Is She Ok? - Tackling Emotional Eating

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

This week Sophie & Chans take a deep dive into Emotional/Comfort/Over Eating. The girls discuss possible reasons for why so many women end up struggling with it, and what we can do to heal. If you want to continue the conversation, or reach out for coaching with Sophie, you can find us on Instagram @sophiegoorwich & @csahni.

Hi everyone and welcome to the Is She Okay podcast. I'm Chans and I'm Sophie and we're here to unpack life's ups and downs and all the in-betweens. Having the conversations every woman's thinking about but rarely says out loud. Every week we'll chat about topics that really matter, aiming to answer the question we all ask ourselves, is she okay? Oh oh hi hey how are you i'm good how are you doing good thank you are you okay chance how's your week been tell me all i am okay week has been god i don't even know i feel like it's gone past so quickly it's been good i think overall it's been good i no so that has not been resolved but i'm weirdly calm about it i feel like it's going to be a lot of work whenever it happens but it's just something that needs to get done basically our entire ceiling needs to be replaced

because we had a leak um for anyone who's listening um but no i'm feeling good I yeah I was as I was saying I don't have anything to complain about everything's feel feels pretty stable I don't want to jinx anything um having really nice to Cyrus how's the feeding he's just wonderful at the moment he's like he's really changed a lot I feel like at seven months, there's a huge leap in their learning. And he's like a bit more mobile and he's really enjoying food. And he just looks at me with these big eyes full of love. And actually today I was sat on the sofa

and he was just staring at me. And I just burst into tears. I was like, this is a feeling I've never had before. Obviously my husband looks at me quite lovingly every now and then but there was something about this look that just really filled me with so much love um so yeah I'm good Sophie are you okay I am okay same I mean like again you never want to jinx it when things are like okay right you're like where's where's the big problem occurring what's gonna happen now but yeah everything do you know what it's like it's calm like yes and I think that that's a I've had this conversation with

people before like I think that's quite a good place to be like no massive highs no massive lows and like I think it's that kind of homeostasis and I think that's nice in a relationship as well right where you don't have these like you don't necessarily need these like big highs and big lows and all these butterflies because actually that's just anxiety um yeah things are just kind of things are okay we um had the most extraordinary amount of snow here um i saw yeah manchester basically came to a or wilmsley came to a standstill schools were closed um like inches deep like the deepest snow I've experienced since I was a kid like it's been so jealous yeah it's been lovely um but obviously it comes with its own issues um but yeah it's been chilly minus six minus seven every day

yeah um do you know what's really funny though like for me this just sums up like the human experience and that when it was snowing all everyone did was complain that it was snowing and that was a lot of melt because it was like two degrees today and now all you're hearing is like oh it was so pretty it's so sad like the human race will never be happy no no and actually you know what let's let's accept a little bit of snow considering what's going on elsewhere in the world just about to say like it's also been a week like so I'm trying to be very emotionally regulated about it um yeah but like for those that don't know LA is like the only place in the world where not to make this about me obviously um the only place in the world where I've ever truly felt a

home and it sounds really dramatic but sometimes like I feel like my life actually isn't ever going to really start until I'm based there which I know sounds really bad to me yeah but like it's just it's just one of those things like it's the only place in the world where I've been I'm like this is where I am the version of me that like I was born to be like it's just I can't put it into words it needs a whole podcast on its own you have such a different experience of LA to how I feel when I've been to LA um like it's it's wild but I can kind of imagine I can imagine you living there and having a great time so seeing it go up in flames um has it's just like it's pulled at my heartstrings like you wouldn't believe like it's

been it's so like even talking about it like my heart hurts um yeah again it brings up that thing of like I've been meaning to go back for years and haven't and now I'm sitting there and I'm like there there's not even like an LA to go back to at this point and there is um it's just it puts things into perspective it's like if you want to do things do them like yeah putting things off in life so yeah that's a whole another tangent yeah no it's it's like if you want to do things do them like yeah putting things off in life so yeah that's a whole another tangent yeah no it's it's a really scary thing to watch and I mean Matt's meant to be going my husband's meant to be going to LA at the end of this month but because it's so obviously it's it's the air pollution everything is horrific at the moment he doesn't even know

if he's going to go but yeah when you're watching it from afar it's it's pretty scary but with climate change you know one day we're not going to be watching it from afar we'll be the ones filming it that's quite terrifying the whole thing is just heartbreaking and actually need to yeah it's just it's been a week for for other people but we're okay we're surviving it was also the week of the golden globes um it was that's exciting i mean the only thing i cared about exactly the only thing i cared about was zendaya and tom being engaged because i absolutely stand that relationship so much i just love them yeah so yeah that's that's nice i like the way they just kind of like soft launched it but kind of hard launched at the same time like very subtle just

turning up wearing an engagement ring and yeah a big fat engagement ring exactly congrats to them um I mean nice ring right I mean beautiful ring yeah wouldn't say no very classy no so talk to me what what are we discussing today what is uh what are we delving into so today I want to talk about comfort eating also known as emotional eating um I have been having so many conversations with friends especially in our mid to late 30s about healthy eating what you know what we don't do what we should do and the one key thing that has been coming up so much and I am the biggest culprit of this is emotional eating um you know and we all know when you eat it releases dopamine it makes us feel happy um but there is this this underlying disorder and it is a disorder um where we are all not all of us but most of us are eating when we're happy and eating when we're sad but to

excess and using it like a crutch and so I thought that would be a really good way to start the year off is to talk about it why do we do it and Sophie you help us fix it please would love that's all you have to do yeah no I'm do you know I'm I'm happy that that this came from you rather than from me, because I think it affirms to me that it is so relevant. And I see it like nine out of 10 clients will at some point reference it or say it's something they are dealing with one way or another. So it's very relevant, especially in women. I do know that men experience it as well. Maybe they just don't talk about it as much, like a lot of things. So I want to dive in by saying there is a big difference between comfort eating and binge eating. So binge eating disorder is an eating disorder.

And that doesn't mean that they aren't linked and one can't kind of like lead into the other um but they are two different things um comfort eating in itself doesn't have to be a big deal or an awful thing so like you said it's kind of something that people lean into is is almost a coping mechanism. Yeah. There is some argument for there's a time and a place for it. Like, say you have a bad day and you're just feeling a bit glum and you come home and you're like, do you know what, I'm going to eat that bag of Maltesers and I'm going to eat it, get on with my day and not have any guilt or kind of resounding leftover issues from it. And you just carry on as normal. And it happens maybe once every six months not an issue the same as if you came home and had a glass of

wine but you didn't use it every evening as a coping mechanism yeah the issue starts to kind of like arrive if you like um when it becomes, when it becomes self-sabotaging, when it goes against your goals, when it becomes damaging to your health, then it is something that needs to be addressed. And I think that that's a really important kind of separation to make. Oftentimes, it's not actually the act of like the eating whatever it is that is the issue it's the guilt um and the unnecessary restriction that follows that is kind of where the problem is um so I think those are some kind of almost caveats that we should address first um because like you said you're doing dry January and you don't really drink very much right now so I would assume that there may have been a time in your life where you might have leant towards alcohol instead of food.

Is that vaguely correct? I mean, I'll be honest with you, Sophie, food has always been at the top of my agenda from everything. I mean, to give you an example. So, you know, when it comes to me specifically, I, if I'm feeling down or upset about something, I won't automatically turn to booze. You're right. Maybe in my twenties, I would have done and got out with girlfriends and got drunk. But it's always been, I'm going to go home and order, I don't know, 50 quid's worth of bloody sushi or something like that. And that's going to make me feel better. know everyone else is a domino's chance it's like I'm gonna get caviar and I'm gonna wipe it all over my face not to make life basically yeah but the funny thing is I also found that if something went really well or something good I would also almost reward myself with food like a dog you

know you're like oh great this is gonna be well I will also order 50 quids worth of sushi to celebrate yeah it's it swings both ways yeah and so in so and this is where you've got kind of got to distinguish what is harmful and what isn't like where is it problematic because it's like having cake on your birthday that's yeah kind of the same thing right and we don't and we definitely shouldn't take issue with that um so it really does come down to our reaction to the action of eating and oftentimes that is overeating now it was really interesting what you said about you've been having conversations with other women and your friends um and it can often stem from a conversation around what is healthy around good diet

so this is where diet culture and misinformation and lack of understanding around nutrition is very problematic. Because oftentimes the foods that people reach for when they are comfort eating are foods that will be on someone's naughty list. Yes, true. You don't hear someone, I mean, aside from you with your sushi, which is just so on it's not the healthy sushi it's the bad sushi but again the bad sushi yeah even just look at the language you've used right so it's maybe foods that you would add to your order like you don't hear of people overeating or going like oh my god i had a really shit day so when i home and i had like three heads of broccoli like it's true that's not what people say they're like oh my god

I had a really shit day I ate all the biscuits and I'm now like covered head to toe in chocolate um yeah it's fabulous but so this is where we have to like address the fact that there are more things feeding into this than just the act of putting food in our mouth like there's so much and this is something that I get into with clients and it's it's a hard sell because it's not the sexy stuff um it's very hard to get people on board with the fact that they are overeating because of x or y or z rather than going you're just not disciplined enough most people say I just need to be more disciplined I just need to be this I just need to be that and all you're doing is chastising yourself and that's just making the situation

worse so in terms of how I approach this and obviously it's different for the people that I work with um because everyone is doing it for a different reason. Yeah. The first thing to do is check that someone's nutritional needs are being met. If someone is overeating and using food as a crutch, there is an element of sometimes it will just be coming from a place that that person is actually under consuming food, right? It's almost like a binge restrict cycle. So like Monday, Thursday, they're only having like 1000 or 1200 calories. So they then think that they're comfort eating or overeating, but actually, they're just going back up to like 2000 calories, which or calories, which kind of brings them up to a baseline over

the course of the week so first of all that always has to come first like we look at what your nutrition is like and whilst we're doing that we would also kind of uncover maybe some ideas you've got around certain foods so do you use kind of like uh black and white language around food like is food good and bad is it that all or nothing mentality where if you have one biscuit you might as well say fuck it i'll have them all so those that we kind of look to first once i know that someone is at maintenance um so they are meeting their nutritional needs um it then gets into the territory which is a bit uncomfortable and we have to ask what are you seeking comfort or like a release that feeling of like from um and then going back to that at that point about the nutrition because one of the other things that

me and my girlfriends were talking about was you know just before you start your period it's a very common time where we all suddenly crave sugar we crave sweet things and so you know the conversation was around god I just can't control myself I just you know I eat all the chocolate and all of that kind of stuff but actually listening to what you're saying if you break it down to almost a scientific you know level there's obviously a reason our bodies are craving sugar at that time of the month so and yeah you're completely right so aside from anything else periods uh menstrual cycle is metabolically expensive meaning that when you are having a period your body needs more fuel so anywhere around kind of like an extra 300 calories a day

and that's just to get to your baseline to facilitate your body having that period um so that in itself goes away to explain why you are more hungry it's because your body is is needing more energy um which makes sense because that is your body kind of telling you that you're a safe environment to carry a child um metabolically expensive is such a fantastic term i love it right whip that out at your next mom and baby meeting um so yeah so there are kind of like physiological reasons behind that hunger there's also other stuff going on um that leads us to crave certain things again the issue there is what i do with clients so i just say right on that week of your period we just even if you're in a deficit we give you a little kind of boosting calories to take care

of that and then we're not fighting fires from every angle it's it just kind of like keeps that at bay what happens though is people they don't know their bodies they don't track these things they don't make that connection so it happens every month but it's only the week later they go oh I was on my period that's why I was so hungry whereas yeah prepared for it and you go do you know what every week every month when I get my period I'm going to increase my calories or I'm gonna have a chocolate bar a day but that's gonna be it then it's it takes it away but because we have this kind of black and white thinking and we use this language around food we don't do that and that's what yeah kind of keeps it

spiraling and we just that's such a good point yeah the tracking is a really good point because actually it's funny you say that I I told my husband to put my dates in his diary but for no other reason other than that's when I'm going to be my most aggressive and angry and I was like I need you to have this in your diary so you know why I'm being a dick because you just need to be prepared but like I love that because it's like so one of the the biggest things I stress to women when I start working with them is like get to know your body like it's the ex-boyfriend that you're stalking when you were 16. Like you want to know this body inside out. Like no one knows it better.

You are so intuitive. But what people do is we consume so much information from everywhere else that we don't take the time to do that. So instead of applying things that actually are relevant to us, we're applying things that SusieFit105 is doing that has relevance to our bodies or how we're feeling or our nutritional needs and like this is something that i wish if i could wish one thing for women it would just be get to know your body inside out and i promise you yeah i'll tell you everything you need to know um yeah so i know this is like taking you off track sorry but the other thing listening to what you've just said is the huge amount of imagery of food we are bombarded with on social media and that I have

to say I feel like it does impact on hunger levels in such a weird way I you know I'm constantly looking at restaurants and recipes and things like that and I find that a lot of my feed is now the most delicious calorific insane food it's telling me to cook it it's telling me to eat it telling me to find it at all times of the day and I really notice the difference that that has on my mood and what I whether I'm hungry or full or whatever it's immediately impacted so your social media feed will show you what you are looking at so if you are looking at food if you're looking at restaurants and if you're looking for recipes which is you know harmless in itself you will then only see that type of content similarly if people are looking at like people with certain types of physiques or whatever, that's all they will see.

So it becomes incredibly just focused on that one thing. What I would if you find and this doesn't go is for everyone. If you find that your feed is full of something and it's actually not helpful, you can block certain words. You can, you know, if you're if you want to look for the the contact but only see it when you're looking for it you do have to put some boundaries in place around that because there are connections between if you're looking at something all the time that is what your brain is going to kind of automatically go towards and that's all you're going to be thinking about if you take that away or even just for a couple of days your brain will start to kind of like recenter and refocus yeah it's like if you started looking for like baby content for example that's all you would then see the algorithm shift yeah this is

the problem because it's so polarizing so when people start looking at kind of certain fitness or wellness or nutrition kind of like things that aren't so great that is then all their feed is going to be showing them so yeah all they're going to be seeing and all they're going to be thinking of and it just kind of like perpetuates the cycle so you do have to be as an adult responsible and also kind of aware and careful of those things because my feed for example has no food on it right um because it's it's not what i'm looking at so it just it just goes to show I mean it probably will now because it's listening let's be honest yeah um so thanks for that chance um but yeah so no again it's that thing of kind of like learn your habits with that like do you

need to set boundaries on your social media yeah put words on the things that block it from coming up because you can do all of that people just don't yeah yeah so yeah going back to kind of strategies and what we would do then it does get to the uncomfortable part of kind of the what is causing you to in that moment overeat, comfort eat or binge eat? And it can be tricky because it's normally things that people don't necessarily want to admit to. Or it might expose kind of not so happy kind of truths about their home life. For example, loneliness is very, a very common reason for people overeating. Lack of sexual fulfillment kind of these things like especially when you're talking to people in marriages and relationships

like they're not easy conversations to have um but if you can get to the bottom of it then we can start to kind of like step forward um sometimes the first step is actually just taking the trigger foods out of the equation altogether so um it it's not always the answer but actually sometimes it's just the low-hanging fruit and it's the easy thing to do yeah if someone is like oh i always when i overeat i always eat kind of like the maltesers it's like okay right for the next six weeks we're just not going to keep them in the house if you're at a friend's house and someone offers you some chocolate or Maltesers have them because you're not going to sit there and binge and eat the whole pack um yeah because also in that moment you're probably not seeking comfort because you're in a social environment and you're with friends and there's you're being fulfilled in other ways generally over it when

they're on their own of an evening and it is like you are kind of feeling lonely or you're seeking something so if we can take those things out of the equation even for say four to six weeks it then allows you to reassess at what point can we start reintroducing them in the means yeah you can kind of like build on your education and understanding that there aren't good and bad foods um and oftentimes it's it's not the food that is the issue in the first place but taking it out of the equation um can can really go along yeah I think you're right and actually like removing it from the house because I I know there have been times where I've said to I've said to my husband like hide these chocolates if you want to eat them that's fine but hide them so I can't see them or find them

and then Sophie I basically become like a bloodhound and no matter where he puts it in the house I will I will find them so you're right they need to be out the house get rid yeah and sometimes it's that thing of like at first we don't need to change the action so you might still overeat on your calories or comfort eat but instead of having something that's 700 calories we might be able to replace it with something that's 300 calories then from there we can start changing the action itself so instead of seeking comfort in eating you might start picking up a hobby like knitting or doing something a bit more mindful um like coloring books or you might do some yoga or you might go and masturbate like whatever it needs to be and but genuinely like I know that you laugh and I know that people are gonna be like yeah but a lot of the time sexual fulfillment and food are very um closely linked and it's an

uncomfortable conversation yeah um because it's a it's pleasure right like you're seeking pleasure yeah um and if you're not getting it in one area you're gonna get it in another so I think that again that is a conversation that people should be having, if not with others, then just kind of like, be honest with yourself. But it's hard when you're in a relationship or a marriage, you don't, you know, you can't be like, I'm putting on three stone a month, because I'm not sexually fulfilled, like, that's not going to go down well with your husband or wife. So I would imagine. So there are things that need to be kind of like handled very carefully. So yeah, I mean, those are just kind of like some of the, I guess, like the founding steps. And just to really stress that

it's not just an issue of discipline. There's so much more to it than that um if you are someone that has fat loss goals for example and you keep overeating you need to figure out why maybe or why behind the fat loss isn't important enough um so a lot of the time kind of someone's superficial goal might be like oh I want to kind of look good in a bikini in the summer when you're in that moment of kind of feeling lonely or whatever it might be that's not enough to stop you overeating yeah stop you overeating is I want to lose x amount of weight or maintain my current weight so that I can run around my with my children or so I can be a healthy fit mom or healthy fit dad so I can kind of set a good example to my child that's a much stronger why than fitting into a pair of jeans for a lot of people yeah it's really being honest

about that also it's how you identify yourself It's identity is massive when it comes to kind of sustainable change with these things. It's like, do you identify as someone who eats healthily and has an active lifestyle? And someone that can do identify as someone that can have one biscuit and put them away? Or do you identify as the person that just can't say no and that will always have? Yeah. the person that just can't say no and that will always have yeah and it's just it's you have to really like a lot of behavior change and a lot of fat loss comes down to behavior change and the more psychological aspects of it are what really kind of get long-term success more than just knowing what recipes to eat like that's not what it's about yeah I mean I identify with

the person who overthinks overeats and over shares that's that's my tribe that's why this but it's no I think they're all really useful really useful points and so I think it's not necessarily a terrible thing. People turn to all sorts of things for comfort, you know, things that are a lot worse than food. But I think you're right. It's about identifying where that comes from and how you how do you react to it? You know, if you can just do it, then move on with your life and be healthy and, you know, not let it upset you. Then that's not a bad place to be. Yeah. But that's the issue, right? Because a lot place to be yeah but that's the issue right because a lot of the time it's it's the people it's the way people chastise themselves afterwards and it's

and that comes down to like all or nothing mentality like people that have a growth mindset and that aren't all or nothing understand that you can overeat one day a week and just wake up and crack on the next day it's the people yeah I think mindset and kind of a very fixed mentality that go oh I fucked it I've had that one biscuit so now I'm gonna have all the biscuits and then tomorrow I'm gonna have like I'm gonna do this and then I'm not gonna go to the gym and yeah that's where the problem lies um so I don't know if that's where you thought this conversation was gonna go um no I it is actually because I knew you'd have some sort of sensible advice to offer um but yeah it was just a really interesting

interesting thing that I think a lot of us have faced at one time in our lives oh myself or another yeah so like and again episode like episode for another day um but yeah just to be kind of like completely transparent with everyone listening like I have suffered with binge eating disorder so this is coming from a person and from a place who knows how hard it is who knows how damaging it can be um but also knows that you can work on it and come out the other side and have a really good relationship with food um yeah because like you said like yes there are things people think that kind of alcohol and and drugs and there are other kind of much more

harmful addictions but when you're in it and when you've got an eating disorder it's just as bad um so it's you know and again that's why i wanted to caveat that there is a big difference between comfort eating overeating and binge eating disorder because they are animals um definitely they can all kind of like they can lead into each other and yeah so it's it's just something i think to to have conversations about and yeah be mindful of amazing and if anyone listening feels like they um are dealing with any issues when it comes to eating um please don't hesitate to drop us a private message i may not be very useful with advice but i know sophie definitely is definitely it's something that i deal with on a daily basis. It's something that I'm more than happy to talk about.

You can find us on Instagram at Sophie Gawich and at C Sarnie and at the Is She OK? podcast. We're on all the apps. Again, as always, thank you so much for listening. And we will be back next week with some more updates on our lives and hot topics. Thanks everyone. Bye. Bye.