EP #13: Emotional eating
We have the desire to overeat for three main reasons: 1. because we use food to anesthetize painful emotions, 2. because of how we’re conditioned to eat by society, and 3. because of how our dopamine system is hijacked by high-sugar foods. You can begin to unlearn that desire by understanding how we use food to deaden uncomfortable feelings, how we’re conditioned to overeat, and how the neurotransmitter dopamine works. We’re going to take these one at a time. Episode 13 tackles how we use food to escape emotions. In this episode, we continue the discussion we began in Episode 3 about using self-regard as your key ally to end your binges. Self-regard can help you deal with your unhappiness with your weight, the temptation to diet to lose that weight and control your eating, your urges to binge, the bingeing itself, and weight loss after you stop bingeing.