There’s More to Emotional Eating than We Care to Admit

I’ve been doing this work—helping people who have issues with emotional eating—for more than 20 years.  I have always been a little uneasy by the apparent attitude of so many people, so-called experts included, that chronic emotional eating is a simple problem with easy solutions.  You really think someone has spent years eating themselves into very dire physical and emotional straits on a lark?   Maybe it’s just an unfortunate little habit that somehow got a bit out of control?   You think it’s just a matter of not “thinking well?”  Or that all the chronic emotional eaters don’t understand the elemental math “burn more calories than you consume?”  For crying out loud, for “lifetime” emotional eaters this is not just about losing that last 10 lbs. in order to look good at the beach.   This is serious.  And it’s hard.  And it doesn’t go away with just a sprinkling of folksy wisdom in combination with a gym membership. 

The ACE Study

It’s unfortunate, but no one I ever talk to seems to have heard of the ACE study.  ACE stands for the Adverse Childhood Events study.  I don’t want to bore you with too much detail, but it is a very large scale research project headed up by some pretty reputable folks...the CDC (Center for Disease Control) and Kaiser Permanente. 17000 people were tracked for possible linkages between their presenting health problems and “adverse events” in their childhoods...which means they were asked if they had experiences such as abuse, neglect, parental divorce, alcoholism, violence, etc. in their past. You might guess what these researchers found:  overwhelming correlations connecting the severity of adverse childhood events and severity of health problems later in life.  

It is hard to imagine anyone being surprised that having a very rough go of it early in life leaves you more prone to having a “coping mechanism” or two that always seem to have horrible side effects.   One of the conclusions I’ve drawn from these findings is that emotional eaters can stop being ashamed of their struggles, since it now appears the problem develops NOT because they happen to like food too  much, they lack willpower,  they are lazier than the rest of us, or they don’t really care about themselves all that much to begin with.  With the latter problem—low self-esteem—there appears to be a kind of “Catch-22” situation where the emotional eater gets it coming and going.  The wounds from childhood damage their self-esteem, then the eating they turn to as a coping mechanism damages it even further.  Try to make hell a little cushier when you know you’re exiled from real paradise, adding to the pain of the hell you find yourself in.

Working at a Cure?

 “Curing” emotional eating is far from easy.  And the cure is not all that simple.  But people are doing the work to heal; they are connecting the dots that have for so long been left underground or behind the scenes or somehow or another, outside of awareness.  And in doing so, the problem of emotional eating is permanently going away.  That’s the beauty of this approach: when the engine is shut down, you can get off that bus, and you never have to get back on.

The fact that we can, after so many years, lose the dot to dot connection should not surprise us either. Who the heck wants to dwell on all that painful stuff anyway?  No one wants to, though some are still stuck after any number of decades have gone by, still ruminating about early life wounds on a daily basis.  Many others, however, have managed to anesthetize themselves enough and buried the “thoughts, pictures and feelings, etc.,” so well that they are out of sight and virtually “out of mind.”  But the eating is there to keep it that way.   That’s why someone can keep doing that which they clearly know is killing them, try to stop, and always manage to fail by either coming back to it, or just never getting very far in their self control efforts.  

 It’s NOT WILLPOWER folks! That can only take you so far and not even Hercules can overcome the effects of history with brute strength.  It’s curing power or it’s not the real thing! Now all of you who have fought your way to a thinner self don’t get all mad about what I’m saying..  You are free to keep trying to white knuckle your way to a so-called healthy lifestyle.  Prove me wrong, my conclusion wrong, and prove yourself the exception to the rule.  If you insist on doing this I truly wish you well. But I am not going to bet on your long term success.  I won’t be so crass as to bet against you, because I wouldn’t feel “right” about being right at your expense.  However, white-knuckling your way through life is not a great way to live. “Sober” but miserable never appeals to people very much.  This kind of limited success is not all that wonderful over the long haul.   And if you don’t find some way to turn off the “source” of the emotional eating, chances are very good that you will either once again be back into the food and putting all the weight back on,  or you will find a substitute symptom, like smoking or shopping or gambling or sex.   So consider this an invitation or even a wake-up call.  Wake up and call an ACE an ACE.  

Earning it the Hard Way

 What we do--the work involved in our program--will challenge you like you’ve never been challenged before. We have people work really hard at doing the “healing” that is required.  

Why is it so hard?  I know we all we’re hoping for the quick fix and the easy way out.  If you haven’t found that kind of answer after all the looking you’ve been doing, maybe it’s because it doesn’t really exist.  If you’re tired of looking and you’re feeling a bit desperate and you are willing to try something really hard that really works, then you should definitely get in touch with us.

How to Get Clarity

 In many respects the goal of this work is to gain clarity.  The question is, then, how do you do that?   I have one of those good news/bad news answers:  you can do the work required to both heal your "damage" which is emotional at root (and we all have some of it) and then you can face your life with a powerful stance involving ongoing emotional integrity...or you can run.  Doing the work and committing to a more honest relationship with your "underlying" self is awfully demanding and difficult; the clarity begins to come in abundance when our commitment to run is "surrendered."   We almost always don't really like what we need to see--the surrender is scary for good reason-- but we can ultimately see everything about what makes us tick if we make this choice to surrender.  So that is the good news and the bad news at the same time:  it is do-able, but it ain't the least bit easy.    

Meanwhile, running can take a zillion different forms and guises, some of which are very sneaky and obscured, but the end result will be predictably the same: you get stuck and start to go downhill.  For some the slide downhill is so slow it is hard to recognize and it does not produce enough desperation motivation that they feel the need to change.  A whole lot of men live this way; more so than women  (hence Thoreau's observation that "most men live lives of quiet desperation").  This is what makes them so well defended...the "power" of their running commitment combined with the slow "cost" accumulation.   Women and children tend to live with the recognition that having feelings and responding to life emotionally IS the way life is supposed to be, for better or worse, so they don't generally subscribe to the philosophy that "feeling as little as possible" is always the way to go.  Nonetheless, it is human to want to feel good and to resist the "pain" associated with unwanted emotion.  Trying to control what we experience emotionally then is an equal opportunity paradoxical trap, so men, women, and children are all prone to develop self-defeating strategies to try to accomplish this control.   The trick for me is to discuss this in a way that people get to "see" what I'm talking about and how it actually applies to them.  There is no self-help solution to this, and one of the primary reasons for this is that we are so good at conning ourselves.  Without others to hold our feet to the honesty fire we are just too crafty for our own good.

By: Michael D. Lukens, Ph.D.

So many people who are trying to lose weight are made to feel like they're inferior or defective.  Most people automatically assume that success and failure at weight control are determined by the amount of willpower one "possesses."  

I actually don't believe there is such a thing as willpower.  There, I've said it.  I know this may sound a bit radical to many people, and some will immediately dismiss the thought as ludicrous, since willpower is one of those "things" we just take for granted. 

Basically the concept of willpower is a "fraud" that has been perpetrated on us by…well, ourselves mainly.  It’s a lot like the flat world theory which made Columbus a target of ridicule.  It just had to be true that the world was flat—it was so obvious when you stood on the beach and looked to the horizon.  The fact is, the world turned out to be round, and there was no way we could have known just how limiting the flat world idea was until we started to circle the globe.   Willpower is today, like the flat world "reality" was years ago, a widely shared illusion that is hard to shake due to its apparent validity within our day to day experience. 

What causes most of us to accept the idea of willpower at face value is that we believe we "see it" in action:  Susan faces a hard challenge that requires concerted effort and manages to be successful, and Marvin faces the same challenge and is not successful.   All things appeared to “start out equal” so explaining the difference as a matter of differences in their willpower just “makes common sense.”

Note, however,  all the BIG assumptions involved in "equating" the two people and the "task(s)" they are facing.  It is not one task:  swimming the length of the pool can be viewed as a very simple task in the abstract, but that's not how you see it if you never learned to swim or have a drowning phobia.   Would you tell the phobic person the reason they can't swim the length of the pool is they lack willpower?   No, you wouldn't.  The "power" they would need to get the job done far exceeds that of the person without such an intense fear.

When we speak of the cravings and of the sense of deprivation that "dieters" are forced to contend with, we speak of them as if they are a singular, shared experience.  "A craving is a craving is a craving, and when you've seen one experience of deprivation you've seen them all" sort of thing.  This IS NOT HOW IT IS.  If the craving and the sense of deprivation that Marvin finds he is unable to overcome, and which causes him to fail again and again was given to Susan, then I would bet against Susan.  Susan is successful not because she has more willpower than Marvin-it is more the case that her swimming the distance is not complicated by Marvin's fear of water.  He is facing a much more complicated task, and starting out with a different relationship to the water and the challenges it presents. 

It turns out that people who were spoiled as children have not "learned" very well to deal with frustration and limits, so they have less of the kind of countervailing impulses that we end up branding as willpower.  Cravings are more likely to be experienced as an overwhelming impulse for the person with an "insufficient" learning history in this department.  Interestingly enough, on the flip side, people who were very wounded and deprived as children tend to have a related trouble-the experience of deprivation even on a small scale is far too painful to just "override" with a more socially approved of impulse to delay gratification.   Believe this though: If either of those shoes were on our foot we'd have exactly the same trouble, even if we previously thought we had truckloads of willpower to spare.   

It was Alfred Adler, a lesser known contemporary of Freud's, who so astutely recognized the parallels between the "pampered" child and the abused or neglected child.   It is really frustration tolerance and delaying gratification that I'm referring to, and these are learned "impulses" that serve to counter the other more "base" impulses to have, to get, to experience pleasure or "pain relief."   I defy anyone with a history of either being thoroughly spoiled or seriously abused to simply muster a history of learning they did not have and apply it successfully just because it would be convenient or lead to a greater self satisfaction.    It won't happen.   It's not willpower…it's history doing what it does naturally-setting the stage for what's likely to happen next in the face of the life's current challenges.

So let's all wink and nod when we use the word willpower in the future, and focus more on understanding and validating all that is truly going on within us at the emotional level.  This will help us do what we need to do to learn, to heal, to grow-and this is the stuff of real power. 

 If Food is not Addictive, why can't I Stop Eating?

Imagine you were a cocaine addict and you were told this would be the goal of your treatment:

You will have to have 3 smaller doses of downgraded cocaine each day, spread out throughout the day, and you may only use it when you don’t really feel the craving for it; otherwise you risk fueling the “addict within.” You will have to continue with the 3x a day regimen for the rest of your life, and if, over the course of time, you do very well, you can risk upgrading the quality of your cocaine on a trial basis. All the while, your goal is to not allow the cocaine to do the things for you it used to do.  For the rest of your life you must continue using cocaine in  the prescribed way  in order to keep the doctor and the rest of your family pleased with you.

    This is crazy, right?  Well this is what makes food addiction so much more difficult than your “average addiction.”  There is no abstinence program from food.   In order to truly overcome “food addiction” you must be able to still use the substance without letting it do for you what it has always done.

    Can you see how the willpower concept falls a bit short with this population, with this problem?  The coke addict says to himself: “all I have to do is never use again, and I’m ‘cured.’”   Even if that won't truly cure him, at least it is a goal he can accomplish.  There will never be any such strategy for the food addict.  In addition, it’s impossible for food addicts to know for sure if they are more or less physically hungry and not more or less emotionally hungry.  We are asking them to have discernment, self-awareness, and integrity the Buddha didn’t have.    We are asking a whole lot of the food addict, and we should  not be too quick to judge them if they find changing a  gargantuan struggle. 

    I  personally and professionally don’t believe in the addiction theory per se, at least not technically.  There are no magic powers in chemicals that give them abject control over us.   There are emotional/visceral/kinesthetic/mental payoffs that exist as “temptations” if you will, that are generated by certain chemical interactions.   The relief from the headache makes ibuprofen “tempting” to use.  And the social lubrication from alcohol is a powerful incentive for the shy person.  The “kick” from cocaine is a big payoff for the person who craves excitement or can’t stand feeling down and out, and so on.  But there is no “body snatcher” built into the chemical structure of these substances. 

    What I do believe in is psychological or emotional dependency.  This is the “glue” that gets people stuck.  When self-defeating behaviors accomplish significant enough emotional “tasks” for people, then there is always a risk for a dependent relationship to develop.  In the human to human relationship arena, even if someone is hurting me, if I “depend” on them for something important, then I am predisposed to put up with the abuse.  Consider how many people are in this quandary where they work.  They can’t just “quit” since they need the job/income, and they can’t turn an ass into a butterfly, so they must put up with it.  Having put up with some abuse for some time, if and when the abuse gets worse, they will inevitably start talking tough about drawing the line somewhere and yet they will still do nothing.  It gets to the point where they are depressed, where this abusive relationship is costing them dearly, and they’ve lost whatever mojo they may have had, and again, they do nothing (aside from whine and complain and continue to make empty promises to themselves and others).  In fact, they now begin to see themselves as completely stuck and virtually incapable.  Their self esteem has gone down the tubes, and they begin to conclude that the situation is hopeless, wonder if they aren’t total losers, and in more desperate moments ponder putting themselves out of their misery with some drastic action.   

    Can you see the parallels to emotional eating?  If eating has always reduced the pain of loneliness, the fear of the “void,” the hurts of defamation and invalidation, the sadness of loss, the insecurities involved in connecting—even if eating only does a little of this, provided it does so reliably, you have “super glue” dependency material.  When the emotional eater has reached this point the fact that eating is killing him is just like having the very abusive boss.  Once a person turns himself into Gumby by putting up with so much because he’s emotionally hooked into this way too deep to turn it around—Gumbys can never find backbone when they need it, cause they’ve worked their way down to a form of spinelessness.   Remember, you eat to assuage your fear;  so when the fear of making drastic changes comes up, well?  Eat!  And that fear goes away, or it’s “softened”….for the moment.  Remember, you eat to stave off the pain of loneliness.  So in your retreating inside your shameful self and you begin to feel painfully isolated and disgusting…..you can eat!  And eating make this less painful (at least it can make you quite numb).   When you feel so ashamed of what you’ve been doing to yourself, or ashamed for not doing what you should be doing for yourself….food is right there to help lessen the sting of it.   Here you have the dynamics of the self-perpetuating, proverbial vicious cycle.  The very feelings that the food trap now gives you are the ones you eat to get rid of.  There’s a kind of a karmic irony at work in all of this.  

    How does one deal with Karmic irony?  Well you could start laughing at yourself—hoping to handle the ironic part by acting like it’s ok with you;  sort of like being in on the joke rather than being the brunt of it.  But the jovial fat person knows he or she is not really laughing on the inside.  It doesn’t get funnier, it grows more tragic over time. 

    On the other hand, you could focus on the Karma aspect, and begin to “own” what happens to you as a matter of what you are doing to you, and what you are doing (or not doing) in the world.   I recommend the latter.  The responsible ownership of emotional experience is the key, and while it plays a big role in setting you free, it is not easy to do.  I will have more to say about this--including how to turn it around-- in future articles, so stay tuned.

Growth and Self Actualization: Where are you when I need you?                 

We all have a natural need to self-actualize—meaning there is something inside pushing us to achieve our full potential.   However, most of the emotional eaters and “yo-yo dieters” that I work with are settling for much less.  Emotional eating is one of those “traps” people get into that keeps them stuck and “underachieving” for years.   Being stuck in this trap will inevitably lead to depression and low self-esteem, making matters worse over time.

When you first talk with someone who has been fighting the losing battle with emotional eating, they often appear nonchalant, shrugging it off like it’s no big deal.   But if you listen for a while with a caring and non-judgmental set of ears, they just might let you in on the severity of their pain—paint that can be quite heart-wrenching. 

The naïve person wants to ask “If it hurts so much, then why don’t they stop?”   Even this seemingly innocent question can feel like a two-by-four of judgment and shame to someone who is caught in this trap.  Stopping emotional eating is anything but easy or effortless.    

The real source of what defeats us

In looking closely at what is going on in the “hearts” of emotional eaters I have discovered several important things:  one is, the reasons eating became an emotional issue in the first place are always “in there somewhere” even though after so many years these reasons may be far below the surface of awareness.   Sometimes a whole lot of “digging” is needed to get to them;  But once identified, I  never find these reasons to be trivial or insignificant.   No one gets to be so stuck in such a self-defeating quagmire just because they have a hangnail, a bad day, or a bit of stress.   There is always a loss, a trauma,  a troubling relationship­, an emotional “something or other” that overwhelmed the person,  that “glues” the eating to the emotional “payoff.”

A second discovery I made was that it is so unfair, not to mention incorrect, to judge the emotional eater as somehow lacking in character.   They are, in fact, highly committed to fighting this problem and they do not lack willpower.  So the stereotype that they are lazy or don’t care is absolutely false.  What they are is ambivalent.  This means they have mixed feelings that are moving them in different or even contradictory directions simultaneously.  What ambivalence tends to do to us is make either a "yo-yo" --going "right" then going "left" alternately--or it paralyzes us--going nowhere despite our desire to get somewhere--and unless the ambivalence is resolved you can and should expect these patterns to persist. 

If you are serious about your ambitious goal of “stopping the emotional eating once and for all” in your life, then you must be prepared to work through ambivalence to the point of achieving a genuine resolution.  You may need help to get this done…and I assume most of us are ambivalent about that.

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