How to Stop Emotional Eating and Achieving Weight Loss Through Journaling

Maybe you can relate, a lot of my clients come to me and eat food not only to satisfy their hunger, but also to deal with their feelings. They do not know how to stop, they are elbow deep in a bag of chips before they even realize what is going on.  

Emotional eating is a quick fix to handle negative emotions and to alter how your body feels. We do not like negative emotions like sadness, anger, stress, so we typically do whatever to not experience them. We have learned that when we eat food change happens quickly! It happens at a biological level making it difficult to stop emotional eating, but when you take the time to work on processing your emotions it is possible.

If you learn how to process your emotions this means you can say goodbye to emotional eating and hello to lasting, permanent weight loss. I have seen it both for myself and for my clients that journaling is one of the best ways to process emotions. It helps tremendously to process emotions. As Christians, we have even more advantages when we journal because as we journal we can then go to God with our raw emotions to get comfort and His perspective about what is happening.

No, this isn’t about hiding your emotions and just trying to be happy, that doesn’t help anything trust me I know. It is about digging deep and connecting with God with your raw emotions. It can definitely be a process to go to God, but as you take on journaling you will get better at both processing your emotions and taking them to God.

If you are like me journaling can be difficult and doesn’t come naturally, but journaling is really effective to process your emotions.

The top reasons why journaling is so effective to improve emotional health and eliminate emotional eating is:

• Journaling makes it is easier to reflect and see where your thoughts are really going. It helps you to really get all your emotions out. It helps you to reread them and see what you are actually thinking meaning that you know better what to actually turn to God with. When it is written it is easier to see how your perspective and thoughts are different from God’s Word. Then, you can turn to God and ask Him were He is in this situation and how He sees it.
  

• Journaling helps you see progress in processing your emotions and your ability to identify them more clearly. Your journal can also serve as a reminder of how you have felt similar and God was there with you in the past and is with you right now through it. Looking back at previous entries you can also get reminders of what helped you the last time you felt that way that might be able to help this time. This can help you to get a different perspective sooner than you normally would have.

• Journaling gets you to pause and actually address emotions. It forces you to put some words to your emotions and take the time to really think about how you are feeling. This was definitely big for me. I still have a lot of room for growth, but journaling has helped me to put words to how I am feeling and see patterns in my behavior. I have seen other people grow in their ability to identify and express their emotions which is increases emotional health moving them away from unwanted habits driven by emotions.

Hopefully you are onboard with the idea of journaling to process your emotions to stop emotional eating. To help you to begin processing your emotions to eliminate emotional eating I put together some journal prompts to help you as you process your emotions. I made a couple of different categories some are quick to do right before and after eating and another to check in with how you are feeling.

Emotional eating journal prompts for right before and after eating:

    Why am I eating?

It is important to identify why you are eating to see if it is because you are physically hunger. It can be hard to distinguish if it is emotional hunger or physical hunger so a little tip is physical hunger typically builds up over time and is and is not associated with a specific food.

    What emotion am I feeling?

Just quickly check in with how you are feeling. It doesn’t need to be a deep dive, it can just be a quick check in. This can help you to see if there are certain emotions that are leading you to eat or just what emotions you are experiencing throughout your day. Both are important to improving your emotional health to get rid of emotional eating.

    Do I feel guilty after I finish eating?

This questions can help you to see what your relationship with food is like. If you are like me or most women I work with, you probably want a healthier relationship with food meaning that after you eat something you are not filled with guilt and shame. You want to be able to not feel bad about yourself after you eat, but a lot of times we do not view this as something to address because it is such a common mindset. Just the other day on Instagram, I saw someone comment that one of their desires was to eat a cookie, just one cookie and not feel guilty about it. Not only is this an unhealthy mindset, but the negative emotions typically lead people to eat more in that moment. This is just to help uncover how your relation with food is and see if it is something that needs to be addressed more in-depth in other journaling sessions because I know for me at least I do not always have the ability to stop what I am doing and process there are other responsibilities so just

    How fast did I eat?   

Eating slower is correlated with losing weight and being thinner. The reason is because eating slowly can help you tell when you are full and be in a more relaxed state while you eat which can improve your digestion. Another benefit with this check in question is to see if certain emotions lead you to eat faster or slower to help you piece together some of your eating habits to help make them healthier.

    How full am I?

It is important to cue into your hunger cues and gauge if you ate too much or too little at your meal. It is a process and you do not want to end every meal feeling stuffed and like you cannot move, but eating too little could mean being too hungry later and over eating. Just check in and see how you full you are to begin the learn how the right amount of hunger feels to you.

Emotional eating journal prompts for regular check-ins:

What are my big goals? Why do I want to achieve these goals?

It is really good to remember your goals and the reason behind that goal. This will help you to be reminded of your bigger vision for yourself and why you are putting in the work. We all need to be reminded and motivated to do the things that aren’t fun in the moment.

Are my habits aligned with this goal?

Now that you reminded yourself of your goals, are your day to day habits leading you there? Are you becoming the person who will reach that goal? Your big God-sized goal is possible, but your day-to-day habits add up in a compounding way leading you closer to or further from that goal.

    If there are habits not aligned, what is driving that behavior? 

Dig deep and think about what is driving the action. What motivates you? For example, I place a high value on health and I know how important sleep is for my health, but I can develop a habit of  staying up late and not sleep as much in an attempt to accomplish and achieve more. I know that I like achieving and being “successful” and when I se this pattern I can then turn to God and get that need met by Him. I am so thankful that doing things does not make me successful or good enough in His book!

Journal prompts for when things feel like they are falling apart:

The next couple of questions are little questions to help you to identify if chaotic and negative feelings are because of a neglect to your body (no judgment it happens to everyone). It can help you from trying to chase something else when addressing some basic needs of our body may be the first order of business. Health is so interconnected and I am so thankful that Christianity does not simplify health down to only spiritual health or physical health, but sees both as very important to an overall healthy life.

    Have I eaten regularly today?
    Have I been drinking water?
    Have I been sleeping?
    Have I been active at all?

Journal prompts to evaluate and address your relationship with food:

How is my current relationship with food?

Be honest with yourself here. Do you feel like eating or not eating certain food makes you better or worse? Are you afraid of eating certain foods? Do you hide that you eat certain foods. Be real. It is your journal no one else needs to see it… and God already knows it. He knew your thoughts before you did.

What do I want my relationship with food to be like?

Is your current relationship with food how you want to see food in five years? Do you want your kids and grandchildren to have the same relationship with food that you have? Is this the legacy you want to leave?

Think about this to reveal how you really want to think about and treat food in your life. As Christians, we are called to live with eternity in our minds is this the path you want to carry one? Yes, you can break away, from this, you have God and He made you, so I know you are awesome.

    Where did I learn to have this relationship with food? 

This is good to help you to think back to the moments that shaped how you view food. You do not want to have a toxic relationship just because your friends growing up told you something or you read something in a magazine. Really think about where it is coming from. It could be the media, parents, friends, advertisements, magazines anywhere. See if you can identify where your relationship came from.

    Is this how God views food?

I don’t know about you, but I am certainly grateful that God is full of grace and compassion, not shame. God definitely wants us to take care of our body and to not be mastered to food or unwanted behavior, especially when that behavior is to help us to feel better and cuts Him out. However, does God think the same way about food as you do? Did Jesus view food as making you better or worse because of what you ate or do not eat? Through your life your relationship with food has been formed, but have we paid attention to what God says? Is it aligned with our loving Father, who corrects and extends grace? Do you need to change your view of food to get it closer to God’s vantage point? Yes, I said closer, it’s never going to be perfect we are not on God’s level.

I hope these journal prompts inspired you and you are excited to journal to conquer your emotional eating to slay your goals!

I gave a lot of prompts here, but there are still more!

If you are looking for a deeper dive into your emotions and help processing them with God I put together a little FREE workbook for you to process your emotions and get closer with God. Don’t worry the workbook includes the information here with room to fill out the questions along with some more questions to dive even deeper.  Trust me the last one in the FREE workbook is a really good! I didn’t include it here because the blog post was getting long and this last one takes some time and energy on your part. So I didn’t include it in the post because doing it part of the way is not ideal, but I highly recommend the FREE journaling workbook to process your emotions. It is something that would be good to keep visiting and bringing those deep emotions to God and allowing Him to enter in.

With God you can overcome emotional eating, but it will take some work and deep dive on your part.

If you are worried that you cannot do this on your own seek professional help to process your emotions in a safe way. If you are currently seeking professional help continue to follow your game plan, they know better your specific situation better and will help you handle your emotions in the best way possible.  

If you are struggling with depression or having suicidal thoughts, contact someone right now. If it is immediate danger call 911. Other hotlines you can use include: National Suicide Prevention Hotline - 1-800-273-8255, and Crisis Text Line  -Text Hello to 741741. You are valuable and loved <3


<3 Jessica

Don’t forget to download your FREE Journal prompt for emotional eating.