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Julie: Hey there, welcome to episode 371 of the Find Your Food Voice podcast. I am Julie Duffy Dillon, registered dietitian and your host. Welcome to our summer minisodes, fellow voice finder. There’s no music or editing, you’ll notice it’s a little rough around the edges. It’s just content we’ve been gravitating toward while in the summer chaos and fun, and I hope your summer has been fun so far. So this episode is formed around a listener question. Here it is. “Learning the different types of hungers has been helpful, yet I struggle most with eating when I’m not hungry. Like I know I am not hungry, yet I eat the food anyway, especially really tasty food. Or sometimes it is even that great and I’m just watching TV after work, then notice I have gone through a bag of chips. I don’t remember even tasting them.”

Julie: The last episode of this podcast, I explored binge eating or out of control eating experiences after panic hunger. And this episode is different. It’s not after a physical kind of hunger that we’re going to be talking about. It’s more of an emotional hunger. Did you know my very favorite thing to wear while My very favorite outfit to wear while writing the Find Your Food Voice book included sweatpants and the shirt I’m wearing now, which says, beautiful isn’t a size in case you’re listening to this as a podcast, but then also a sweatshirt that said, legalize emotional eating. Obviously it’s summer right now, so it is stored away, but my legalize emotional eating sweatshirt from Nicole Groman’s shop, put a link below in case you’re interested in checking it out. It has been my favorite thing to wear out in public because I get more nods, soft smiles, whispered thank yous from strangers whenever I wear it. We all need a daily reminder for permission to eat emotionally, especially emotionally. Finding your food voice includes discerning the why behind eating without judgment. That’s what I want for you. I want you to practice that same permission to emotional hunger as you would with physical hunger. Let me be clear.

Julie: Emotional eating is normal, healthy, important, a strength, and an effective coping mechanism. Our food thoughts form a superhighway in our brain. All too often we have been conditioned to feel shame from eating outside of physical hunger. Why do we fear our normal response to feelings? Eating emotionally is normal eating. One thing I know is this conditioning comes from cultural fear of weight gain tied to racism. Now, if that seems like a very strange leap to you or you’ve never heard that connection before, welcome. There’s a lot of work to be done. I encourage you to read two books. One is Fearing the Black Body by Dr. Sabrina Strings, and the other is Belly of the Beast by Da’shaun Harrison. Those two resources will get you started on how those two things are connected. 

Julie: At the same time, this shame from emotionally acute eating also acts like bumpers, blocking you from understanding what needs are being met when emotionally eating. Can we just pluck out the shame when noticing yearning to eat outside of hunger? I wish a set of tweezers was all we needed to just repair this part of accessing your food voice. Practice at calling out the shame, normalizing it, and eating your response to emotions, if that’s what you want. Practice giving yourself compassion when you do. 

Julie: What about health, you ask? Yeah, I knew that was gonna be next. I can hear some naysayers arguing against emotionally cued eating. It’s probably the thing that I teach my clients that causes the most kind of discomfort for folks and people trolling me on the internet. My rebuttal remains that across the globe and over time, people have always emotionally eaten. Even more, people always will. Food has always contained a mechanism for coping with anxiety, fear, happiness, and any other triggering emotion. It works with just one bite. Ignoring it or shaming yourself from using such a convenient legal tool will only block you from your food voice. It hasn’t worked yet, so why would it work moving forward? Connecting with the symbolism behind emotionally queued eating will only help you better understand your body’s physical and emotional needs.

Julie: Something else for my naysayers. I have found my clients experience less depression and improve health markers like lower insulin, lower blood sugar, better cholesterol panels, and blood pressure as they rewrite their rules around emotional eating. I encourage you to practice non-judgmental curiosity. Instead of saying, I shouldn’t have eaten that, I wasn’t even hungry, try something like, I wonder what unspoken need eating is helping me meet. Using should to describe your eating pattern is maladaptive, meaning it won’t get you anywhere but in a funk and dead end. Call out that should and step back to consider a bigger picture. Try to stop shoulding on yourself. 

Julie: So there you have it. I hope this episode has helped you when you have felt lots of shame for emotionally eating or because of the times you have over your lifetime. Remember, you are not weak for doing this. Emotional eating has been your strength. It has helped you cope. And that is a really good thing. I hope as you is as you practice permission to emotionally eat, you’ll better understand what unmet needs you have. And that is only gonna help you to find your food voice. Thank you for joining me today and I look forward to catching you next time on the Find Your Food Voice podcast. Until then, bye for now.