How I Avoided Emotional Eating This Month (2 Simple Shifts)

If you’ve ever found yourself stuck in emotional eating, binge eating, or stress eating patterns… this episode is for you.

In today’s episode, I’m sharing 2 simple things I focused on during the month of March that helped me avoid emotional eating and quiet the constant food noise.

These aren’t extreme rules or all-or-nothing approaches. They’re realistic, sustainable shifts that helped reduce sugar cravings, feel more in control around food, and break the cycle of using food to cope with emotions.

If you’re tired of feeling out of control with food, constantly thinking about your next meal, or battling late-night snacking and cravings, this episode will give you a new perspective and practical steps you can actually stick with.

What you’ll learn:

•  2 simple habits that helped reduce binge eating and sugar cravings 
•  How to calm food noise without restriction 
• Why being emotional makes you crave sugar more
•  A more balanced approach to handling emotions without turning to food 

---

JOIN THE FREE SPRING CHALLENGE: SPRING Challenge

This Spring Challenge is the reset you need to get you back on track with your goals!

---

💌 Connect With Laura:

1. Website: Health Coach for Teachers & Busy, Working Women
2. Instagram: LAURA B. | Teacher turned Health Coach | Podcaster🎙️ (@laura.b.healthy) • Instagram photos and videos
3. TikTok: Laura B. | Health Coach (@laura.b.healthy) | TikTok

------

Keywords:
emotional eating, binge eating, stress eating, sugar cravings, food noise, emotional hunger, how to stop emotional eating, late night snacking, craving control, food freedom, healthy habits, mindset around food

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey ladies, and welcome back to another Healthy Huddle episode where I give you quick ideas for fast action. Today I want to share with you two things that I was intentional about during the month of March. March was a really challenging month for me. I'm not even gonna sugarcoat it. I struggled, and I'm not gonna go into all of the details, but I experienced multiple personal deaths while also going on two vacations to celebrate two really important people in my life for their birthdays, and it was just a month of like ups and downs. I was a speaker at an incredible event, and it was just there were low, low, low, lows days where I didn't even want to get off the couch, days where I cried the entire day, and then there were really exciting moments and great times that I am thankful to have experienced. And I was reflecting back on the fact that the previous version of me, two, three years ago, when she was going through, if she would have had to go through all of the things that I just did, she would have struggled so much with food noise and sugar cravings and binge eating and stress eating, emotional eating, would have eaten me alive if I would have experienced this at any other stage in my life. And so I want to share with you two really tiny things that I did over the last month that helped me to not fall into those patterns. Before we get into that though, I want to share with you that if you have not already signed up for my free four-day spring challenge, it is starting on Monday, April 6th. If you're listening to this between April 6th and 9th, you can still join. It's not too late. If you're listening to it afterwards, you can still catch all of the replays. It is not too late. But if you are listening to this before April 6th, I encourage you to come live if you can. Even if you're not able to come to the calls live, you can watch all of the replays, but be an active part of the live challenge by being a part of the group chat, being active in the experience of the challenge because the people who attend the challenges, I've been hosting these multiple times a year, and I do them for free because they not only provide so much benefit to you guys, they also benefit me. There's like this energy among everybody in the group, everybody coming together, they're working towards these common goals, they're doing it all at the same time, all together. It's just such a re-energizing experience. So if you're in the need for a spring reset, a little refresh, and you just want to really just press that reset button and just get a little like pep back in your step when it comes to eating healthy, well-balanced meals, having the proper mindset, having a healthy relationship with food. The spring challenge is going to do all of that. I have everything for the challenge linked down in the show notes below. So you can go down there and get registered. Everything is completely free, and I am so excited to get to have every single one of you there. So, like I said, March was one of those really challenging months. And I know that probably everybody listening to this has experienced at one point in their life, it just feels like everything is happening all at once. Like you cannot catch a break. There's just like negative, negative, negative thing happening at like coming at you from all sides and angles, and you just can't seem to get up for air long enough before something else, another wave crashes over you, right? I know that you've been there and I'm talking about that for me in this episode, but I also want to speak to just the people who feel like their everyday life is stressful and it leads to emotional eating. Like, I I want you to know that the things that I'm about to share, it's just two things that I'm gonna share in this episode. I want you to know that those two things apply rather whether I'm talking about something, a huge emotional trauma or like just everyday life being stressful for you. Apply these things and it will really help with that feeling of needing to turn to food when you're experiencing some kind of mo emotional term turmoil, right? So the first thing that I was really intentional about was making sure that I was eating protein and fiber at every single meal. And I'm gonna be honest, there were some days where I was like, I cannot even get up off of the couch, like I am not going into the kitchen and cooking something extensive that has protein and fiber. Like, I literally do not care. The first week of March, three people passed away in my life that I cared about all within a span of five days. And that week I was like the low of lows. I was really struggling that week. And even though I wasn't eating some sort of amazing meal, something super extensive that was, you know, had all of the most beautiful colors and perfect amounts of everything, everything was perfectly well portioned and everything, I wasn't doing all of that, but I was still being intentional to make sure that I wasn't eating sugar on an empty stomach. I wasn't just having carbohydrates because I know the repercussions of that. And that's why so much of the work that I do, whether it is in the free challenge I was just talking about, or whether it's in my group coaching program, Seismic Shift, so much of the work that I do is with helping my clients learn how to eat healthy, well-balanced meals, sustainably do that, even whenever life is throwing you curveball after curveball, and make sure that your blood sugar is staying stabilized. Because if you are eating carbohydrates, sugar on an empty stomach, it is going to spike your blood sugar. And then not only will you be left with so much more food noise, so many more cravings, you are also gonna be left feeling even lower energy-wise, and you're gonna be left feeling even worse emotionally. So it's just not worth it. Even though at that time, the ice cream, the candy, that's really all that I wanted to turn to. I knew that it was only gonna make me feel worse. So, of course, I was not making those decisions, and I had to talk myself through that. Sometimes you are going to just have to be brutally honest with yourself and say, that's not what's gonna make you feel good right now. Right now, we are going to make the choice to have some frozen chicken nuggets that we put in the air fryer for 10 minutes, and then I can have some candy or whatever it may be if I really want it after that. But I am going to make sure that I am fueling my body first with protein and fiber, and then the sugar if I still really want it. So protein and fiber were such a priority. And I am really big about having just like the easy little things on hand that are easy for protein and fiber. I keep like cheese sticks, I keep deli meat, those type of things in my refrigerator at all times. That way, whenever the situation arises where I'm like, I cannot be bothered to do anything else. I know that I have something I can just grab and eat that is going to at least give my body some nutrition. So, what am I asking you to take away from the first thing here? Is one, you have to keep it simple with your nutrition. If you know that you have a big month at work coming up or something happens in your life that is just kind of throwing you for a loop emotionally, you know that you have some stressors going on in your life. Have some really simple things in your home. Okay. And this again, this is what I help my clients with. So if you're really struggling with it, I would love to help you solve this problem. I want to make it to where you find that eating healthy and being consistent is possible for you, even when life is stressful, even when you're feeling emotional. Because even though this was one of the most challenging months that I've had in a very long time, even though that is true, I still didn't gain any weight, I didn't go crazy in the kitchen, I didn't do anything that I wouldn't normally be doing. I maybe did it to a lesser degree, you know, I wasn't in the kitchen making all of my recipes for social media and being all poppy and all bubbly and all the things. I wasn't being that, but I also was still fueling my body, even to the bare minimum degree, so that I could continue to feel at least somewhat decent. So where I wasn't giving myself something else to feel bad about. Now, the second thing that I did that made a big difference for me during this past month with the emotional eating was every single time I found myself wanting to go to the kitchen to pick up something sugary, wanting to go into the pantry and just binge eat whatever I could find. Every time I found myself wanting to open up the freezer and grab the ice cream, every time I would first pause and I would ask myself, why am I reaching for this food? What is it that I am truly desiring? Am I actually desiring the sugar or am I desiring some sort of peace, some sort of comfort, some sort of dopamine? Because remember, whenever our body gets sugar, whenever we spike our blood sugar up, our dopamine levels also go up. So that means that whenever that blood sugar spikes, so does our happiness. Even if it's temporarily, we feel somewhat lighter and happier whenever we spike that blood sugar. So our body, whenever it knows that that's gonna happen. And whenever you're feeling really down and really in the dumps, really upset and really emotional, your body's like, yeah, I know what would do the fix. I know how to make this all better. Let's eat some sugar. And so you start getting all these signals from your body to eat some sugar. So I would pause and I would ask myself, okay, where is this coming from? Am I actually desiring the sugar or am I desiring that dopamine hit? And I would have to be brutally honest with myself. Literally 9.9 times out of 10, it wasn't that I wanted sugar. I wanted to feel better. So, what did I decide to do? I have a list of things that I keep. I've been making this list for years. Way back when I was teaching, I started this list of things that I could do that would meet my body's needs without giving it sugar. So this could be going on a walk, it could be reading a book, it could be phoning a friend or phoning a family member, it could be journaling. There's literally so many things on my list of little things. For me right now, a big one is puzzling. That's a new one that's been added to my list, and I've been puzzling instead of turning to the kitchen. I just go, I do a little bit of a little brain break and just go into my dining room and puzzle for a few minutes. That way I'm not turning to food, but I'm still giving my body some sort of dopamine, some sort of rest and reset. I'm relaxing my brain and giving it what it needs without turning to sugar. I always say, this is a quote that so many of my clients have heard me say, there is power in the pause. Pause for just a second. Ask yourself, what do you actually need right now? And most of the time it is not going to be that sugar. I'm not saying that sugar should not be a part of your life. I definitely have sugar. I have Easter candy in my kitchen right now. It definitely can be a part of your life, but there needs to be some boundaries with it. It shouldn't be something you are always turning to, something you are always reaching for, especially in times of emotional turbulence, because when you are feeling that way, your hormones are already out of whack, your cortisol, and every other hormone that you have is already kind of all over the place. So we need to reset our nervous system. And eating sugar is not going to be a reset for our nervous system. So there needs to be some boundaries with the sugar, okay? So the next time you catch yourself feeling a little bit emotional and wanting to turn to the sugar, I encourage you to pause. Ask yourself what you actually need. If your body is seriously hungry, have something that has some protein and fiber to it. If it's not actually hungry, get out for a walk. Go read a book, go do something else to take your mind and give it that little reset that it is asking you for. Now, speaking of reset, if you have not already signed up for the free spring challenge, this is your chance. Go down into the show notes, get signed up. It is completely free and there is so much energy. There's education, there's mindset shifts, there's accountability. I give you exact goals to be working on so that you're not confused and overwhelmed and unsure of what you should be doing. I'm giving you everything, but the most valuable piece of it is that it serves as a really good emotional and energetic reset for you. So head down into the show notes, get signed up for that. Thanks for being a part of another Healthy Huddle episode, and I look forward to seeing you next week in our regularly scheduled episode.