How to Correct Emotional Eating
Emotional eaters come in all shapes, sizes, ages, and persuasions. Just about everyone is prone to emotional
eating from very young children to older adults. What differentiates emotional eaters from
those who are not?
Although there may be many reasons for emotional eating,
I tend to look at the biological basis for this unhealthy habit. Many of us are driven to eat “comfort food”
when the stress hormone, cortisol, is elevated. Comfort food, like pizza, macaroni and cheese,
and ice cream is not called comfort food just because it tastes good. It is called “comfort food” because it
literally lowers cortisol levels.
Despite what you may think, cortisol isn’t always bad.
If it weren’t for cortisol, we’d have a
very unproductive day. Cortisol is what
gets us moving in the morning and motivates us to meet tight deadlines. On a typical day, cortisol levels drop roughly
two hours after you wake up. This is
actually the best time to have that first cup of coffee because caffeine
stimulates cortisol levels. So, you don’t really need coffee as soon as you
wake up because your cortisol levels are already high; a cup of coffee will
just make them higher.
If chronically elevated levels of stress hormone promote
emotional eating, then what can we do to lower cortisol levels? Cortisol is produced from the adrenal glands,
which are tiny appendages that sit on top of your kidneys. It is part of the “HPA” axis that stands for
hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis, a glandular system for controlling stress.
The key to a healthy HPA axis rests in the gut. The bacteria that live in your large intestine
ensure the functionality of this system by producing serotonin, a
neurotransmitter that promotes well-being. Since 90% of serotonin is produced in the gut,
a happy, healthy digestive track will insure a well-developed HPA axis.
Unfortunately, comfort foods do a terrible job of
ensuring that the bacteria that live in your gut are well-fed. Gut microbes thrive on “prebiotic” foods such
as leafy greens, oats, asparagus, artichokes, onions, garlic, and the like. They do not live on sugar and processed carbs.
As a matter of fact, pathogens, such as
yeast, love sugar and carbs, which are the root cause of so many systemic yeast
infections. (I had a sweet 7-year-old in the office today, who loves crackers
and cookies, showing me her eczema and swollen eyes - a sure sign of a yeast
infection). A well-fed, healthy
digestive track ensures production of serotonin and the neurotransmitter, dopamine,
that make you calm, happy, and motivated.
Gut health is established at birth and, as a result,
it’s greatly impacted by the gut health of the mother and the type of
birth. If the mother has poor gut health
(and likely, a poorly functioning HPA axis) then baby will, too. Cesarean section deliveries correlate with
fewer microbes, less diversity of microbes, and higher levels of pathogens. This, in turn, effects development of the HPA
axis. It is certainly possible to
correct this, but only if the baby is well-fed.
As we get older, we have the opportunity to either improve
the functionality of the HPA axis or to ensure its demise. Taking a probiotic (i.e. a supplement
that supplies billions of beneficial microbes to support gut health) helps, but
we also need to feed these bacteria the food they love. If the diet does not
contain the prebiotic foods previously mentioned, the bacteria in your gut will
starve to death and, in a last-ditch effort to stay alive, they will eat you!
Once I clean up my patients’ diets, they frequently
tell me how much better they feel mentally and physically, and how they are
sleeping better at night. Emotional
eating simply begets emotional eating. The
more comfort food we eat the more we damage the health of the gut. It is a vicious cycle that has dire health
consequences. Poor gut health correlates
with just about every health condition including anxiety and depression,
metabolic and autoimmune diseases, cancer, and even drug addiction. Initially, ignoring comfort food cravings
will be hard, so alternative strategies for lowering cortisol are needed. The best antidote, for sure, is exercise.
Walking outdoors is exceptionally helpful, but I also encourage the kind of
exercise promoted by THE MAX Challenge, that makes you sweat and your heart beat
faster (though, for some people, walking does indeed do the trick).
I also encourage meditation. I recently hosted a transcendental meditation (TM)
tutorial, and it was quite informative. Closing
your eyes and clearing the mind is incredibly effective at lowering cortisol
levels. Studies have shown that it even
improves gut health.
Although I am not a psychotherapist, I believe that cognitive
behavior therapy (CBT) may be used to make people more aware of issues that
artificially stimulate their appetite. A
psychotherapist can also provide some coping skills that may be used as a
substitute for emotional eating.
If you are concerned about your eating habits and feel
that emotional eating is something that needs to be addressed, please feel free
to book an appointment at www.egglrock.com.
Dr. Laura would be happy to help you
identify the root cause of this futile habit so that you may establish a
healthier relationship with food.
This article was published in The MAX Factor magazine,
Volume 2, Issue 1
