Written by: Rita May, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
You identify yourself as a high-achiever. You wear it as a badge of honour. You have always strived for excellence in everything you do, and you refuse to settle for anything less. This approach has helped you to achieve a great deal of success in your life, both professionally and personally. But you have a secret. Your eating habits are completely out of control.
Emotional eating and stress
Your family and co-workers hold you in such high regard and you consistently fulfill those demands. You have a constant need to prove yourself and please others. Saying no to a request would never happen; the thought of what people might think would drive you insane.
So you take it on, you handle everything, and then try and manage the stress of it all afterward. You hold the belief that you can do everything, you don’t need to rest and you feel like nobody can do things the way you do them. So you do everything.
The need to prove yourself and please others can be a powerful motivator, but it can also be a source of great anxiety and stress. Consequently, you are stressed and overworked all day.
Acute, short-term stress decreases appetite. However, when stress persists (chronic stress), a hormone called cortisol is released. Cortisol increases hunger due to the imbalance of ghrelin, leptin, and insulin hormones, leading to overeating.
Numerous studies show that cortisol also affects food preferences, i.e. increases cravings for foods high in sugar or fat, or both. As a response to eating these ‘comfort foods’ dopamine is released, which increases a feeling of well-being. Dopamine is the substance that makes many things (e.g. watching a good film, sex, nicotine, drugs, and food) pleasurable.
Next time you feel stressed, your body will remember that these foods make you (temporarily) feel better or at least less bad so you will feel a strong craving for them.
After several repetitions of this stress-eating response, the corresponding neural pathway becomes strong, and the process becomes an automatic habit. When you feel stressed and overworked, you have an insatiable craving. Often you find yourself eating without being consciously aware of what you’re doing.
In the meantime, you might also be thinking that you shouldn´t be eating this much and this makes you anxious during eating, which again increases cortisol. To make things worthwhile, cortisol is also a fat-storing hormone causing the formation of belly fat even in otherwise thin people.
The good news is these neural pathways can be weakened due to neuroplasticity and the habit can be stopped.
Mindless eating
You’re busy and the demands of your job don't always leave time for a healthy meal. So you either end up eating whatever is quick and convenient, even if it's not the best for you, or you simply don’t eat during the day. This is especially true for people who are always on the go.
In the evening you go home ravenous and you eat fast to curb your hunger. You’re still working, answering emails or just watching TV while eating. You're not giving your full attention to what you're eating, which can lead to overeating and weight gain.
It's hard to be busy and mindful at the same time. Your brain is constantly working, trying to solve a million problems you have going on at any given moment. That's why it's so easy to mindlessly eat when you're busy.
Eating mindlessly is like having a conversation with someone while daydreaming or doing something else.
You’ll keep asking back:
“What did you say?”,
“Sorry, how’s that again?”
Even though you are physically present you don’t experience the words.
The same happens with your body when you eat mindlessly. It’ll keep asking:
“What was that you were eating?”,
“Sorry, how did that taste again?”
Your brain won’t fully experience the food you’re eating so you won’t feel satisfied even when your stomach is full. Your body will ask for more food as you didn’t get enough pleasure from what you ate.
When you eat mindfully you’ll be more aware of how much you eat, how the food taste, and how your body feels when you eat different foods. You also get more pleasure from the food and your body has more time to register that you’ve eaten enough.
Perfectionist mindset
Binge eating or emotional eating is also related to some kind of restriction, in your diet or other areas of your life. If you binge eat regularly, you are most likely a perfectionist. You want to do everything perfectly and you also want to look perfect.
This mindset is driven by a fear of being judged and criticised. You , over the tiny details. Getting most things done is stressful and it takes longer than it should. Even once it’s completed you still feel anxious about it.
agonizeYou are the go-to person at work, always pleasing everyone, dieting, and exercising to look perfect, but you don´t take the time to relax and enjoy life. You feel guilty when you are not productive or you take time for yourself.
You are afraid of enjoying your favourite foods because you might not be able to stop eating and you are anxious about gaining weight. So you avoid these foods. You deprive yourself of food, rest and fun.
The more you restrict the more you binge
Binge eating is the breaking point when your body can´t take any more restrictions and the stress caused by this deprivation. It finally needs some pleasure!
This creates the self-fulfilling prophecy of not being able to stop eating and gaining weight, the very thing that made you stressed when you started eating. Crazy, right?
We usually think about stress as something caused by work-related tension and relationship problems. But too much exercise, chronic and overly restrictive dieting, worries about body image, and sleep deprivation all put the body in a stressed state.
Lack of fun and pleasurable activities
Your self-worth is dependent on always feeling like you’re over-achieving. You’re either busy, or you’re lazy and worthless. There is no in-between. Having fun is a waste of time.
Pleasure, or rather the lack of it, plays an important role in forming an overeating habit.
When you don´t get enough pleasure from other areas of your life, people tend to compensate for the missing joy with eating (or other unhealthy behaviours, like drinking, excessive shopping, etc.). Food may end up being your main source of happiness and fulfilment.
I believe in the enjoyment we get from food, but food shouldn´t be our only source of pleasure and happiness.
Have you noticed that when you are happy, relaxed, and have enough joy in your life you don´t think about food that much, and you may even lose some weight? Think back to the time when you fell in love or were on a relaxing holiday. You were filled with happy, positive feelings and you were completely relaxed.
Lack of self-care
Lack of self-care is closely related to the previous point. You‘re never able to say no, always take on other people’s requests (even if don’t want to), you’re proud of being the go-to person. You’re a people pleaser, have no boundaries, and you’re at the bottom of your to-do list. No wonder you end up using food to relax or as me-time. Sometimes we eat because we just need a break from work, stress, and life in general; we want to release tension, zone out, not think, and just relax.
Rest and relaxation are extremely important for mental and physical health. When you schedule relaxation activities, your unconscious mind will not force you to take time out.
Searching for the perfect diet
High achievers are intelligent and they like to research everything. Including their diet. They are convinced that there is a perfect diet out there that will keep them healthy and fit.
You spend hours reading books, listening to podcasts or watching videos to find the perfect diet and exercise program.
Your bedside table is heaped with the latest books on the topic. You know so much about nutrition and weight loss science that you can’t decide what to eat anymore because you’ve heard so much contradictory advice. You try every new “shiny” diet program that promises quick weight loss to compensate for your regular overeating habit and keep up your perfect appearance.
But these promises are marketing tactics. Even if these diets work in the short term they are not sustainable long term. So even if you manage to lose weight with one of these diets, sooner or later you gain the weight back. You conclude that this wasn`t the right diet for you and you keep searching for the perfect one. What you need to realise is that you won‘t find a perfect diet out there. You need to create it for yourself by listening to your body and becoming aware of how it reacts to certain things.
Food used to avoid negative feelings
You constantly worry about not being good enough. Perhaps you also struggle with self-confidence. Even the most successful people sometimes feel like imposters. They worry that one day someone will realize they're not really qualified for their job and they'll be exposed.
This fear of being a fraud is called "imposter syndrome." Imposter syndrome is common among high-achievers. Many people with imposter syndrome are perfectionists and are never satisfied with their work. They always feel like they could be doing better.
They also doubt their abilities and worry that others will find out they're not as smart or talented as they seem. Their self-worth becomes tied to being a “high-achiever”. So a lot of their motivation to work hard comes from the fear of losing this identity. They also fear being judged, criticised, or rejected. As a consequence, they often focus on what is wrong, and what isn’t good enough (in themselves or their work). They want to control everything.
Food becomes a release
Obviously, this creates a lot of negative thoughts and feelings. Food becomes a release from all that stress and overwhelm, as well as an escape from not feeling good enough.
While emotional eating is often viewed as nothing more than a food issue, if it were that simple then following a healthy eating plan would have fixed it by now. You can see from this article that it can actually be a symptom of something much deeper. But the good news is that it can be resolved when you make the decision to deal with these issues.
If you're struggling with binge or emotional eating, it's important to get help. In my book, I discuss this topic in more detail, and I offer tips and strategies for overcoming this problem. If you're ready to make a change, check out my book or arrange a free discovery call today.
Rita May, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Rita May is a scientist turned Emotional Eating and Health Coach. She helps driven professionals and entrepreneurs who are successful in other areas in their life but struggle with their weight because of emotional and stress-eating.
Her coaching method is based on three pillars: the science of nutrition, psychology, and a bit of spirituality.
She doesn’t believe in the one-diet-fits-all approach. Instead of giving you a diet plan, she helps you choose a way of eating that you enjoy because that’s the one you will be able to sustain in the long term.
However, nourishing your body is not enough. Our wellbeing is also affected by stress, relaxation, thoughts, emotions, beliefs, joy, self-awareness, our personal history and so much more.
Using her Mindfulness to Food Freedom method and How to stop eating your feelings workbook she helps her clients eliminate emotional and stress-related overeating or binge eating. She designed her Healthy Habits for Permanent Weight Loss program to help busy professionals and entrepreneurs lose weight and improve their health with just a little time investment per week so they can focus on their work, business, and family.
