Solutions:

Support for Emotional and Binge Eating

Session 17: Understanding Hunger and Emotional Eating

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Check-In
• Identify at least one success and one challenge from the past
week.

• Did you notice any fight/flight/freeze activation states this

past week? Did you practice any somatic techniques for self-
regulation?

• How can the group support you this week?

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Quote of the Week
Emotional eating is an attempt to deal with a tough problem, feeling, or
situation that we don’t know how to deal with and may not know that we
have without a symptom to remind us.
…..When we strip away the judgement of emotional eating, and stop calling
it a disease, a defect, or a problem… we can finally see it for what it is: An
alert that something in our life needs our attention. Something completely
unrelated to food or our weight. Be grateful for the reminder. It might be
saving your life.
-Isabel Foxen Duke

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From Intuitive to Emotional Eating
Infants and young children have an intuitive sense of what and how much to eat and
are tuned into the messages from their bodies.

As naturally intuitive eaters get older, the environment teaches unhelpful habits
related to food and eating and the mind learns to override the body’s cues.

The intuition we had as infants disappears under this pressure from many
biopsychosocialcultural factors and food begins to serve many purposes (sooth,
distract, procrastinate, numb, entertain, seduce, reward, and even to punish)

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Discussion Question
What factors have moved you further away from intuitive eating?

• Food/eating rules
• Diets
• Weight Stigma
• Access to food
• Work schedules
• Cultural/Family norms
• Abundance exposure
• Sports

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The Role of Emotional Eating in Your Life
Eating is naturally an emotional experience. It offers feelings of
satisfaction and pleasure, as well as feeling connected with loved
ones.

However, relying on food as a primary way to manage emotions

can lead to feeling compelled to eat, eating to discomfort, or
bingeing.

What feelings do you tend to use food to cope with?

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The Role of Emotional Eating in Your Life

When it comes to emotional eating, it’s not the feeling itself

that causes you to eat. Rather, it’s the difficulty with
tolerating the feeling at a particular time that drives the urge
to cope with food. Think of it as an issue with emotion
regulation, not emotions themselves.

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Discussion Question
How does food help you at times when you’re having difficulty tolerating the
emotions you identified from the previous question? Feel free to add any
additional functions food serves for you:

• Soothe
• Calm
• Distract
• Comfort
• Numb
From: The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating &
• ________________ Body Image Workbook (Matz, Pershing, & Harrison, 2024)

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What are you actually hungry for?
When you notice you’re reaching for food as an attempt to cope with emotions, ask
yourself what else you might be hungry for, in addition to food.
(Are you lonely and hungry for connection? Bored and hungry for stimulation?)

We can use different emotion regulation strategies to meet our needs in the moment.
These are NOT strategies for controlling your eating, but rather strategies to manage and
tolerate emotional distress.
• Calm- light a candle or listen to music
• Comfort- connect with a pet or a friend
• Soothe- take a warm bath or spend some time in nature
• Distract- read a book or complete a puzzle
From: The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating &
• Numb- go to sleep Body Image Workbook (Matz, Pershing, & Harrison, 2024)

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What are you actually hungry for?
After identifying the need, try other ways of meeting it. If you’re not
able to respond to your emotions and meet your needs differently,
remember:

• Food will always be an option to cope with feelings.

• There are good reasons why you still use food to cope- it works!
• Developing new ways of coping takes time.

From: The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook (Matz, Pershing, & Harrison, 2024)

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Regaining Intuitive Eating
Can we regain our natural intuition with food?

YES!

But to do this, we must reconnect our mind with our body.

With mindfulness and self-attunement, we can begin to
untangle and separate these different experiences of hunger
and learn to recognize and meet our needs effectively.

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Your Hunger Cues- How do you know when
you’re hungry?
Make a list of any hunger signals you experience. These can
include physical sensations, thoughts, and feelings.
1. ___________________________
2. ___________________________
3. ___________________________
4. ___________________________
5. ___________________________
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 Using the Hunger Scale
• The hunger scale can help you tune in and connect with your
sensations of hunger and fullness.
• When you register feeling hungry, ask yourself how hungry
you feel with the hunger scale above.
• Most people feel comfortable beginning to eat at a 3 and
finishing eating at a 7.
• It’s normal to get into the 1-2 and 8-10 ranges at times.
Respond to these hunger ratings with extra care and
compassion!
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 Honoring Hunger Cues
Consider eating when you feel somewhat hungry or hungry- this is your body telling
you it needs nourishment before the hunger becomes overpowering.
Challenges to honoring hunger (identify which you relate to):
• I don’t notice hunger until I’m ravenous.
• Experiencing hunger is uncomfortable due to distress from past experiences of dieting or
food insecurity.
• I’m neurodivergent and struggle to identify internal cues.
• I have frequent binges or emotional eating episodes, so I often don’t get hungry.
• My medication interferes with hunger cues.
• I have a trauma history and disconnecting from my body is still a way I survive.
• Other ___________________________________________________________
(Matz, Pershing & Harrison, 2024)
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 Honoring Fullness Cues with AIM
• Attunement: Reconnecting with your body and increasing satisfaction when you eat.
Examples- asking yourself “Am I hungry?” and “What am I hungry for?”

• Intention: Before eating, consider how you want to feel on the fullness side of the
hunger scale when you’re done eating and the amount of food you think you’ll need
to get there. After eating, check in with your body non-judgmentally and notice if
you’re at the level of fullness you wanted to be at. If not, consider if you were
hungrier that you thought or if any forms of restriction drove you to eat more.

• Mindfulness: Notice how food tastes and feels in your body without judgment. Let go
of any thoughts that stop you from being present with food (calorie or point counting,
rules about whether you’re “allowed” to eat).
(Matz, Pershing & Harrison, 2024)
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 Eating with the intention of caring
What is for yourself and with the attention
Mindful necessary for noticing and enjoying
your food, along with its effects on
Eating? your body.

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Mindful eating encompasses…
• Awareness of your physical and emotional cues.
• Recognition of your non-hunger triggers for eating.
• Learning to meet your other needs in more effective ways than
eating.
• Choosing food for both enjoyment and nourishment.
• Eating for optimal satisfaction and satiety.
• Using the fuel you’ve consumed to live the vibrant life you crave.

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 Only food will satisfy physical
Keep in hunger. However, there are many
mind… alternatives to food for satisfying
emotional hunger.

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6 Easy Guidelines for Mindful Eating
Eat Slowly
Eat enough to satisfy your hunger
Give your body the energy it needs
Find a satisfying & appealing substitute
Out of sight, out of mind
Balance inner critic with loving kindness

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Discussion What skills can I use to minimize emotional
eating and begin to regain trust in intuitive
Question eating?

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Any last thoughts or questions?

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Different • Physical Hunger (stomach hunger)
Types of
Hunger • Emotional Hunger (head hunger)

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 Emotional vs. Physical Hunger
Emotional Hunger Physical Hunger

• Sudden • Gradual
• For a specific food • Open to different foods
• Above the neck • Based in the stomach
• Urgent • Patient
• Paired w/ upsetting emotion • Occurs out of physical need
• Automatic/absent-minded eating • Deliberate choices/awareness
• No response to fullness • Stops eating when satisfied
• Guilt about eating • Realizes eating is necessary
http://hsc.usf.edu/NR/rdonlyres/435CB8AC-84C4-491B-920E-785F4E1A34F0/26063/8TraitsofEmotionalHunger.pdf
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Discussion Questions
• What are my most common traits of emotional hunger?

• What are my “false alarm” signals that I tend to confuse with

physical hunger?

• What triggers my emotional hunger cues?

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