Episode 27: All the Things I Tried to Stop Emotional Eating (And Why None of Them Worked)

Content Note

This article discusses eating disorders, binge eating, restriction, and exercise used as punishment around food.

This blog and podcast are intended for educational and informational purposes only and are not a substitute for therapy, medical advice, or professional healthcare.

If this topic brings up anything difficult for you, please consider reaching out to a trained therapist or healthcare professional.

In Australia you can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or the Butterfly Foundation National Helpline on 1800 33 4673, which provides support for people experiencing eating disorders and body image concerns.

For years I thought my emotional eating was a discipline problem.

I believed I lacked willpower.

I thought if I could just control myself around food, everything would finally change.

So I tried everything.

I tried hypnotherapy.
Acupuncture.
Kinesiology.
Past life regression.
Self help books and affirmations stuck to my walls.

I hired personal trainers.
Followed high protein diets.
Low carb diets.
Nutrition plans.

I tried intuitive eating.

At one point I even ran a marathon because I was trying to run off all the food I had eaten.

I tried appetite suppressants, herbal teas, juice cleanses, and the lemon detox diet.

I even taped my mouth shut at night hoping it would stop me from waking up and binge eating.

None of it worked.

And for a long time, I thought that meant something was wrong with me.

But what I understand now is that I wasn’t failing.

I was just trying to solve the wrong problem.

The Therapy Session That Changed Everything

I remember sitting in a therapy office in my late twenties.

I was sitting across from the therapist, and my mum was sitting next to me.

Even before the session started I remember thinking this was a terrible idea.

But my therapist said that if I wanted to move forward with my healing, I needed to work on my relationship with my mum.

She said we needed to address some things that had happened when I was younger.

So I asked my mum to come along to therapy.

During the session the therapist asked her about some things from my childhood.

My mum responded the way she had many times before.

“That never happened. I would never do that.”

And I remember saying to her,

“Why would I make that up?”

Eventually she admitted that some of those things had happened.

But then she said something many people with emotionally immature parents will recognise.

“It’s not a big deal Megan. It was so long ago. Why don’t you just get over it?”

The therapist gently said to her,

“This might not be a big deal to you, but it’s a big deal to Megan.”

For a moment I thought maybe something had landed.

Maybe she understood.

But nothing changed.

I never received the repair I was hoping for.

At the time that felt devastating.

All I wanted was for my mum to understand and see me.

What I understand now is that I was looking for something she didn’t have the capacity to give.

Emotional Eating Was Never Really About Food

For a long time I thought my struggle was about food.

But when I look back, that therapy session was actually a pivotal moment in my emotional eating journey.

Because what I was really longing for was something much deeper.

I wanted to feel mothered.

I wanted to feel held.

I wanted someone to understand what I had been carrying.

Food became the place my nervous system tried to regulate that longing.

The Cycle of Bingeing and Punishing Myself

In my twenties I lived in a cycle of restriction, binge eating, and punishment.

I would binge at night.

Then the next morning I would wake up with a sense of shame.

The first thought in my head was essentially,

“I need to punish my body for what I’ve done.”

So I would go to the gym and push myself as hard as I possibly could.

Sometimes I would train twice in one day.

Not from a place of self care.

From a place of punishment.

The strange part is that people praised this behaviour.

When I was mentally at my worst, I received the most compliments.

I might say something like,

“I ate so much last night so I’m smashing myself at the gym today.”

And people would respond,

“Good on you.”

Looking back now, I realise how socially acceptable that form of punishment is.

The Hunger That Food Could Never Satisfy

During that time there was a hunger I couldn’t explain.

No matter how much I tried to control my eating, the hunger didn’t go away.

I would tell myself,

“You’re not hungry. You just ate.”

And technically that was true.

But what I didn’t understand then was that it wasn’t physical hunger.

It was what I now call developmental hunger.

A hunger for something food could never satisfy.

Connection.

Comfort.

Support.

To feel held and understood.

Why Diets and Food Plans Don’t Heal Emotional Eating

This is why so many strategies failed for me.

None of them addressed the real thing underneath.

Diets focus on food.

Exercise focuses on calories.

Nutrition plans focus on discipline.

But emotional eating is not a food problem.

Food is simply where the pattern shows up.

Underneath emotional eating there is often grief, loneliness, suppressed anger, resentment, or years of carrying too much responsibility.

Very often there is a longing to feel nurtured.

To feel cared for.

To feel safe.

The Deeper Meaning Behind Cravings

This is something I spoke about with my guest Lottie Davies on the podcast.

In Chinese medicine the taste of sweetness is associated with the earth element, which represents the mother.

Sweet foods are often linked to comfort, nurturing, and care.

So when someone is craving sweetness, it is not always about sugar.

Sometimes it is the body looking for softness.

Looking for love.

Looking for comfort.

The body is always communicating something.

Learning to Mother Yourself

The deeper healing work for me was not about fixing my eating.

It was about learning something I had never been taught.

How to mother myself.

How to offer myself the compassion, care, and emotional support I needed.

Instead of trying to force the behaviour to stop, I began working with the parts of me that were protecting me.

These protective parts were trying to keep me safe.

They were just running an old script that was no longer helping.

As those parts began to heal, the behaviours started to soften.

The pressure and perfectionism that had been driving my emotional eating slowly began to dissolve.

Healing Emotional Eating Starts Beneath the Behaviour

If you have tried everything to stop emotional eating and nothing seems to work, I want you to hear this.

You don’t lack willpower.

There is nothing wrong with you.

You have simply been trying to solve a deeper emotional need with food.

When you begin healing the nervous system and learning how to support yourself with compassion, things start to change.

Not through force.

Through understanding.

Through safety.

Through care.