There is a big movement, especially on social media, to be body positive. It is the idea that you feel positive about your body—embracing how it looks, how you feel in it—most of the time. It is meant to lead to more self-confidence, self-love, and total acceptance of your weight, which all sounds great!

… But what if you’ve spent years absorbing diet culture messaging? Or you eat emotionally and that leads to feelings of shame and guilt around your body? It can seem impossible to get to a place where you unconditionally love your body and actively feel positive about it.

This is where the idea of body neutrality comes in.

Being “neutral” about something means you don’t have any positive or negative feelings about a topic, it simply is. This is something you can apply to how you feel about your body. If you constantly beat yourself up after going clothes shopping or suck in your stomach every time you look in a mirror, you might find ALL...

When TV shows and media show us what an emotional eater looks like, it is usually someone who would be categorized as obese by the BMI chart. Their rolls and double chin are highlighted to create a character that seems lazy or is the punchline in a few jokes. Not only is this incredibly harmful messaging to those in bigger bodies, it also isn’t indicative of the experience of all emotional eaters.

But there is no one body type for emotional eaters, it can affect anyone.

They could identify as male or female.

They could be a preteen or a person in their 50s.

They could be from any cultural background.

They could reach for savoury or sweet foods when an emotion comes up.

What they do all have in common is that is that they eat to sooth themselves. When a feeling comes up that they can’t manage or don’t want to feel, they reach for food as a distraction, to numb out, even to bring some control or joy to the moment.

While from a caloric perspective, it is true that...

The holiday season often feels like it is an emotional minefield. It can bring up memories of our childhood or longer hours at work. It can exacerbate anxiety with the increase in social situations or kick perfectionist into high gear when we decorate, plan, and host.

But one of the most painful emotions to come up during the holidays can be loneliness.  We’re reminded of family we’ve cut ties with or loved ones who have passed away. Maybe even friends you once would have celebrated with are no longer close by. And it isn’t always a physical distance, sometimes we may feel like we’re not relating to our community as they manage their own holiday stressors and expectations. For a season that is about connecting with others, it can really hit home that our family and friends’ groups have gotten smaller or busier.

While feeling lonely during the holidays might not be entirely avoided, there are ways to plan and manage it, so it feels less like a...

As an emotional eater, chances are there is a part (maybe a big part) of you that dreads eating with others. From family dinners to nights out with friends, to team building events at work, there is just too much opportunity to have our weight and eating habits criticized.

Food shaming is a common minefield when at a gathering that revolves around food. It can start on the inside; our thoughts swirl and we chastise ourselves over what we eat and drink in front of others. As a way to protect ourselves, our mind starts churning out warning thoughts and plans:

“Someone is going to look at me, look at my plate, and tell me that’s why I’m fat.”

“I’m so uncomfortable in my body, everyone is looking at me.”

“I am going to be perfect and only order a salad.”

“Will I fit in the chair at the restaurant?”

Sound familiar? Its likely that whatever thoughts come up from you, they stem from the idea that you will be judged by others...

Let’s talk about the messaging about food we absorb. While the concept is simple—what we hear and how it affects us—breaking down where we get these messages from, and if we should listen to them, is a bit more complicated.

There’s what your parents taught you. This might sound like “finish your plate”, “no dessert until you eat your vegetables”, “don’t be such a couch potato.”

There’s what the diet and food industries are repeating. “Lose 50 lbs in a month”, “workout only 20 minutes to blast fat”, “you too can have a celebrity body!” They’ll have us believe that bread is terrible for us, but a lab-made protein powder is the answer to our weight loss visions.

These two examples may be ones you’ve come to be more aware of as you’ve gotten older, read more, or even worked with a therapist on. But one area you may not know you’re getting messaging about is...

Now that you’ve settle a little into the fall routine—kids are back in school, summer getaways have ended—you may find yourself refreshed and feeling ready to tackle whatever it is that’s coming up at work. That is a sign of a summer well spent!

Feeling so good might have you taking on more projects at work or overscheduling your time. In order to try and keep a balance (at least most of the time), it is important to notice any signs of burnout early on. While that term can feel scary and so serious that you think “nah, I’d notice if anything was off”, burnout can creep in in ways that you might think are normal. Unfortunately, many workplaces have made these symptoms acceptable and even encourage competition around the water cooler.

Here are five signs to watch out for:

1. Poor performance. Usually, you find you can start and finish projects to your own set of standards, but lately you feel like you can’t keep up or give the level you...

It is common to suffer from low self-esteem here and there. But often when someone is in an emotional spiral, or their depression is strong, out inner critic seems to be blasting negative thoughts on repeat. And it can be extremely powerful as it uses the first person:

• “I’m so fat. No wonder no one loves me.”
• “Look at how I jiggle. I’m so disgusting.”

Sometimes the voice might instruct you to pinch, suck in, or smooth certain parts of your body. These thoughts can feel true to us if we don’t challenge them. But how do you even begin to do that? Let’s look at the same comments above and see how we might push back against them:

• “I’m so fat. No wonder no one loves me. Wait. This can’t be true, my partner/friends/family tell me they love me.”
• “Look at how I jiggle. I’m so disgusting. STOP! That thought isn’t helping me.”

In both examples, you can see there is a need to break the negative...

Emotional eaters tend to be tempted by a quick fix, especially if you’re weight goes up and down with your feelings. Heck, that’s how they sell diets to us again and again: “lose 20 lbs in a week!”, “Here’s the one thing you need for lasting weight loss.” The truth is, there is no quick fix when it comes to a healthy lifestyle. And that’s true about therapy too.

When first dipping their toe into therapy, clients will often begin look for a concrete timeline on when they can expect to have managed their grief or processed their trauma. This makes sense: we want to know when the tough stuff will end so we can get on with living out lives. But the difficult thing about these experiences that impact our emotions, outlooks, and actions, is that they will always be with us in some capacity.

But don’t lose hope! Therapy not only gives you an outlet to process your emotions, but you also learn strategies along the way that you can draw...

As an emotional eater, it may be difficult to separate the answer to this question. It is a classics chicken-egg conundrum.

When you feel strong emotions—grief, anger, anxiety—it is likely that you turn to food to sooth them away. Likely the foods you choose are ones that bring you a sense of comfort (you have happy memories associated with it) and give you a dose of the feel-good serotonin followed by a sugar crash that might made you feel dull or tired enough to sleep (and block out all feelings). These foods are likely high in fat, sugar, and taste amazing! But they are the kinds of foods that can lead to weight gain if eaten quickly and without mindfulness. In this scenario, weight gain comes from the food used to calm emotions like depression.

On the other hand, it is natural to gain weight as life circumstances change like becoming a new mom, after a breakup, or during a global pandemic. In these scenarios, you might find that you’ve gained weight and begin...

You have often heard us say that emotional eating is never about the food, it is about the feeling behind how and what you eat.

You may want to eat six doughnuts because the sugar “coma” helps you feel numb to emotions.

Or one of your binge foods of choice might be birthday cake because you have positive memories of feeling good attached to that food.

Managing your wellbeing—mental, physical, emotional—and how your feelings react to triggers, can seem overwhelming since there are so many things to consider! This is why today we’re breaking down the 7 pillars of wellness and providing realistic ways to support each one in your life.

There is no need to overhaul your day-to-day life or try and focus on perfecting your approach to each one (because there is no such thing as perfect). After reading the explanations below, think about which one or two pillars you are called to and see if you can bring more awareness and action to that area of your life.

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