103. The Top 5 Feelings that Spark Emotional Eating

You’re not always eating because you’re hungry. More often than not, you’re eating because your brain is looking for a break from a feeling. In this episode of Weight Loss Made Simple, Dr. Stacy breaks down the five most common emotions that trigger emotional eating — and what you can do instead.

We’ll cover:

• 😐 Boredom — why wandering into the pantry isn’t about hunger
• 😰 Stress & Anxiety — how cortisol ramps up cravings and what to do to calm your nervous system
• 💤 Exhaustion — why “bed, not bread” is the real fix for fatigue
• 😔 Loneliness — how food pretends to comfort, but connection actually heals
• 😠 Frustration/Overwhelm — why eating feels like hitting pause, and how to take one small step forward instead

You’ll hear the exact thoughts your brain uses to justify emotional eating — like “I deserve this” or “I just need a break” — and learn how to break the cycle with healthier strategies.

✨ Big takeaway: Food only fixes hunger. When you can name the feeling, you reclaim the power.

👉 Want to dive deeper? Grab access to my End Emotional Eating Vault www.sugarfreemd.com/vault — 14 powerful mindset-shifting lessons designed to help you stop emotional eating for good.

Free 2-Pound Plan Call!
Want to jump start your weight loss? Schedule a free call where Dr. Stacy Heimburger will work with you to create a personalized plan to lose 2 pounds in one week, factoring in your unique circumstances, challenges, and aspirations. Schedule now! www.sugarfreemd.com/2pound

This episode was produced by The Podcast Teacher: www.ThePodcastTeacher.com.

Transcript

Hey everybody, welcome back to Weight Loss Made Simple. I am Dr. Stacey. This is episode 103. 103, can you believe it? 103 episodes. Today, I want to go back to one of our other episodes and expound upon it, okay? So when I talked about the three Fs of eating, one of them was eating for feelings, okay? So there was fuel, feelings, or flavor. So the big one is feeling.

Right? That's emotional eating, eating for our feelings. And I was talking with one of my one-on-one clients and she had listened to that episode and she said, you should talk more about the feelings part of that. And so this episode is for her. So this is what we're going to do. This is what we're going to talk about today.

When we are having big feelings and we can almost physically feel a little frazzled, when we eat, it kind of smooths out that rough edge, okay? And so in the coaching world, we call this emotional eating buffering, okay? So when we think about buffer, smoothing something out, the food sort of smooths out this rough feeling that we are having.

So if I'm feeling stressed or anxious or sad, right, and that's an uncomfortable feeling, my body feels uncomfortable or a little rough around the edges, buffering is what we do. Okay, so I hope that makes sense. Visually, that's what makes sense to me, so that's how I like to explain it. So in the coaching world, we call it buffering, we call it emotional eating, right, or we call it eating the F we're eating for, we're eating for our feelings.

We don't always use food, right? Buffering can be using things like screens or alcohol or shopping or gambling or porn, any of that. But for our purposes, I want to talk about food and buffering with food. And what I want to do for this episode in particular is I want to give you a lot of examples of what your brain might tell you about emotional eating. So I want to tell you sort of the top feelings that I see people buffer.

And then I want to tell you some examples of maybe what your brain would say to justify that. And that way you can say like, yeah, that's me, right? I want you to hear it and be like, okay. Yes, I've heard that. I've heard my brain say that. I have absolutely thought that before. I've done that. I've felt that and gone for food because the recognition piece is very, very important.

as always, right? If we can identify it, that's like the first step in changing it and finding a new way. So we have to identify it first. So I want to give you a lot of examples today.

And let me say as well, we all do this, okay? So you're not bad or wrong or whatever if you buffer with food, we all do it, okay? We're taught to do it from when we're very young. Like we fall, like are physically in pain and everyone's like, do you want a cookie? Right, okay? So and so hurt your feelings, do you want a cookie? So we're always trying to feed feelings and feed discomfort, right? Because we have this idea that people should be happy and feel good all the time.

And so when people feel uncomfortable, we try and stop it and food is just a really easy way to do that. So you're not alone. If you do this, you're with everybody else in the world. That means you're a normal human being with a normal human brain. Congratulations. It has brought you to me and we're going to talk about it today.

I want to, so let's, I picked five, five feelings. And so we'll go through these. There are more, right? We can eat for any feeling. Our food is not particular. So you can eat for any feeling, but I'm just going to go through sort of the top five. So one of them is bored, right? So people will tell me all the time, I'm eating cause I'm bored.

let me wander into the pantry and see what's there. Or you're sitting at your desk and you've been working and so you haven't had a break in a while. instead of getting up and taking your break, your brain's like, hey, I just need a little treat. I need a little pick me up. I'm a little bit hungry, right? I need a little snacky snack. That handful of M &Ms is usually not because you're physically hungry. That is not a fuel type pick.

for the food that you were eating at that time. You are eating because you're bored. Or I like this one because this sometimes happens to me, but everyone will be out of the house, right? And you'll have this time to yourself. And maybe you're even distracting on screens, right? Remember we can buffer with screens, but maybe we're doing that and we're like, I'm bored with that. Let me go eat something. Okay? So sometimes it's really obvious. Sometimes it's not, but.

I find the boredom eating usually comes that mid-afternoon, right? Or after everyone's gone to bed or this like random time where you have an afternoon to yourself. That doesn't happen often, right? But every once in a while.

So sometimes we're just looking for something to do. It's that like, I could use a little snacky snack, right? It's not about being hungry. It's about, I need something to do. So our brain can justify it and say things like, well, I just need a little treat, right? It's no big deal. Maybe I just need a little something. Like I'm not quite satisfied. And then with that one, that can be tricky. But if we think about our dinner and we've definitely had enough

fuel, then we need to start thinking like, maybe I'm just bored. So boredom is actually like an under stimulation problem, right? Or we're not stimulating our brain and our brain likes novelty in a way, or it's like a little dopamine hit when our brain gets to do something new. Now it doesn't want to make our body do new things and we'll talk about that, but it doesn't want to exert a lot of energy, but it does like to see new things. It likes to be entertained.

Right? And so when we are under-stimulating it, when we've been watching the same thing for a long time, when we've been looking at the same report for a long time, when we've been working on charts for a long time, whatever we've been doing, it's craving something new. And so it's going to tell you like, I could use something, right? It's truly a boredom problem. So you can be busy and still be bored. Does that make sense? Right? I can be...

working on charts, I can be working on tons of stuff, but if I'm doing it for too long, my brain interprets that as bored. It wants to be stimulated with new and exciting. So it's going to tell me, hey, maybe you should go eat something.

So what can we do? Well, and one trick to this is that's usually like crunchy, like we want something crunchy, because our brain just needs like some tactile input.

So if we see that we're doing this and we identify it, what do we do next? What do we do next, Stacey? I'll tell you. Okay. Set a timer and just do something for five minutes. Okay. One of my private clients one time, she was just having such a hard time because she was sitting at her desk all day long. So I actually made her set a timer and every 50 minutes she had to get up and take like a 10 minute walk or a five minute walk.

she needed to get that stimulation of like something new and exciting and then she could come back and she was so much more productive when she sat back down and this like craving for the snacky snack like this little board went away. Okay, so just task switch for a minute. And I like to physically switch position. So if you're sitting in front of a computer, set a timer, every...

Like don't go longer than an hour. There's some studies will say like 45 minutes, 50 minutes, whatever it is. Get up, walk around for five minutes, come back. That could be enough. The other thing we could do is make like a little board list on our phone of things in case our brain is so fried that it can't think of a task switch. So maybe that's something like we listen to a little bit of music. Okay, we doodle.

I don't think scrolling on your phone does what your brain is looking for here. And usually you can just get lost in there. So I don't recommend that as a task switch for boredom if you still have a lot of work to do, right? Cause it's also, it's just another buffering. You're just buffer switching, right? So if we go to a screen, that's just a buffer switch. So get up, do something physical, like go get a cold glass of water, stretch a little bit.

listen to some music, do a little doodle, just get up and walk around. If you're already walking around, like look around, like take in your environment, okay? So do some sort of mental task switch at least once an hour so that your brain does not interpret it as under stimulation and then ask for food. Feeling number two, it's my favorite feeling.

Stress and anxiety. Okay, huge huge drivers of emotional eating When we are feeling stressed and anxious like I can already feel like your body gets amped up, right? It's lit up like a Christmas tree and food Feels like it buffers it calms it smooths it out Okay, and I feel like these are interesting because they can come on like that, right?

So you get an email from your boss that says, can we talk? Immediately, you're on high alert, right? Your nervous system is berserko and it's a really uncomfortable feeling. And so to do something about that feeling, your brain's like, just make it stop, right? And so we like go get something to eat. We start eating candy, whatever it is.

Maybe we're running late. Okay, sometimes this happens to me, right? Running late, we're worried like we're not going to get there on time. We're dropping the kids off late to school, picking up late, whatever it is. And that nervous anxiety type feeling sort of bubbles up and all we want to do is stop it instead of like processing through it, which we can process through these feelings. That's a different episode, but.

our body wants to stop it, it wants to buffer it, it wants to smooth it out. And so instead of having this anxious nervous feeling, it's like, please get me something to eat instead. And that dopamine will sort of smooth it out.

So things we might say to ourselves.

The only thing I can control right now is food and I'll eat it, right? Cause we're feeling out of control. I deserve this after the day I've had. I had such a stressful day. I deserve this. Okay. I still sometimes hear that in the back of my head all the time. This sneaks up on me and it's not, it's just this idea of deserving, which I guess we could do a whole episode on that, but I have a really long drive to the hospital. And so sometimes,

that'll be the day like, I'm going to get myself a coffee. Like I'm going to drive through and get coffee, cause I deserve it. Okay. Now I try and make sure it's like plain coffee and doesn't, it's not off protocol, but you can see where that could be an easy slippery slope, right? I'm already there. What if something sweet catches my eye? Okay. So watch when your brain's saying, I deserve this. When you're feeling out of control, thinking food's the only thing I can control.

and I just want it, right? I just want that brownie. It doesn't matter. Or if I eat something, I'll calm down, right? Like, let me just take a break. I think this one happens a lot with alcohol, right? I just, need a drink. After today, after the day I've had, I need a drink. Okay, that's all that stress and anxiety. Those things can stimulate that cortisol, that adrenaline, okay? So.

When we're having a lot of cortisol and adrenaline, our body, like a primitive brain is like, we better gear up for something big, right? We better run from that tiger. So it's going to crave quick energy. So it's going to crave those sugary foods, okay? When stress is chronic, we have a tendency to overeat, especially high calorie foods too. So with kind of like self medication.

When we can recognize this is what's happening, what we really need is like a body reset. Okay, we need to expel that anxious, that anxious feeling, that anxiety, that ramped up, that extra adrenaline and cortisol. We need to expel it. We don't need to eat and like push it down. So we can do go for a walk. We can...

chat GPT says we can shake it out, which I don't hate, right? Which we literally like shake out that feeling from our body. We can do some box breathing, which is inhaling for four, holding for four, exhaling for four, holding for four. And just doing that, just that like nice deep breathing will actually reduce your cortisol. A quick 10 minute walk will reduce your cortisol. So anything that tells your body I'm not in danger right now, so slow.

purposeful movements, even just putting your hand on your chest and doing that deep breathing and like, I am safe, like no tigers are chasing me, I'm okay, can help with this a lot. Feeling number three, exhaustion. So, all my doctors that are listening, that post call when you were up all night, I remember, I remember getting an ice cream sandwich,

on my way out of the hospital, right? Because I deserved it, because I was so tired, right? But I wasn't even hungry. It's exhaustion eating, okay? So that being overtired and just like, if I eat something, I won't fall asleep. That's what if, I think that was the excuse that we used when we were on call. Like if I'm physically eating and then I can't fall asleep and so I will be available to whatever patient needs me, whatever is going on.

So this idea, that's what our brain says, like, well, if I just eat this, I'll stay awake, right? I just need something sweet. I need a little something, a little just to get me through, a little pick me up so I can get through the next hour, okay? When your brain and your body are tired, hormones get wonky, right? Being overtired, we already know there are studies. If you don't get enough sleep, if you're chronically sleep deprived, you will crave.

more calories, you will eat more calories, you'll crave that sugary food and your body will actually preferentially lose muscle. Isn't that crazy? So crazy. So your brain will feel hungrier when you are sleep deprived and it's just cause your hormones are like all jacked up. What we need is a nap. Okay? So if it's late at night and we're feeling this, the answer is bed, not bread. Okay?

We need to go lay down. We do not need to keep eating. So the question to ask is, would a nap fix this better than food? Remember, the only thing food will fix is hunger. So if you are feeling physically exhausted, food is not the answer. Rest is the answer. So a nice bedtime ritual can help here. Now, if it's afternoon,

and like we can't possibly take a nap, like we have to fight through, like we have, still have responsibilities, then try some cold water or a brisk walk, okay, or a power nap if you're someone who can do that. I'm not very good at those, but I know people that are. I'm jealous of them. So when our body needs rest, we need to rest. We do not need to eat, okay? If we cannot rest, if we truly cannot rest, then,

We need to hydrate and like brisk up, like take a little walk, right? Shake it out, do the same things we would do for feeling over anxious, right? To try and propel some energy. Feeling number four, loneliness. This one's a sneaky little devil, right? Sometimes we will use food to fill the space where connection should be, right? Because food never let me down.

Right, food never hurt my feelings. So this one can be sneaky because I feel like our brain's a big fat liar on this one. Okay, food is letting us down. Food is disappointing us, right? When we are overeating, it is making us disappointed in ourselves. And so it's so poisonous. Okay. So this idea of loneliness or having a hard day and we feel like

we're isolated, we seek food for comfort instead of reaching out for connection. Okay, so this is our brain saying we want comfort and what we need is connection. Okay, our food is not our friend. Our food is our fuel, that is it. Okay, so if we are feeling lonely and we need comfort,

We need to find connection. However you can do that. Okay, food does not make us feel better unless we are hungry. We are wired for connection. Okay, so it doesn't mean something is wrong with you if you're lonely. Like we're wired for connection. And what makes people feel connected is different for everyone. And people have different levels of need for connection. Okay, but.

Food is not what we need. So just texting someone, thinking about you, right? Connection.

I've heard about a loneliness toolkit, which I think is so cute, right? But it's just like things that make us feel comforted, right? So maybe it's our favorite song. Maybe it's a song that we shared with a friend and we can text them and be like, hey, thinking about you listening to our song, whatever. A journal, cozy blanket, right? Do something to take care of you. Food is not the answer. So we can call someone, we can text them on and we can write them on a letter.

We can just listen to some music. We can, I love to FaceTime people, right? We can do any and all of those things. And feeling number five, which I feel like I feel all these sometimes, but this one too, is this idea of overwhelm or frustration. When it just feels like there's too much happening, okay? Eating is like a little break. We can, it's like hitting the pause button.

So we're juggling dinner and homework and sports and work emails and patients calling. And someone asks like, what's for dinner? Like, and you want to murder them, right? And then we just eat to make everyone be quiet, okay? Or to silence all of the things needing our attention at that time.

So when I feel overwhelmed, I have a tendency to shut down.

but people who don't necessarily do that and just are looking for a break, right? My brain just takes a break, I gotta tell you. It's just like, nope, we're done. So I have to watch how much is on my to-do list. Cause if I tip over, it's over. But if you've got a lot on your to-do list and you're feeling frustrated and you're feeling overwhelmed and your brain is saying, I just need a break. And I just need something quick and easy, right? I'll deal with all this later. I just need like a couple of minutes that

can be from overwhelm or frustration and food does not help with that, okay? It is quick and easy and soothing. It is a buffer, so it works, but it still doesn't get anything done on your to-do list, right? Unless like eating crappy food was on your to-do list, then it will solve it. Otherwise, it's not helping you get anything accomplished. So.

to break the cycle of that, right? If you are feeling frustrated and overwhelmed and your brain's like, I just need a break. Like, just, this is just be real quick. Like, hit the pause button just one second. We can say just, what's one small step? What's one small thing I can do? What's one thing I can get accomplished? So we don't need to necessarily get our whole list done. We just need to get back in action, right? Body and motion stays in motion. Sometimes we just need to get back to it.

So maybe we need to get up and take a little quick break and then come back and say, what's one small thing I can tick off? Okay. Sometimes if it's not written down, so that's what you would do if you actually have a to-do list. Sometimes if you don't have it written down, your tasks can seem more overwhelming if they are not written down in front of you. So if you are feeling overwhelmed and your brain is like, please take a break and eat food, the first thing I want you to do is like actually write down what you have to get done.

Okay, because sometimes when we write it out, it's not so bad. Sometimes we write it out and we're like, oh, this is worse than I thought, but it's easier to see things that we can delegate or delete or things that we only have to do part one of today, right? So the first thing is to write it down and then see, like maybe it's not as bad as we think. The other thing we can do is just do some grounding, right? And really just get back centered instead of thinking about what

what's everything I need to do, just like let me be right here in this moment right now and pick one small thing to do. All right, those are my top five feelings, I think. Hopefully, well not hope, I mean, I don't hope you have felt these, but if you have ever done some emotional eating, I hope that this gives you a little bit of insight in that you're not alone. These are very common. These are the ways our brain is going to justify it. And there's a few tips and tricks.

of things to do instead. So it's boredom, stress and anxiety, exhaustion, loneliness, and then this overwhelm and frustration.

The big takeaway is just to recognize it. Name the feeling and know that you can do something about it. You have got the power there and food only fixes hunger. It's not going to fix any of these things. Don't forget I have that end emotional eating vault available, www.sugarfreemd.com/vault . And it's got 14 more powerful lessons, 14 or 15, something like that in there.

to just help you really work through this and really stop it and just really put like the kibosh, like end it. No more emotional eating. It's not to say you're never going to do it again, but it's going to be markedly less. I really can't tell you the last time I ate because of a feeling. Okay? It's for fuel, primarily, every once in a while for flavor, but that's all right too.

All right, I hope that this was super helpful for you. If you want to check out that vault, please do. If you've got questions about the episode, please feel free to email me. Share this with a friend and I'll see you next week, bye.