Why We (Over)Eat – life beyond therapy

For many of my clients, every so often they decide that THIS is the month/year/decade they will figure out how to stop overeating, lose weight and keep it off.  I am not going to address the physical part of health and weight loss, but I am going to address the psychology of why we (over)eat.

Geneen Roth – author of the marvelous book, When Food is Love – created the “Breaking Free” workshops to help people who use food to cope with the difficulties in their lives.  Her philosophy and mine are similar:  we both look at the motivation behind why people eat and use that information to help them switch from using food as a coping device to other, more productive ways of coping.  What is your motivation for (over)eating?

When we overeat, it’s rarely because we’re physically hungry:  we’re psychologically hungry.  We eat to meet an emotional need.  For many of my clients, food is a substitute for love.  When you feel sad or need some “love”, food is a lot more predictable than a person.  Most of us, at times, use food to make us feel better.  And it usually works…for a few minutes.  It’s a temporary fix, and usually, we want more and more.  Many of us don’t even really taste our food when we’re (over)eating…but the act of shoveling it down keeps us occupied, for a little while.

Many of us confuse food with comfort, happiness or even excitement.  We’re sitting at home, alone, bored, watching TV and we feel depressed.  What can we do?  Friends may be busy or we may be too afraid to get out of the house and go do something, so instead of getting real comfort or happiness, we settle for food.  Instead of real excitement – like going to a coffeehouse or the gym or a movie on our own – we settle for the false excitement of inhaling a pint of gelato or a package of imported (and expensive) Belgium chocolates.  It can be a little thrill in our day, but when it becomes the highlight of the day, we know we’re on the wrong track.  How can we better address our unmet needs?  Well, first we have to figure out what these unmet needs are.

For some people, (over)eating is a great way to avoid sex.  On the surface, most of us want more sex; but, dig a little, and many people subconsciously want to avoid sex.  Whether you’re single or coupled, sex brings up scary stuff – intimacy, vulnerability, physical closeness – that we may want to avoid.   I have had many clients over the years who were shocked to discover that avoiding sex was the real reason why they (over)ate.

For some people, eating is a way to punish someone.  If your lover wants you to slim down, (over)eating is a great passive-aggressive way to tell them, “mind your own damn business” (non-verbally, of course).  This is related to what I call “eating as rebellion”:  when you are pissed off with life, your job, boss, life and you don’t know what to do with all your anger and frustration.  Why not eat?  One client put it succinctly:  “I have to behave all the time; when I eat, I’m gonna eat exactly what I want, whenever I want it…and I don’t give a shit what anyone thinks.”  This client wasn’t aware of his own emotions.  Once he told himself the truth, e.g., “I feel angry and helpless and I don’t know what to do about my life” instead of (over)eating, he began to address the real problems in his life and not just “feed” his symptoms.

I do NOT believe that (over)eating is about being “lazy” or “weak” or “lacking willpower”.  I believe it is about being UNAWARE of what’s really going on with us and acting out (using food) to try and feel better.  When we (over)eat, we use food like a drug:  but like any drug, it wears off, and we end up back in the same place we started:  only fatter.  Most diets don’t work in the long run because they don’t address the MOTIVATION behind why we (over)eat.   So save yourself a lot of money; when you find yourself (over)eating, slow down, get quiet and ask yourself:  what’s really going on with me?

When you notice that you’re automatically walking towards your refrigerator, let your awareness of what’s going on inside you – your emotions – start you on the path to freedom from (over)eating.  You have nothing to lose but all your old diet books (give them to your favorite LGBT thrift shop) and those extra pounds that have never really gone away – until now.

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