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Are there situations, places, or feelings that make you reach for the comfort of food? We all sometimes turn to food for comfort – ice cream when we are feeling low, pizza or drive through after a long day at work. Most emotional eating is usually linked to unpleasant feelings. However, it can also be triggered by positive emotions, such as rewarding yourself for achieving a goal or celebrating a holiday or happy event. It’s okay to use food as a reward or to celebrate. It’s when eating is your only way to cope (for example, opening your fridge is your first instinct) that you can get stuck in an unhealthy cycle. This cycle does not allow you to address the real feeling or problems that are underneath.
Emotional eating happens when eating is used to satisfy emotional needs, rather than to satisfy physical hunger. This emotional hunger can’t be filled with food. Eating may feel good in the moment, but the feelings that triggered the eating are still there. You often feel worse than you did before because of the unnecessary calories you’ve just consumed. No matter how powerless you feel about food and your feelings, it is possible to make a positive change. Together we can find healthier ways to deal with your emotions, learn to eat mindfully instead of mindlessly, regain control of your weight, and finally put a stop to emotional eating.
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If you don’t know how to manage your emotions in a way that doesn’t involve food, you won’t be able to control your eating habits for very long. Diets so often fail because they offer logical nutritional advice, which only works if you have conscious control over your eating habits. It doesn’t work when emotions hijack the process, demanding an immediate payoff with food. In order to stop emotional eating, you have to find other ways to fulfill yourself emotionally.
In order to stop emotional eating, you have to find other ways to fulfill yourself emotionally. It’s not enough to understand the cycle of emotional eating or even to understand your triggers, although that’s a huge first step. If you’re depressed or lonely, you call someone who always makes you feel better. You can play with your dog or cat or look at a favorite photo or cherished memento. If you’re anxious, you can expend your nervous energy by dancing to your favorite song. You can squeezing a stress ball or taking a brisk walk. If you’re exhausted, you can treat yourself to a hot cup of tea. You can take a bath, light some scented candles, or wrap yourself in a warm blanket. If you’re bored, go read a good book. Go out and watch a comedy show, explore the outdoors, or turn to a creative or sporty activity you enjoy, such as woodworking, playing the guitar, shooting hoops, and scrapbooking.
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I am blown away! I don’t write testimonials, unless I have been extremely moved by something. I was blessed to work with Brooke on a single session, and before this I was in therapy on and off with multiple therapists for the last 20 years of my life. Brooke was able to do more in one session than many years of work with my previous therapist. She has the true gift of great insight and compassion while also getting straight to the heart of your blind spots and unconscious issues in a way that has truly changed my life.
Skyler J.
There are people who are good at their work there are people like Brooke: who are born to do it. I cannot recommend Brooke more highly. I can only imagine where I would be today if I had started working with her years ago. From the beginning of our session, she knew exactly what tools and questions that would work for my particular psychology and my personal experience. No other therapist has been able to do that or anything close.
What I also really appreciate from our session is Brooke's ability to go directly to the source of the issue while also keeping a very gentle and kind energy with me. I felt very seen, understood, and supported. Everything and more that I could have ever asked for from a therapist. I have a severe trauma history and complex issues she was able to immediately identify and help. If she could help me, I know she can help you too.
Taylor E.
You did more in 45 minutes than my last therapist did in a year.
Jamie
With your help, I've finally started to understand that while my vivid imagination often wants to create terrifying monsters under the bed, in a lot of cases those monsters are nothing more than a heap of decidedly less-terrifying laundry I've avoided for too long that just needs to be aired out and put away. Which is definitely a lot easier than monster slaying. Thank you for shedding light in the dark places I was too afraid to face alone.
Morgan B.
I am extremely fortunate to work with Sydney, who is helping me create real internal change. The talent to listen well is Hall of Fame stuff, and she has that. She then follows with questions, strategies that are organic to the moment. I have come to believe that deep, radical, if occasionally deeply painful change ... and, then, healing can happen. I'm just at the lip of that last part - but would not have gotten there, AT ALL, without Sydney
Ric K.
The best therapist ever! Life-changing 🙂
Catherine H.
Right now, the work is changing my life, sometimes in inches, sometimes in miles.
Ric K.
