have 2 parts of our autonomic nervous system: the sympathetic, which sounds nice but it's not— it is our fight-or-flight stressed-out mode. And when our nervous system is in that mode, we cannot be in parasympathetic mode. Parasympathetic is rest Digest, restore, recover. So that is what you need to be able to eat, to be able to heal, to be able to thrive and make your hormones and do all the good stuff. And you cannot be in both states at the same time. So if you are eating in a stressed-out state, then you are not helping yourself. And so Get into this active stress-management situation. Figure out the techniques to reduce your stress before you look to food. And this is a game changer. So I'm not saying, like, figure out a tool to pull you out of it once you're in. We've already talked about that. Like, if you are in the moment stressed out, you need to do some box breathing, like in for 4, hold for 4, Mm-hmm. Exhale for 4, and you need to do that 4 times. This practicing stress management is like, how do I regulate my nervous system on an ongoing basis so that I don't reach those heightened, crazy levels where I have to pull myself out all the time? And if the more that you navigate your nervous system and get control of it, the less that you're going to be out of control and have those— emergency situations where you're like, oh my gosh, I just ate that whole gallon of ice cream. And so this is a daily practice. This is what are you doing every day consistently to regulate your nervous system? For me, Pilates has been a game changer, you guys. So I used to do HIIT training, used to do a ton of weight training, a ton of running. And they're all good for different reasons. But Pilates has taught me how to regulate my nervous system because it teaches you how to breathe with your movements. So when you inhale and when you exhale are super important according to what movements you are doing with your body. And that has really been a game changer for me. I've noticed that if I do an hour of Pilates, 3 times a week in the morning, my day goes better. My nervous system, it's kind of like hitting the reset button. It's ready to handle the stressors of the day. And then I'm no longer out of control all of the time and looking for like, oh my gosh, I got to pull myself out of this situation. Which, if you are in those moments, I will just like Tell you really quickly, Stress Tame, one of my supplements, it's a liquid. You put 2 droppers full of Stress Tame in your mouth, it will bring you down a notch. It will calm that down. And a lot of us need to do that for a few months as we're starting to incorporate these stress management pieces. So I love Stress Tame. You should just have it, carry it around in your purse. It's so good, so helpful, and it helps with sleep as well. So get into a consistent daily practice of something that is regulating your nervous system so that you are in control. Stop letting your body and your feelings control everything. Number 9, celebrate non-food achievements. Right? So instead of rewarding yourself with food, like we talked about in the beginning, reward yourself in other ways. So reward yourself with getting to go golfing with your spouse, or go out to a movie with your girlfriend, or buy a new outfit, or get your nails done, whatever. Feeds you and makes you feel good internally, what feeds your soul. But those non-food achievements, like, that's really awesome. And do this with your kids, you guys. So I think that's really helpful too because we don't want to perpetuate the bad habits that we've had passed down to us. And number 10, seek professional help. So if you've done all of this work on your own and you feel like you need professional help, you should get it. It is out there, you guys. It is really difficult to make these behavioral shifts on your own. Like, I've honestly not seen many people do it on their own. That's why my Healthy Her program is so amazing because we're holding your hand and we're walking you through through it and teaching you all of these tools along the way. And you have a sisterhood of women who are doing the same things. And so you don't have to do it alone. You really don't. And if you want to do some one-on-one work with a therapist or a counselor who specializes in eating disorders, then please seek that out. Don't be embarrassed or ashamed. This is way more common than you think, I promise you. It really, really is. There's absolutely no shame in having some emotional eating issues. I would say the majority of women do. It's just to what degree has that manifested in your life? And so don't hesitate to reach out and ask for help. So I hope this was helpful, you guys. I truly believe this is the missing piece for so many of you that have done every diet and tried everything and you are like, why am I on this roller coaster? Why do I lose the 10 or 15 pounds and then I gain it back? Or some women have lost 70 or 80 pounds on Ozempic and then they try to go off of it and they backslide. And part of it is the mechanism that was causing the weight loss is now being taken away when you stop the Ozempic. But part of it could be that you didn't address the emotional eating that is happening because maybe you just weren't aware. And most doctors prescribing these weight-loss drugs aren't having these conversations and aren't helping patients realize All the behavioral pieces that go along with weight. So I hope this was helpful. If you know a woman in your life, or even a man, that needs to hear this episode, please share it with them because it's so important that we lift each other up and we help each other on this journey called life that we're all just trying to navigate and get through and realize that Life is the journey, okay? Life is the journey, not the destination. And what I've come to realize is that every time I set a goal and I start working toward that goal, the goalpost moves and I never feel satisfied. I'm never happy or content because I'm never, quote unquote, reaching my goals. It's because I'm moving the goalpost. I'm getting new goals, bigger goals, different goals, going in a different direction, and the goalpost is way over there, like whatever it is. And that's just human nature. I've come to find out that is human nature. And so we need to celebrate our wins. We need to enjoy the journey and enjoy the life that's happening right now and stop trying to— look into the future to wait and feel differently because if you are avoiding life because you think you're overweight and you don't want to be seen in a bathing suit, or you can't fit into a dress, or you're not comfortable being out and about, those are not okay reasons to skip out and not enjoy life. You have to enjoy and get in the game. Now, because you're going to miss so many amazing opportunities focusing on the wrong thing. So I hope this was helpful for you. Oh my gosh, please message me. Let me know what else you want to hear about. I do this for you. And if you feel like you want to do something like the Healthy Her program and have us guide you through this journey of healing your gut, balancing your hormones, Break up with sugar or carbohydrates or whatever, your salt addiction. We are here for you. So you can always connect with us on drtabatha.com. We would love to help you along your journey. So go have an amazing week, ladies.