Emotional Eating Archives - Lisa Rutledge, RD

Cravings, Emotional Eating, Healthy Eating, Healthy Living, Mindful Eating, Relationship with Food

Mindful Eating Series with The Grounded Therapist (#2)

February 20, 2016 No Comments

Mindful Eating can be helpful in so many different aspects of healthy eating: it can help naturally reduce portion sizes (if you tend to over eat due to emotions or mindlessness), it can help reduce emotions that can lead to eating when not hungry and improve confidence in food choices. It does, however, take some practice to truly work. That is why actively taking part in activities that increase mindfulness are integral and is how/why this series came about! Here is what Rachel, the Grounded Therapist, had to say about Mindful Eating in Part 2 of our series: I really wanted to […]

Eating Disorders, Emotional Eating, Healthy Eating, Mindful Eating, Relationship with Food

Eating in secret and other embarrassing side effects of dieting.

June 17, 2015 No Comments

I consulted with a client the other day who wanted to admit something embarrassing. The admission started out like so many others that I’ve heard: “I’ve never told anyone this but… when everyone is in bed, sometimes I sneak into the kitchen and eat foods I am not supposed to. I feel out of control, like I cannot stop myself, eat more than I want to and end up feeling panicked and guilty. What is WRONG with me?!” While I am thrilled that my clients feel comfortable enough to share these intimate details, I am sad that they feel so embarrassed. I am also angry that, […]

Cravings, Emotional Eating, Healthy Eating, Mindful Eating

Temptations and the unreliability of willpower

April 16, 2015 No Comments

Recent research has found that avoiding temptation works better than relying only on willpower when faced with temptation. (You can see the original article here: Restricting Temptations: Neural Mechanisms of Precommitment) The idea of avoiding “tempting” foods in order to eat less of them seems rather obvious. However, does it work well for everyone? This particular study didn’t look at food temptations, so can we expect the same results? I think this is a more complicated answer than initially thought and it will depend on how you avoid temptations. Let’s imagine that the food temptations we are talking about are foods rich in calories, […]

Emotional Eating

Stop emotional eating (for your sake and your children’s)

November 13, 2014 No Comments

The more I speak with people about dieting or weight loss, the more I realize that emotional eating plays a huge role. In my defense, I am not the instigator of this topic (and have a hard time talking about it with people outside of the consult room) but it does sometimes feel like an inevitable topic, especially with strangers.There’s the tired cliché about women who are sad, reaching for chocolates to sooth but emotional eating goes much more deep than this. Eating to spite someone (or go against their “helpful” diet advice), eating due to happiness or celebration and eating due to […]

Emotional Eating, Healthy Eating, Mindful Eating, Relationship with Food

Hungry for the truth?

November 5, 2009 No Comments

Eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full. These guidelines may be easy to understand but are definitely harder to follow. The idea of “eating mindfully” is a new trend in the weight management world. The concept draws on our innate ability to listen to our body’s signals of hunger and fullness. However, many of us have stopped listening to these signals a long time ago and have a hard time unscrambling the messages. One step towards clearly hearing and understanding these signals is to first recognize what they are in their physical form. What exactly do […]