One of the greatest challenges when it comes to weight loss is conquering emotional eating. Emotion-driven eating tends to be mindless, making it hard to stop once begun.

Mindfulness helps you recognize when you’re eating out of habit or boredom, providing the space for change. Furthermore, mindfulness improves overall relationships with food.

Focus on the Breath

Mindfulness meditation focuses on your breath to bring awareness of the present and regain control of your emotions. This simple breathing exercise can be practiced anytime and anywhere; all it requires is a quiet space and about 10-15 minutes of your time.

Start by sitting comfortably, closing your eyes, and taking note of everything around you, such as the sound of air passing over your tongue, feeling of support beneath you, tension or relaxation in your body and more. Notice any time your attention wanders from breathing to other topics; bring it back when necessary by counting breaths if that helps focus your awareness back onto experience.

Research suggests that mindful eating may reduce emotional reactivity to cues of hunger and craving, which often lead to overeating. Unfortunately, studies on mindfulness interventions are limited and varied with respect to study population, primary outcome design (weight/calorie intake), curriculum configurations (MBSR vs MBCT), target outcomes (emotional eating; diet change), etc.

In this study, a short form of the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ-24) was utilized to measure dispositional mindfulness; specifically its subscales “observing, nonreacting to inner experience, and acting with awareness”. This measure has previously been utilized in studies regarding various mental health conditions and was found to possess acceptable internal consistency.

This study utilized another measure, the DEBQ emotional eating questionnaire. While it has been shown to be valid and reliable for emotional eating assessment, its administration in clinical settings limits its use as an accurate predictor of treatment outcome.

This study was undertaken to examine the effects of a mindfulness-based program on emotional eating and weight loss. Although initial results indicate a reduction in emotional eating with mindfulness-based programming, this did not remain stable after follow-up assessment; thus a larger scale investigation is necessary in order to confirm if mindfulness-based programs help sustain reduction in emotional eating.

Take a Moment to Check in with Yourself

Owing to its convenience, it may be easy to focus on what should be eaten but harder still to address what’s driving overeating. Mindfulness practices can help bring awareness of unhealthy patterns like binge eating in response to negative emotions; once aware, mindfulness practices allow us to change these unhealthy patterns into better ones and begin making better choices for our bodies and lives.

Mindfulness involves paying attention to the present moment, so it can help you recognize when you are experiencing discomfort or craving certain food. Furthermore, mindfulness teaches us to accept these feelings as natural and normal; resisting your cravings only serves to strengthen them further! Instead, use mindfulness to explore them by noting the sensation in your body, asking why this feeling exists, or inspecting what food your craving involves (i.e. looking, smelling and tasting it).

One study discovered that mindfulness eating techniques helped overweight individuals reduce emotional eating by teaching participants to detach from the experiences of food cravings and the act of eating itself. Researchers employed a mobile app equipped with various mindful eating tools such as an urge/craving quiz and “Want-O-Meter,” so participants could identify their emotions, determine whether food cravings were caused by hunger or another emotion and use mindful eating exercises to curb them.

Eating mindfully can be as simple as taking a few deep breaths before beginning a meal and taking time to enjoy each bite. It could even involve setting down your utensils between bites to fully appreciate each food’s flavors, textures, and aromas – rather than focussing solely on how full or satisfied it makes you. Be conscious of how each bite makes your body feel; focus on its positive impacts such as energy or clarity rather than how full you become afterward.

Many overweight individuals have learned to conceal their unhealthful eating habits from family and friends, yet over time the poor choices catch up with them in the form of sagging bellies, aching joints, high blood pressure levels, elevated CRP levels (a risk factor for heart disease) levels, as well as elevated levels of CRP risk factor levels. Although food may provide temporary relief, no matter how hard we try.

Be Kind to Yourself

Emotional eating often stems from negative emotions like sadness, anger, anxiety and frustration; but you could also use food as a reward or soother when feeling better than you were expecting to feel. Emotional eating often creates more problems than it solves by way of guilt and shame feelings.

One way to break this cycle is through self-kindness. Studies have proven that practicing kindness toward oneself leads to weight loss by helping maintain healthier habits and making lifestyle adjustments that promote weight loss. Self-kindness practices could range from taking a warm bath or calling a friend, to exercising regularly or eating healthily – when feeling the urge to turn to food as comfort, try saying: ‘I know I have lots of emotions right now but they’re okay; instead of always eating them away I can try finding other ways of soothing myself instead.”

Being kind to yourself can help keep your diet goals on track, even after encountering obstacles. If a disappointing work meeting tempts you to binge after all, remind yourself that we all experience setbacks on our journeys. If emotional eating habits become overwhelming for you, try speaking to a therapist or supportive friend as soon as possible for support.

Mindful eating may appear daunting at first, but it really just means paying more attention to your hunger, cravings, and food intake. To start off with mindful eating, simply assess and reassess your hunger on a scale of 1-10 each time it occurs. Once that has been established, use the RAIN (Recognize Accept Investigate Note) exercise from the mindful eating app to understand why you might be eating in response to emotions.

Mindfulness has long been linked with healthier eating behaviors and has been proven to reduce hedonistic or emotional drive-eating by encouraging one to enjoy their meals more fully and regulate emotions better. One study concluded that mindfulness training reduced mood-craving links, with effects being maintained over time.

Practice Self-Care

Emotional hunger can feel like an intense, overwhelming tension that demands immediate satisfaction with food. Comfort foods may initially feel satisfying; however, after the initial rush of pleasure wears off you may end up feeling bloated and guilty; hence beginning the cycle all over again by using food to try to feel better. Emotional hunger may be harder to identify from physical hunger because its manifestation is less manifest than traditional physical hunger is more concentrated around certain textures, tastes and smells.

Mindfulness can help break the emotional eating cycle by teaching us to recognize when we’re actually hungry and redirect our focus away from food towards other forms of happiness, like spending time outdoors or with loved ones. Promoting overall well-being through mindfulness practices, healthy eating habits, stress management techniques and adequate sleep can prevent unhealthy emotional eating behaviors from taking hold.

Research has demonstrated that mindful eating can significantly decrease several of the factors which contribute to overeating, including anxiety, depression, impulsivity and low self-esteem. Although mindful interventions demonstrated substantial improvements for these factors, their improvement did not influence weight loss.

This study utilized a mobile app-delivered, theory-driven mindful eating intervention designed to teach skills necessary for healthy eating behaviors and emotional regulation. Participants completed 28 lessons over 28 days; with each day offering a new lesson. Videos, animations and straightforward guidance provided to learn these principles. Furthermore, this intervention allowed for self-pacing capabilities so participants could work through modules at their own pace while spending extra time practicing skills or using in-app tools if required.

Results revealed that the “mindful eating” + TAU program significantly decreased emotional eating at posttreatment and 1-month follow-up compared with TAU alone, and these effects were maintained over time on subset of process measures such as “observing” component of mindfulness (Baer et al. 2006).