Emotional Eating / Overeating
Therapy to modify your habits
I can help with your disordered eating
Emotional Eating / Overeating
What if your food and weight issues are not about food? What if these issues are about how you use food to deal with your emotions, experiences from your past, and beliefs that have resulted from past hurts or traumas? You might be using food to cope with sadness, grief and so many different negative emotions. It is time you address this in a deeper way instead of dieting.
Stress / Anxiety
Stress is the number one cause of emotional eating and bingeing. When you are stressed you eat comfort foods that make you feel better for a while. It works only temporarily. Repeating the behavior through stress or eating comfort foods promotes the compulsive nature of overeating. Stress makes you eat and eating regulates stress, a vicious circle you struggle to get out of.
Reasons Why You May Overeat
You are bored
You are angry
You are lonely
You are anxious or stressed
Your brain is conditioned
You are sad
What is Emotional Eating?
It’s is the act of eating due to a negative feeling. You reach out to high palatable foods (high in salt or sugar) when you are distressed and when you are full, you still have not addressed the source of the emotion.
Using food to cope with emotions comes in degrees of intensity. For some, food is simply a means of distraction from boring activities or a filler for empty times. For others, it can be the only comfort they have to get through the day or painful life.
You may emotionally eat if you encounter one of a kind stressors that you didn’t plan for such as loss of a job, relationship breakup, death in the family, etc. If your life is getting out of control, overeating will tell you.
The work I do is very comprehensive. The main goal is to get to the source of your negative emotions, reduce your urges to use food to cope, and change your habits.
We will not discuss weight loss or dieting. You will need to reject the diet mentality and make peace with food. It is important that we explore your beliefs so that your feelings and behaviors can also change.
I am aware that at this point, you don’t know what to do. All you have done in the past is to engage in a new diet. But this time, we will do a different type of work that does not involve restricting, dieting, counting, and all the behaviors you have engaged in the past that have not worked for you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I pay with Insurance?
At the moment, I am not paneled with any insurance companies. I accept credit cards, check or cash.
What if I want to lose weight?
Although we do not focus on weight loss in this program, an expected outcome of this therapy is the loss of weight. We do not count pounds, calories, or carbs during our work. We also do not refer to “diets”.
Are you familiar with HAES?
Yes. Health at Every Size is a movement that I am very familiar with. What I do for the client is to help the client not utilize food whenever they are in distress. I do not coach clients to lose weight.
Is this coaching?
No, this is therapy. Big difference 🙂
How long do sessions last?
50 minutes.
Can I see you via telehealth?
Yes! This is the type of work that we can do via telehealth. Otherwise, you can attend sessions in the office following all COVID-19 protocols.
Are you familiar with Intuitive Eating?
Yes. I utilize some elements of the Intuitive Eating body of work. I do not coach clients to lose weight.
How do you treat emotional eating?
I use EMDR as well as habit reversal techniques. This is a very comprehensive treatment and you would need to make a commitment to attend a minimum set of sessions.