I recently joined Dr. Matthea Rentea on The Obesity Guide Podcast for an in-depth conversation about emotional eating: what drives it, why it’s so common, and how we can better understand our relationship with food.
As an Obesity Medicine physician and a psychiatrist, we approached the topic from two complementary angles, exploring both the physical and emotional layers that shape eating behaviors or food addiction.
As Dr. Matthea explained during our conversation:
“I often have patients who come in and 99% of their world is shaped by the fact that food gives them pleasure. But in some capacity, it’s also hurting them – their weight set point is up, their blood sugar is up, and they’re experiencing consequences because of it.
When food has been part of everything, it’s hard for them to find other ways to experience pleasure. That’s why it is so important for us to discuss emotional eating.”
What Is Emotional Eating?
Emotional eating is eating for any reason other than physical hunger – using food to soothe, numb, distract, or regulate an emotional experience.
It often serves to manage negative emotions, and these can range widely:
- A heavy trauma background
- Mental health challenges
- Everyday stress
- Boredom
- Loneliness
- Relationship dissatisfaction
Emotional eating can be severe, but it can also show up in very mundane, subtle ways.
How Emotional Eating Works: The Current of Food Addiction
One helpful model for understanding how emotional eating works is the Current of Addiction, a framework I developed in the Self Recovery program that explains how the cycle unfolds.
1. A negative feeling
It starts with an uncomfortable emotion, sometimes severe, sometimes minor. This is the emotional pain.
2. The craving
The brain naturally looks for a way out of that discomfort. That impulse is what we call a craving. At this point, nothing has happened behaviorally yet, it’s still emotional and cognitive.
3. Addiction
Addiction is the turning point. Whether it’s food or alcohol, this is the moment we act on the craving. Acting on it signals that the person feels unable to tolerate the uncomfortable experience.
4. The Reward, or The False Pleasure
There is always a positive feeling after engaging in the behavior. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be drawn to it.
But it’s a false pleasure because it is not lasting, nor does it support well-being. This can involve:
- Hormonal shifts
- Blood sugar issues
- Physical discomfort
- And the biggest one: shame
Shame leads to thoughts like: “Why can’t I stop?”, “What’s wrong with me?”, “I’m hiding this… I must be the problem.” And then the cycle continues, because now the negative feelings from the aftermath trigger the current all over again.
How to Overcome Emotional Eating: Start With Harm Reduction
I don’t usually begin by addressing the deepest layers of emotional pain at the start of the Current. Instead, I often start with something more practical: if you’re turning to food in a difficult moment, what are some healthier foods you could turn to?
I’m big on harm reduction, I’m not a purist. Anything that moves you toward a healthier choice is progress. And the key is to keep it simple.
For example, if you usually reach for a pint of ice cream, could you shift to chocolate-covered almonds instead? The almonds are healthy, and although the chocolate and palm oil aren’t ideal, it’s still a better choice than the ice cream.
From there, you can gradually “graduate” to other options – maybe fruit or other foods that offer comfort without as much harm. There’s a lot of room for creativity here.
For bedtime snacking, I’ll help people explore saltier, less problematic options – pickles, olives, etc. – especially if there’s no strict medical reason to limit salt. These foods provide sensory satisfaction without significant negative consequences.
We start by reducing harm, and then we move upstream.
Build Tolerance for Food Cravings
The next step is building tolerance for the craving by learning to stand with the urge. For example:
“I want ice cream – can I stand in front of the fridge and simply sit with that feeling?”
That’s a practical, powerful strategy. And if you can do that, even briefly, you’ve already won in many ways.
Tolerance Is a Muscle
I explain it like this: it’s just like going to the gym. Some people build muscle faster than others, but if you show up and work out, you will get stronger.
The same is true here. If you practice the art of tolerance, you’ll improve over time—regardless of your trauma history or current experiences with anxiety or depression.
Why Some People Develop Emotional Eating Patterns
A key question psychology hasn’t fully explored is this:
If addiction is connected to managing painful emotions, then why do some people with anxiety or depression develop an addiction, and others don’t?
A major part of the answer is intolerance of emotional states.
- Someone with depression without addiction is tolerating their sadness, even when it’s severe.
- Someone with depression with addiction is not tolerating that emotional state and turns to something, like food, to escape it.
That intolerance is one of the most important skills to work on when dealing with emotional eating.
Anyone who builds even a small amount of tolerance is already moving in the right direction.
How to Practice Tolerance Effectively
There are countless ways to build tolerance mindfully. Tolerance work might look like standing in front of the fridge or pantry, breathing through the craving, and staying with yourself for a moment. It might mean distracting yourself with simple activities, puzzles, games, a walk.
But the key is to treat this like a workout.
Don’t approach it vaguely or spontaneously:
“Ugh, I want ice cream… okay, I guess I’ll just find something else to do.”
Instead, be structured and intentional, just as you would at the gym. You don’t show up at the gym and randomly hop from treadmill to bench press to calisthenics with no plan and expect consistent progress. It’s the same here: pick a strategy you like and practice it deliberately.
Progress Counts, Even If You “Fail”
Even if you “fail”, relapse, if you stand there for two minutes, can’t take it anymore, and grab something, that’s still progress. Next time, aim for three minutes.
That’s how strength builds.
Riding the Emotional Wave
Through exposure, people learn that discomfort rises, peaks, and then decreases on its own. It usually takes about an hour for the nervous system to learn that there’s another side to the fear or urge.
Cravings work the same way. The tension builds until you give in, and your brain learns: “The only way out is to do the thing.”
But when you stay with the feeling, just long enough, you reach the other side.
And that is extremely empowering.
The emotional wave always crests and then falls. Once you experience that, you break through. You become stronger. You become more confident. You begin to see that there is a “you” inside who can take action, who is not simply the passive object of addiction or emotional eating.
You’re not powerless. And that shift changes everything.
How to Slow Down an Urge
When you have an urge, you probably want to take immediate action. It happens so fast that, when people first start working on this, they barely know what’s happening. So how do people slow it down?
Most people know the common-sense idea of setting yourself up for success, choosing the right dose, frequency, or timing so you can actually do the thing. Otherwise, you’re just setting yourself up for failure.
It’s like starting at the gym: you begin with light weights, and you definitely don’t train for two hours on your first day. The same principle applies here. You don’t try these skills on the worst day. Yet many people say, “This day is so awful, the feelings are so strong… okay, now I remember, I should practice that tolerance thing.” But that’s the worst time to practice.
I explain this so people stop beating themselves up. They’re trying to use a new skill at a moment when it’s almost impossible to succeed. Then they say, “See? More evidence that I can’t do it.” But if you lost your job today, why would today be the day to start a new emotional-eating habit? It’s just not realistic.
Once you understand that, you can come up with some common-sense strategies. For example:
Harm-Reduce Your Environment
At work, you could keep only harm-reduced snacks in your drawer so you’ve already created a controlled environment.
Choose Easier Times of Day
Midday, when stress is usually lower, is often a better time to practice tolerating urges in smaller doses.
Practice at Home on a Good Day
At home, you can practice standing in front of the fridge or pantry on a good day, intentionally asking yourself, “Do I want ice cream?”, and practicing the ability to stand there without acting on it—not when the urge is overwhelming, but when you’re stable enough to actually build the skill.
Being able to stand there for even a short time is progress. It’s just one example; there are many other techniques. But it illustrates how to set yourself up to practice successfully.
Because on a truly bad day, I wouldn’t expect you to suddenly perform perfectly. But if, instead of diving straight into the behavior, you manage to delay it even a little, or substitute something less harmful, that counts.
Think of it like a workout. That small moment of tolerance strengthened the “muscle” in your brain more than if you hadn’t practiced at all.
Handling Setbacks in Emotional Eating
What to you say to someone who feels like they’ve regressed after months of progress? There are all kinds of nuances to that. A common trope is self-sabotage or fear of success. I see a lot of patients – especially women who have been sexually abused at some point—who start to feel more attractive, and then that scares them. This usually isn’t conscious.
There are countless psychological reasons people don’t continue moving forward: not wanting attention, not wanting to live up to new expectations, losing familiar “excuses,” or simply not knowing how to manage new experiences. My ultimate point is:
You Have to Stay Curious About What’s Happening
Don’t jump to, “See? I just can’t do this.” That conclusion makes no sense. It’s like someone who was going to the gym for months, then stops, and says, “I guess I’m just not able to work out anymore.” No—just say what’s actually happening.
Often, what I’m doing is helping people get very specific with their language: “I can’t do this.” Wait, you can do this! There are just times or situations where it feels harder or impossible to sustain it.
And now we have questions: Why? What’s going on? After a little exploration, it’s usually not so confusing. Maybe relationship problems resurfaced. Maybe work became overwhelming. Maybe something triggered old fears.
There is always something to be curious about.
Hope and Guidance for Emotional Eating Recovery
One of the biggest things people miss is that, even though emotional eating can feel complex, overwhelming, and “addiction-like,” there are clear, evidence-based ways to work through it. Using science, psychology, and behavioral strategies, real progress is absolutely possible.
If you haven’t encountered those tools yet, or if the guidance you’ve received has been vague – “try harder,” “have more discipline,” “just buy healthier foods”—keep looking. If it doesn’t feel psychologically relevant or helpful, it’s simply not the right guidance for you.
There is so much that can be done. What we’ve discussed here is just a very basic overview. I genuinely believe everyone can be successful with emotional eating when they find the right support.
So please, seek out that guidance. Stay curious, especially if you’re struggling, judging yourself, or not finding a strategy that clicks yet. Stay curious, because it can get better. It always can.
If you want to go deeper, here are a few helpful links:
Learn More from Dr. Matthea Rentea
For more on obesity medicine, compassionate care, and evidence-based tools, visit Dr. Matthea Rentea’s website.
Listen to the Full Podcast Episode
To hear the full episode, go to this page.
Explore the Self Recovery Program
If you’re ready to use a science-based, psychologically grounded framework to transform emotional eating, learn more about Self Recovery, an online addiction recovery program.
