New Answers To 6 Burning Questions About Emotional Eating | Part 2 of 2

binge eating dieting do i have food addiction dr joan ifland eating disorders emotional eating food addiction joan ifland overeating processed food addiction recovery from food addiction what is food addiction Feb 10, 2023

Issue No. 30 | Brought to you by the Addiction Reset Community – ARC

Unlocking the secrets of processed food addiction and guiding you to find freedom from food and weight obsession.

Following on from the last issue of this newsletter, we will continue to answer the 6 most commonly asked questions in relation to ‘emotional eating’.

What is emotional eating?
Is emotional eating an issue in the absence of processed food?
Why is it specifically food that I have chosen to deal with my emotions?
How can I stop feeling like a failure?
How do you resolve emotional eating?
How can I stop emotional eating permanently?

In the last issue, we provided insights on the subject of ‘emotional eating’ based on the research of Dr Joan Ifland, the lead author and editor of the textbook Processed Food Addiction: Foundations, Assessment and Management. Here are new answers to the last three questions.

Question 4: How can I stop feeling like a failure?

The findings of research into processed food addiction provide a new answer to this question. The new answer is that lapsing is normal. If you are provided and supported to embrace and accept this premise, then you can let go of feeling like a failure when you experience a lapse.

Lapsing is NOT failure. Lapsing shows a need for better support and skill-building to manage the stressors, triggers and cues that lead you to lapse. As you build these skills, lapsing will become less frequent.

Question 5: How do you resolve emotional eating?

Resolving emotional eating begins with the awareness and acceptance of the evidence that emotional eating is a result of an addiction to processed foods. Long-term healing of emotional eating requires support that helps you to build the necessary skills required to avoid lapsing.

Support groups must know how to leverage your natural desire to “fit in” allowing you to gently conform to others who already have emotional eating under control.

Question 6: How can I stop emotional eating permanently?

From the time you wake up in the morning until you go to bed at night, you may be confronted with triggers and cues that cause stressful emotions which activate cravings. Turning off emotional eating requires daily support with easily-accessible opportunities to process your emotions throughout your day.

Find a support group that focuses on the retraining of addicted brain cells and helps you to build skills to break the perpetual cycle of emotional eating caused by the interconnected stress and craving pathways. Get support that gently builds skills to manage triggers, cues and cravings, without turning to the food.

Within the Addiction Reset Community (ARC) our members and their journeys are important to us. We find their stories inspiring and hopeful for everybody in health recovery.

“What turned the corner for me is the attitude, based on new research, that we should expect to lapse. This is comforting to know because I can get right back to clean food after a lapse. I don’t have to detour into the cycle of self-loathing and failure. The ARC is not fear-based. It is confidence-based. We’ve all done things, so I want a program that lets me keep going if I do something. I want to come to meetings even if I’m lapsing. In other programs, if I lapsed, I didn’t want to go so I quit. Now it is a whole new life.”

Many people reach out to Joan asking for advice and assistance on how they can begin their recovery journey.

Dear Joan

I have been in recovery for a few months now and I have been doing pretty good with avoiding overeating, for as long as I eat food that I have prepared at home. I notice that I am still struggling with overeating when eating out at restaurants and I feel more tempted to order processed food options off the menu. Could you offer any insights that could help me with this please.

Joan responds:

Congratulations on all your efforts to remove addictive processed foods from your diet. Research shows that these foods can drive overeating. You have fantastic awareness on how much easier it is to maintain control of your food at home. Restaurants deliberately make their environments triggering in order to increase sales. They use large portion sizes, lots of addictive ingredients in the food, many choices, and even high levels of noise to promote loss of control. Loss of control in restaurants is not your fault. With the right recovery skills and support, you can learn how to select less triggering restaurants and make the best meal choices while eating out.

DISCLAIMER:
Dr Joan Ifland (PhD) is a global expert on the subject of processed food addiction and is not a medical doctor. Information and response shared in this Newsletter are not intended for, and should not be construed as medical advice.

Do you have a question? Reach out to us with your questions about food addiction and recovery at gethelp@foodaddictionreset.com

Are you showing signs of Processed Food Addiction? Take this self-quiz to find out now!

Recent copies of Dr Joan Ifland's Blog: