The Tapping Solution for Weight Loss & Body Confidence (10 page)

Chapter 4

Overcoming Emotional Eating

E
motional eating often feels like our own dirty little secret, the source of equal servings of pleasure and shame. When we’re under the influence of emotional eating—whether we’re indulging a food craving, overeating to avoid our emotions, or constantly snacking—food becomes a toxic love affair. One moment we’re smitten, soothed in body and soul by whatever we’re eating. The next thing we know, we’re uncomfortably full, trying to digest equally oversized servings of food and guilt.

Making the final break from emotional eating can be incredibly difficult without tapping. It’s a behavioral pattern that we often don’t believe we can control. When we feel emotionally vulnerable, it’s easy to crawl back into the arms of food. It never judges you. It’s always there to comfort you. Food makes you feel happy and free until the toxic cycle of overindulgence and guilt repeats itself.

Next we’ll explore the different forms of emotional eating and then discover how to break free from emotional eating. First, however, we need to understand more about this misunderstood topic by looking at why we tend to overindulge in certain kinds of foods.

Why We Overeat

When we’re taking a closer look at emotional eating behaviors, it’s important to consider how the food we turn to when we’re under the influence of emotional eating impacts our physiology. Most of us tend to indulge in simple carbohydrates—sugary or salty high-carbohydrate foods like cookies, chips, candy, ice cream, and more. What’s interesting is that these foods can act like drugs in the body, making us feel calm and happy very quickly, although only for a short time.

Science has confirmed that simple carbohydrates increase the concentration of an amino acid called tryptophan in the brain. Tryptophan is a building block of serotonin, a transmitter that, when released, gives you that calm, happy feeling. In other words, part of the reason it’s so difficult to put the bag of chips or box of sweet treats down is that while you eat these foods, your brain is “high” on serotonin. The foods themselves trigger the reward centers in your brain, flooding your system with “feel good” chemicals. For a brief time, you feel amazing. It’s no wonder you struggle to stop after just one cookie!

During an interview I did with tapping expert Brad Yates, he said something that struck me: “Self-sabotage is simply misguided self-love.” When I began thinking about how that applies to emotional eating, I could see exactly how true that statement felt.

When we’re in that moment of serotonin-fueled bliss, emotional eating feels like a way to nurture, love, and validate ourselves. We may think something like,
I did so much today, I deserve this
. Using food as a reward isn’t a habit we picked up by ourselves. Thinking back to childhood, how many times were we told that if we were good we’d get a cookie? In that moment we understood that sugary treats are a way to appreciate our own goodness. It makes perfect sense, then, that in adulthood we continue to see food as a way to reward ourselves.

Food Cravings: When the I NEED IT NOW! Urge Strikes

Succumbing to cravings is an incredibly common form of emotional eating, even though at the moment when the craving strikes, it often feels like a very real physical need. Cravings are also a symptom we experience in our struggle with weight loss.

Jenna experienced such intense cravings for her favorite snack, Ritz crackers with cream cheese, that she found herself driving faster on her way home from work in anticipation of eating them. Once home, she dove into her favorite treat before even closing the cupboard door. Then she zoned out, eating past the point of fullness while standing in front of the kitchen counter. It was a bad habit, she knew, but she couldn’t seem to stop it.

One day Jenna did some tapping on her craving while driving home, taking a moment to tap at every red light. Once she got home, she felt so relaxed and in control that she didn’t feel the need to rush into the kitchen. Her physical craving wasn’t hijacking her anymore. She later realized that what she had really been craving was a way to let go of the workday, and simply tapping on the symptom—the craving—had taken care of this desire to eat.

This “symptom tapping,” which is tapping on the craving itself, can often produce very fast results.

To begin addressing cravings you may have, let’s now do some tapping directly on the food you most often crave. Just by tapping on the craving itself and the feeling of desperation around needing it, you can calm the body and relieve the craving.

Really think about the food you’re craving; even try to intensify the craving. Give your craving a number of intensity from 0 to 10 and begin tapping while you focus on that craving sensation. Here is an example:
Karate Chop:
Even though I need this chocolate, I accept how I feel and it’s safe to relax now. (
Repeat three times.
)
Eyebrow:
I need this chocolate.

Side of Eye:
I have to have it now.

Under Eye:
This craving for chocolate …

Under Nose:
This pressure in my body …

Chin:
I need it now.

Collarbone:
This craving for chocolate …

Under Arm:
This intense craving …

Top of Head:
I can’t focus on anything else.

Check in with yourself. Has the intensity of your craving shifted? Continue tapping until the intensity is 5 or lower before moving to the positive round.

Eyebrow:
I can have the chocolate …

Side of Eye:
Or not have the chocolate.

Under Eye:
I feel calm now.

Under Nose:
I feel centered now.

Chin:
Maybe I’ll have some now.

Collarbone:
Maybe I’ll have some later.

Under Arm:
I am in control.

Top of Head:
I choose what’s best for me.

Take a deep breath and check in with how you feel. Measure the intensity again and continue tapping until you experience relief.

When cravings strike and feel too strong to resist, you can tap on them first thing each morning. That calming effect will help you throughout the day.

When the Craving Won’t Go Away

While most food cravings are tied to emotions, some are more deeply rooted in emotions than others. When symptom tapping doesn’t calm your desire to indulge, that’s usually a sign that your craving is tied to deeper emotions. In the moment, however, it may not seem like you’re having a deep emotional experience. More likely it feels like the cookies are screaming, “
Eat me now!
” That’s because your body is stuck in a panic response, making it impossible to reason your way through the experience. To figure out the real source of your craving, you first need to do some tapping to quiet the panic. You might begin by tapping on your karate chop point with a setup statement like, “Even though I can’t get rid of this craving for cookies, I love and accept myself, and I’m okay.”

Once you’ve done some tapping to quiet that initial panic and connect to your intuition, you may find it easier to answer the question, “What am I
really
craving?” This is when things get fun. You become your own investigator, able to tap on the emotions that are fueling your emotional eating.

Before doing some investigating of our own, let’s discuss what’s happening behind the scenes, in our unconscious mind, when we resort to emotional eating behaviors, including food cravings. The unconscious mind, which includes the almond-shaped amygdala in the brain, is charged with keeping us safe. It’s designed to protect us from emotions, experiences, and memories that seem threatening. In this way emotional eating becomes useful, because while we’re inhaling an entire pizza or chocolate cake, we’re better able to avoid facing whatever experiences, memories, or emotions the unconscious mind has labeled as threatening.

When we get clear on what we’re really craving—the unmet need the unconscious mind is using emotional eating to avoid—we can fill that need with a healthier habit. That’s when real and lasting change occurs, as it did for Jenna, who realized she could use tapping to lower her stress after work instead of stuffing herself with Ritz crackers and cream cheese.

From one person to the next, sometimes one day to the next, there is a broad range of emotions that the unconscious mind may be trying to avoid, using emotional eating as a convenient distraction. While it can be an intense emotion such as anger, there is no hard-and-fast rule. One emotion we tend to underestimate is boredom, a common source of emotional eating. Rather than signaling that you need a new activity or diversion, persistent boredom can be an indication that there’s a lack of passion in your life. That unmet need for passion can lead you to seek pleasure in food, which provides a temporary “high.”

For a more complete list of the feelings you may be trying to avoid through emotional eating, you may want to refer back to the more comprehensive list of emotions that tapping can clear in
Chapter 2
PAST EVENTS (TRUNK)
.

Discovering the Root of Your Emotional Eating

Now that we’ve discussed what emotional eating is and why it’s so hard to stop without tapping, it’s time to return to investigative work and figure out what’s fueling your emotional eating.

WHEN EMOTIONAL EATING IS A WAY TO AVOID CERTAIN FEELINGS

When we feel like we’re dying to devour the nearest treat, we’re often trying to avoid challenging emotions. That was the case for Joanne, who realized by tapping on her cravings how often she had been using food to “stuff down” her feelings. It wasn’t just one or two specific emotions that she was trying to avoid, but the actual experience of feeling her emotions
at all
that frequently sent her running to the kitchen.

Samantha, on the other hand, realized one day that she had been resorting to emotional eating to avoid a specific feeling. A retired teacher and aspiring author, she had spent all morning working on her children’s book but had made very little progress. When lunchtime rolled around, she went into her kitchen intending to make a healthy lunch. The moment she spotted the two boxes of cookies in her cabinet, however, she felt desperate to devour them all.

As soon as her craving hit, she began tapping while standing in her kitchen and realized that an old fear-fueled “tape” had been running through her brain. The tape was her mind’s way of expressing her fear and anxiety around her book. It went something like this:
I’ll never get published … who am I to write this book, anyway? I’m not a real writer.
Once she had tapped on her fear and anxiety around writing, her craving for cookies vanished and she was able to enjoy a healthy and satisfying lunch.

WHAT FEELING(S) ARE YOU TRYING TO AVOID THROUGH EMOTIONAL EATING BEHAVIORS?

Take a moment now to ask yourself what feeling(s) you are trying to avoid. Tapping while asking yourself a question can calm your mind enough that it then becomes easier to access the answer. If you find it helpful to tap through the points each time you ask yourself a question during the exercises, feel free to do that for each of them.

Here’s a tapping script to get you started:

Karate Chop:
Even though I need this food to quiet this feeling, I love and accept myself. (
Repeat three times.
)
Eyebrow:
I need to eat this now.

Side of Eye:
I feel this feeling building up.

Under Eye:
I don’t want to feel it.

Under Nose:
It’s too much to handle.

Chin:
It feels hopeless …

Collarbone:
So I need this food.

Under Arm:
It’s the only way I’ll get through the day.

Top of Head:
All of these feelings behind the craving …

Ask yourself again: What emotions might be behind my emotional eating, whether it’s overeating or indulging a craving? What emotions or negative thoughts am I trying to avoid? Get clear on these and write down their intensity on a scale of 0 to 10. Give those feelings a voice and continue tapping. Once you are at least below an intensity of 5, move on to the positive statements.

Eyebrow:
I feel the peace I crave.

Side of Eye:
I feel the love I crave.

Under Eye:
I don’t need to find all the answers.

Under Nose:
I simply find relief in this moment.

Chin:
It’s safe to feel these feelings …

Collarbone:
And to let them go.

Under Arm:
I can find the relaxation I crave now.

Top of Head:
I honor my body by eating lovingly and consciously.

Remember: as you do your tapping, use the tapping scripts I provide as your prompt and then move into your specific answer(s) to the question in each exercise.

Emotional Eating Triggers

Margaret had gained 15 pounds in six months. Feeling defeated and depressed, she shared that she couldn’t stop snacking. “I work from home,” she said, “and I find myself constantly in the kitchen. I can’t figure out why.” When I asked her what had happened six months earlier that would lead her to gain this weight, she said that was when she started her new job. “Is your new job stressful?” I asked. “Yes!” she blurted out. “My new boss is driving me crazy.”