Getting Clearer on What Food Is Doing for You
A simple awareness exercise for emotional eating
Step 1: Recall a Recent Urge
Think of a recent time you had the urge to emotionally eat.
I invite you to choose something mild or moderate, not the most intense experience.
You are simply revisiting it briefly, not analysing it deeply.
Step 2: Explore the Moment
Answer the following prompts briefly, without analysing it too heavily.
1) What were you experiencing as the urge came up?
(e.g. stress, tiredness, boredom, conflict, emptiness, overwhelm, discomfort etc)
2) If food did its job perfectly, what would it have done for you in this moment?
(e.g. calmed me down, allowed me to check out, comforted me, distracted me, gave me pleasure etc)
3) If you’re still unsure → if you hadn’t eaten in this moment, what state would you have been left in?
For example, I would have been left in an agitated state.
4) What does this tell you about what your system has learned to use food for?
You don’t need perfect answers, just curiosity. There can be a pressure to get ‘correct’ answers sometimes, but gentle curiosity can bring more clarity over time than pressure to find the one right answer. Sometimes what we are using food for is not immediately obvious and that’s okay.
Step 3:No need to try to replace or fix anything here.
Just notice, without judgement:
“Ah, this is what food is doing for me in that moment.”
Step 4: Validate the Underlying Need
Now take a moment to gently acknowledge what makes sense underneath the behaviour.
You might say:
“I may not like using food this way, but the underlying need is valid and makes sense”
For example:
“It makes sense that I want to check out after a long day”
The intention here is not to justify or ‘allow’ the behaviour.
The goal is to validate the need underneath it, so you can work with that to create change.
What next?
As you develop awareness of your patterns, that’s an important step. Not because it will immediately end emotional eating, but because it makes it more tangible to work with.
As you do so you’ll likely notice this next:
Even when you understand the pattern clearly, the behaviour can still happen in the moment.
That’s not because you don’t understand it, but because awareness alone is often not enough to interrupt the urge when it shows up.
Moving from awareness→ behaviour change is the next stage of the process.
When you’re ready to be guided through what do in the moment the urge arises and how to shift your pattern over time, the Emotional Eating Deep Dive can take you through that.
You can learn more about that here.
– Rachael