Emotional Eating, Guilt, and How Grieving Can Help

Have you been feeling tired? Not just the tired that prompts you to go to bed early or take a nap (although you likely have been feeling that too), but the bone-deep fatigue that makes you wonder how you’re going to get through your day? I’ve also been feeling that tired.

This coronavirus situation, the one that many thought was going to be over in a couple of weeks, is dragging out longer and longer, and in many ways the end doesn’t seem in sight. Returning to normal in San Diego and elsewhere isn’t even on the radar anymore—it’ll be a new normal, one that we don’t know what will look like.

In the midst of this deep fatigue, food may be looking pretty good to you to help numb out and forget about all of the uncertainty, fear, and dread churning in your stomach. Emotional eating may happen at night, after long days at work or with the kids, or throughout the day, as you’re trying to soothe yourself from the unease that you are experiencing.

After you eat emotionally, you may feel sick physically, and you may feel guilty and ashamed for what you eat. Regardless of whether you have an eating disorder, emotional eating is something many people do in San Diego.

A lot of people are struggling right now. Whether it’s because you’ve been stuck at home and feel like crawling up the walls, or whether it’s because you’re working in health care and are exposed to COVID-19, or whether it’s because you’ve had loved ones fall ill and even die—it’s all really, really, really hard.

Food can feel like a quick fix in these situations. It’s there, it’s available, and it tastes good. There’s a reason that the term “comfort food” exists. We’re needing a lot of comfort right now.

Feeling guilty.

Many of you may be feeling guilty about emotional eating. You’re seeing the posts and videos on social media about Influencers taking about “what I eat in a day,” and “my daily workouts,” and you could be thinking, “wow, I’m soooo not there.” It can sometimes feel as though you’ve failed somehow.

Jimmy Fallon of The Tonight Show joked that experts are advising people to eat “healthy” when sheltering at home, so to follow their advice, he’ll start to add a couple of walnuts to his Chef Boyardee canned ravioli. :) It may be all we’re capable of right now!

Feeling guilty about eating, both about what we are eating, and what we aren’t eating, stems from a pervasive diet culture mentality that contains a lot of judgment. Such judgment can lead to self-criticism. Over time, enough internalized judgment can lead to self-loathing and even depression.

There’s a lot to feel depressed about right now. Feeling guilty about emotional eating can compound the depression.

You might think, “so many people have it worse than me, and so what am I doing feeling guilty about my eating?” I get it. We are surrounded by the news of people suffering—physically, emotionally, and economically. We feel like we shouldn’t complain.

The temptation to minimize our guilt and our struggle is great. It is vital to remember that regardless of what other people are experiencing, we are still suffering. Our guilt, our struggles, are real.

The need to grieve.

The urge to comfort ourselves with food may stem from underlying sadness and grief.

During this pandemic, we have all experienced a lot of loss. It’s loss of being around loved ones, loss of being able to go out and do the things we used to take for granted, and the loss of certainty about today and the future. We are also experiencing loss of feeling safe.

When we lose something, we need to grieve over it.

One strategy I’ve used recently is to acknowledge what my life would be like right now if coronavirus and the quarantine hadn’t happened.

For example, I’d be walking on the beach (mask-free!), going to the Zoo and Disneyland, watching new Marvel movies in theaters, and planning a trip to visit out-of-state family. I’d be seeing my friends, going shopping, getting my nails done. I’d be visiting my hair stylist and going on awesome dates with my husband.

Right now, I can’t do ANY of that. Nothing. It really, really sucks. I don’t know when I’ll be able to do some of those things again.

Even as businesses are slowly opening up in San Diego, it’s hard to interact with the community without the nagging fear that I could be exposing COVID-19 to others, or they could be exposing it to my husband and me.

So that’s a lot of loss. I acknowledge that other people have lost more than me, so so much more than me. Yet it doesn’t diminish my loss. For that I need to grieve.

How do we grieve? We recognize what we’ve lost. We talk about it—to therapists, loved ones, our pets, whoever. We write about it—we journal, we text, we blog, we post. We feel it—we cry, we get angry, we mourn.

How grief can help emotional eating.

To some degree, everyone eats emotionally. We eat when we feel joy at a birthday party or holiday. We eat when we feel sad. We eat in order to connect with other people. Food can mean many things, such as love, comfort, culture, celebration, and ritual.

It’s not the food itself or the eating process that is an issue during the pandemic. I think many people are eating emotionally more than usual right now.

Emotional eating during COVID-19 becomes problematic when (a) you’re using it to avoid feeling and grieving, and (b) there’s shame, guilt, and judgment involved.

Given everything we’re facing right now, an excellent way to tackle emotional eating is to acknowledge your losses and let yourself grieve. Over time, shame, guilt, and judgment can dissipate.

As you’re more in touch with your feelings and losses, you might be surprised find that the emotional eating lessens as well.

Caveat—When it’s more than emotional eating.

What is the difference between emotional eating and binge eating?

Whereas emotional eating feels uncomfortable, binge eating feels uncontrollable. With binge eating, you feel as though you cannot stop. You eat much more than a typical meal or snack, and it is outside of usual big-eating situations, such as Thanksgiving, etc.

You may experience a sense of detachment or intense numbness. Afterward, you’re slammed with shame and self-loathing. Sure, shame and self-loathing can come up with emotional eating, but with binge eating, these emotions are overwhelming and debilitating.

With binge eating, it affects your emotional and psychological well-being. It may cause you to isolate socially and can diminish your capacity to work, go to school, or function. Binge eating disorder is a recognized diagnosis; emotional eating is a behavior that many well-functioning people experience.

If you think you might be binge eating, I strongly recommend that you reach out to an eating disorder therapist and an eating disorder dietitian for help. They have expertise and training in this field, and they have the unique skills that will help you on your path to recovery and healing.

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Hey everyone, I really appreciate you reading my blog!  Have a wonderful day. :)  

Marianne 

If you are struggling to find online eating disorder treatment with help with binge eating or other eating disorders in San Diego, schedule a free, 15-minute phone consultation using the online scheduler (just click on the orange button), and I will help you get where you need to be! 

You can find more information about me on Instagram @drmariannemiller or on my Facebook page.