217. How to Stop Emotional Eating in the Moment

Jeremy: Have you ever had a dream where you're standing in front of your pantry, you've got a bag of chips in your hand, a whole handful of chips just waiting to go into your mouth after you're done chewing the chips that are currently in your mouth, and then you have this realization you're not actually dreaming, this is really happening, and then you say to yourself, I did it again.

Zach: I was about to say, get outta my head. I spend way too much time doing that in reality. How is that just a dream?

Jeremy: Today we're gonna be talking about our own struggles with emotional eating. That is not a dream and what we do to try and stop ourselves from doing it. Or accept it occasionally.

Zach: Ooh, piece of candy

[00:01:00]

Zach: So Jeremy, one of my favorite games that I like to play now is trying to figure out why I am tired. Is it because I'm stressed out? Did I not sleep good? Did I eat the wrong thing? Did I not drink enough water? Did I drink too much alcohol? Did I drink too much caffeine? Did I not drink enough caffeine? This is a game I play every day these days.

Jeremy: Yeah.

Well, I think you're tired because you keep asking yourself all these damn questions over and over again.

Zach: I know, but I think I am tired a lot lately because there's one thing that's happening that I've been stressed out. I've got a whole bunch of things going on. I'm an emotional eater. If I am stressed out beyond a certain point, I will go find the salty, crunchy thing and I will eat it, and then I'll go back to work. I'll go back to do whatever I'm doing an hour later when I wanna avoid that problem. I'm right back to it. Now, the one thing that I'm not doing when I'm doing all this emotional eating is drinking water. And when I'm really stressed out, when I'm in these moments, when I am just in the thick of it, I never remember to drink water and I can't explain that.

So for the last few weeks, why am I tired? Because I'm not drinking enough fucking water. Like I went back a couple of days and really looked at how much water I was drinking. There was water in my coffee,

Jeremy: That's all you had. Was the water in your coffee.

Zach: There was water in the food that I cooked and the water was taken outta the food and it was gone.

Jeremy: Yep. And then maybe a couple drips of water when you were brushing your teeth. That's it for like days. Yeah. That's what happened. And I just, it, it kills me every single time. Logically, I know this emotionally overpowers the logic and I just go eat potato chips and I eat whatever it is that's in the cupboard.

[00:02:00]

Zach: Even things that I wouldn't consider eating, like there's a thing of jelly beans are those that those

Jeremy: Just pure kryptonite is all jelly beans are.

Zach: But these are the ones from Hogwarts. So like it's, it's got the, it's got like, you know, watermelon and strawberry and all those good and cotton candy and all those flavors, but there's also vomit, ear wax, all of those things. And I'm just like, whatever, we'll just eat those up. Cause I don't, I don't need water. But there's emotional eating. There's that side of it. So I now have a sticky note on my computer, where I spend most of my time.

Jeremy: Yeah.

Zach: That just says, you're not hungry, you're, you're thirsty.

Because 95% of the time, that's all it is. You're just thirsty. I'm relating on a thousand different levels and I have a thousand questions cause I wanna help sort of, uh, paint this picture for people. When you're emotionally eating, when you are staring at the pantry, grabbing the, the bar jelly beans, you're fully aware, like the logic is there and you're going, I don't need this.

Jeremy: I'm not hungry. I'm doing this because of feelings. Or are you fully just like, Make the thoughts, stop whatever procrastination, whatever it takes. Just put this in my face.

Zach: It depends on the situation, right? If the stress level is too high, if it's way, way, way, way high, then logic is overruled and I'm in front of the pantry just like eating the thing.

Jeremy: Logic overruled intentionally like you're, you're

Zach: Not intentionally, no. I'm not aware of it it just emotions are there. I'm just at the pantry and I must consume stuff, I don't know why. And I, I just must do it if the stress level is too high. And then there's the other times where the stress level is like kind of medium I'm in front of the pantry going, what the fuck are you doing? Why are you doing this again? Go get a drink of water. Ooh, bread, right? I will just eat a piece of bread. No, I don't have butter to put on it. Yep. My toaster's broken too. It's just a piece of bread.

Jeremy: Ooh, bread I'm gonna get you a t-shirt that just says, Ooh bread.

Zach: I would prefer one that says, Ooh, cookies, bread works too.

Okay, so because I can relate to this, I do the same thing. I will, you know, be pounding away on the keyboard and, and on my calls all day. And then I will find myself in the kitchen, not hungry, probably haven't had a glass of water since July. And just think to myself, Don't need. What are you doing? Why, why are you going to eat the, the delicious, you know, pastries that are out on the counter?

Jeremy: Why, why are you digging in the pantry? There's nothing good in the pantry. Like the, like there's, there's some protein bars in there to trick me every now and then, I'm like, well, that's close enough. I'll eat that. But the, the, uh, overwhelming sensation to put trash in your face when you are stressed out is sometimes insurmountable. Like logically you can, like you just described, like, ooh, bread. There are moments when I look at it. I go, I don't need this. Go get water. Mm. Candy like, it just doesn't. Like there's this bridge that's immediately built that goes, that's the next logical step. Just the trash.

Zach: And if you can get past that and like drink a big glass of water, like literally it makes you full, it does satisfy it. I promise you. It satisfies it long term.

Jeremy: Mm-hmm.

Zach: Short term. In that moment, you're gonna be sitting there going, it's just a glass of water. This is bullshit. I'd rather take a bite of the glass.

Jeremy: Right. Cause there's no way water could possibly solve my problem. Like when you're tired at three or four o'clock in the afternoon and you're thinking, Hmm, another coffee sounds good, or some caffeinated beverage, or some some sweet thing. Cause I need a little kickstart. Turns you need water. Like that's the thing that your body's going, if you put this in in my belly, you'll feel better and you'll wake up. It's amazing how many times I will do that where I do have the presence of mind to drink the water and I'll just pound like a huge water bottle of it in like 10 minutes I'm like, cool, let's go round two. I'm ready.

But again, that like logic versus emotion is this constant battle that I think, it sounds like you and I both fight on a, on far too regular of a basis.

Zach: It is far too regular. I mean, one would argue that like I should be working on reducing the stress, but the stress is still gonna be there, so I'm just gonna have to work on upping my water intake.

Jeremy: Well, and you know, you mentioned earlier talking about the, you know, there's the work stress and the life stress and all the things, like, I literally, I've been going to this therapist and he, he drew out a map one day talking about like the, the spiral into depression. And he's like, there's the professional stuff, there's the personality stuff, there's the, you know, your married stuff, you're a dad stuff. And he just made this illustration that was like, when it all comes crashing together, that's . That's the thing, right? Like any one of them isn't enough, but when all of them come together, you just get overwhelmed and all of that, that logic and reasoning and, , the training and the books and all the stuff that, you know, just isn't enough in that moment.

Zach: So the thing to remember here is there's ups and there's downs. We all have issues. I don't wanna say I'm broken, but like we have things. That cause us to do certain things and it's really hard to change that. And some of them you just need to learn to live with or make slight tweaks. Drinking a glass of water, it's, it's a very slight tweak. It's not a big deal. Even in the moment when you want to take a bite outta the glass. Cause it'll be crunchy too. It's a very slight tweak.

Jeremy: The one thing I will say about the times when it's like borderline when, when you are staring at the pantry and you think, Ooh, bread, or, Ooh, candy, or what, whatever. When you are able to bring the awareness of why you're doing it, like that Zoom call went badly, or your deadline was missed, or you're under a lot of pressure because of whatever deadline you're running outta time. When you find yourself looking at it and you're like, I'm actually not here because I'm hungry. I'm actually because stress tired, thirsty, whatever. That awareness alone oftentimes is enough to go, Nope, close it. Better choice over there.

Zach: Yep.

Jeremy: Occasionally, like you said, it's, it's not gonna be enough. And so that's when, you know, you talk a lot about self-compassion. Cool. All in, we made that choice. Try to learn from it and do better next time. Make that choice. And then what next? Right? Like, how do I, how do this next time? How, what sticky note can I put on my computer? What can I put on the pantry that makes me question those, those ideas or, or those actions when I don't have the logical powers? To those right choices.

Zach: Whenever it happens, I, I always tell myself, yep, you did and that's okay. And you know what? You will probably eat another earwax jelly bean at another time. You'll fall again. I. So long as you get back up.

Jeremy: Do you ever, do you ever do this to yourself? Do you ever think, yeah, I, this is just what I need right now and that's okay. I'm, this need.

Zach: Like every now and again, I, and I do try and plan those. It's not like a. Go and eat whatever's in the pantry. I will go to my daughter and say, Hey, I had a rough week. Did you have a rough week? Yeah, I had a rough week too. Of course, she's in seventh grade, so every week's a rough week no matter what. I'm like, okay, let's go to the ice cream shop. Let's make this an outing. Let's go do something special. Like not a, I'm gonna sit in front of the TV binge and watch blah blah. Like, no, we're gonna go do a thing together. We're both gonna go enjoy some ice cream. Then we're gonna go enjoy our lives.

Jeremy: Yep, absolutely. All right, well, I don't know about you, but I've got a jellybean sandwich waiting for me downstairs. So we're gonna wrap up this episode. You can subscribe to our newsletter by visiting our website, thefitmess.com, and that is where we will be back in just a few days with another new episode. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you soon.

Zach: See everyone.