The following blog posts talks about weight loss. If this is something that might bring up negative feelings for you, please skip this post to protect your mental and physical health.

Weight loss can happen for all kinds of reasons, from anxiety to happiness to stress to a change in routine. So, it should come as no surprise that emotional eaters come in all shapes and sizes! What I often hear from clients who have lost weight on their journey is that they still find themselves criticizing their body in the same way as when they weighed more.

Does that surprise you?

Many people I work with at the Centre for Emotional Eating believe that if they could just “get a handle” on their emotional eating that everything would all into place—their waistline would shrink, they’d be a kinder person, get that promotion, they’d finally do that thing they’ve always want to.

This is why dieting is so tempting: it markets itself as a cure-all when in reality it keeps you stuck in failure mode beca...

It’s true that we never really know what someone else is going through. We’ve covered in another post how not all emotional eaters are overweight, and sometimes emotional eating can lead to weight loss in an unexpected way.

For some clients, when emotions run high, they feel the need to control their eating as a way of trying to control their lives. For them it feels like the only thing they have power over is what they put in their mouth—not their kid’s tantrum, their boss’s feedback, or their partner’s attitude.

While in this scenario there is an absence of food, instead of a binge, it is still emotional eating because a person’s eating pattern has changed in response to emotional experiences. For example, this can look like telling yourself you’re too busy to eat, believing you’re not worthy of nourishment, not having motivation to cook and eat, or feeling a physical surge of anxiety that makes your stomach queasy. Experiencing these actions long enough can lead to weight loss.

T...

The anniversary of the death of a loved one comes with its own unique challenges. Unlike birthdays or weddings, the day your loved one passed is a focal point for your grief and can bring all the feelings of loss right back to the surface. 

While you might expect the day to be difficult, you might find engaging in some sort of memorial—big or small—can be a lovely way to honour their memory and support your own mental health.

There are so many ways you can honour your loved one! To get you thinking about what might be helpful for you, here’s a list of 10 things you can do to remember your person. You can either choose to do something by yourself or with others—the choice is completely up to you and there is no right or wrong way to mourn.

1. Hold space to let out the emotions—cry, rage, whatever! Sometimes a sad playlist or movie will allow the tears to flow, other times you might want to sweat it out at the gym.
2. Visit their final resting place. Bring flowers, read a poem, or simpl
...

A non-diet approach can mean freedom from:

… food rules.

… an obsession with weight and body measurements.

… grueling workouts you hate.

… guilt and shame around what you choose to eat.

Sounds pretty good, right?! Our bodies are so much more than calories in/calories out. Even if you worked out and ate the exact same as your friend, you both would still look and feel different. In fact, a non-diet approach acknowledges that every person’s body is different and there is no one-size-fits-all way of eating or looking (the opposite of what diet culture wants you to think!).

A non-diet approach believes that every person is unique and that your body knows what it best for it—this goes for eating and movement. You might have come across terminology like “intuitive eating” or “mindful movement”, which is just a way of saying that you turn inwards to be aware of your own needs and bodily cues. For example, your cravings could reveal vitamin deficiencies or you might find certain movement...

January always has that fresh feeling! There are 12 months to come and the possibilities feel endless. This might give you the knee-jerk feeling to set all the goals, including weight loss ones. You might be thinking, in this atmosphere that feels like anything is possible, that *this* year is the one you “lose the weight for good.” You’ve made a grocery list, thrown out the last of the holiday foods, and you signed up for that new gym membership.

But did you know that about 95% of diets fail? January might feel new and exciting, but many weight loss resolutions end before it even becomes February. That’s because restriction sets you up for binge eating—it becomes a cycle where you are depriving yourself “on the wagon” and then feel out of control when you give into cravings.

Instead of focussing on the number on the scale, here are examples of New Year’s resolutions to support your mind, body, and soul!

Add happiness habits.

You’ll notice this one is about adding in new things, in...

You might think of emotional eating as something that comes up for you when you have strong feelings like anger, stress, or sadness. These are emotions that are usually easy to identify by your inner dialogue or your outward reactions like tears or yelling. But emotional eating can sneak in with all kinds of feelings.

Ones you may not have thought about is eating when you’re bored or lonely. These reasons for overeating can be challenging to identify because we often do them without any sense of awareness. You’re not feeling overly emotional and yet you find yourself walking the same route to the fridge or pantry thinking it is simply routine.

When you’re bored or lonely, food as a solution to missing a connection makes sense. Your favorite treats feel comforting, plus they are easily available—it never lets you down or doesn’t show up (like you might be feeling about people).

The first thing to do is to find out what kind of connection you’re looking for: is it a social connection ...

Have you ever noticed that when you wipe down the kitchen you immediately feel a sense of calm? Or maybe you love to light a candle during the cold, dark winter months. These are great examples of how small alterations to your environment can boost your mood in seconds. And we recommend finding more ways to add these things to your every day! It is a great way to tailor your environment, stack the deck if you will, to bring more joy and relaxation into your daily life.

You might think: “I don’t have the budget to upgrade my house!” While of course we’d all love to decorate or renovate our homes to fit our ideal dreams, you don’t have to go all out (and drop a lot of money) to see mental health benefits. You can try:

1. Sparkle and shine. Let’s face it: cleaning the entire house feels overwhelming! Instead, shift your focus and make it your goal to clean only one room in your house. We suggest choosing the one you spend the most time in, so you get the most recharging bang for your buc
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The following blog posts talks about calorie counting in some detail. If this is something that might bring up negative feelings for you, please skip this post to protect your mental and physical health. 💛

After eating emotionally you might be thinking you need to do a complete 180 and get really strict about what and how you’re going to eat next. A common way to feel in control of your eating is to count your calories. It’s become so easy these days as the diet industry has created apps that are always in the palm of our hands and can even scan labels!

Often clients will be able to white knuckle their way through a few days of eating low calorie only to find themselves binge eating at the first sign of stress, alone time, or even faced with a dinner they can’t ‘log’. And it can feel like being right back where you started after the initial overeating episode.

Very often it feels scary to let go of counting calories, but doing so can bring you back in-tune with your body in a way yo...

For many of you who have been on the diet rollercoaster for years, you probably have collected two wardrobes: one you’re trying to feel good in now and the other is the clothes you hope to fit back into one day. You might even find yourself putting off buying clothes you feel your best in because you’re waiting to lose weight and don’t want to ‘waste’ the money.

Here at the Centre for Emotional Eating we hear this from clients often! Not only is there a wish to one day be the smaller size you were previously, a lot of the time you also have emotional ties to those clothes because of who you were when you wore them. For example, one client loved her blouses and pencil skirts because it reminded her of a time when she was happy in her career.

But getting rid of these clothes will not only free up real space in your closet it will also free up mental space. Here’s what we hear from clients once they’ve taken the plunge and cleaned out their closets of clothes that no longer fit them or ...

A lot of emotional eaters use food rules to try and control their eating. This might look like:

• Counting calories, points, or macros.
• Not eating after 7:00 p.m.
• Not eating or limiting carbs, sugar, or fat.
• Leaving food on your plate.
• Drinking coffee or diet soda to fend off hunger.

Sound familiar? These rigid rules are a reaction to the out-of-control-feeling experienced when strong emotions take over and you head to the fridge looking for something to numb out on. We learn rules from our parents, friendship circles, diet culture, and social media. These rules also make you feel as if you are in control (at least for a little while), which makes it extra frustrating when you “fall off the wagon.”

It may seem logical to try and balance situations where you eat a lot of food with other times of much less food, but the truth is it doesn’t even out that way… And you end up getting stuck in the restrict/binge cycle. This looks like: strict diet > have a craving or emotional exper...