096 Food, Feelings & Finding Peace: How to Ease Emotional Eating

Do you find yourself reaching for food when what you really need is a pause… a break… or just a little care?

In this gentle and grounding episode, I explore the deeper layers beneath emotional eating—why we turn to food when we’re overwhelmed, bored, or craving connection, and how we can soften our patterns without shame.

You’ll learn:

• The difference between physical and emotional hunger
• How habits like “desk snacking” or “car cravings” are often nervous system signals, not food needs
• How to bring compassionate awareness to your choices (without guilt or restriction)
• Why transitions, breathwork, and presence-led tools are powerful alternatives
• How mindful strength work can support your emotional regulation

This isn’t about perfection. It’s about presence.

If you’ve ever said “I know what to do… but I don’t do it,” this episode is for you.

For more support with this book a free Clarity Call → https://www.carlykillen.com

Mentioned in this episode:
📘 Hunger Scale resource → https://www.helpguide.org/articles/diets/emotional-eating.htm

Thanks for listening to the Strong Bones Coach Podcast

If you'd like to get in touch to ask a question about today's episode or to find out how you can get support from my coaching, reach out on the following links:

hello@carlykillencoaching.com

https://www.instagram.com/thestrongbonescoach

Thanks for listening to The Strong Bones Coach Podcast!

If you’d like to get in touch with a question about today’s episode or find out how I can support you with coaching, here’s how to reach me:
📧 Email: carlykillenpt@gmail.com
📱 Instagram: @thestrongbonescoach

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Ready to take your strength to the next level? Start building a stronger body and healthier bones with my Strong Bones Starter Kit—your step-by-step guide to safe and effective strength training at home.
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Transcript

Carly: 0:38

Hello and welcome back to the Strong Bones Coach Podcast. I'm your host, Carly, and today we're talking about something that touches so many of us. That's food and feelings, and can we even find peace between the two? Let's be honest, for most of us or many of the people I work with, food isn't just fuel. It doesn't have to be, but we often find ourselves using it to transition through our day using it to soothe. We also use it as part of connection, and again, not necessarily anything wrong with that, but when food becomes our only form of support. Our main way to manage stress, that's where the tension starts to creep in. That's where we start to get some issues. So if you've ever felt like food is a battleground, like you'd be doing fine. If you could just make it through the afternoon without raiding the snack draw, or if multi buy snacks, weren't calling your name at every fuel station, you're not alone. And you're not broken. So let's take a breath together and we can start to untangle some of this. So let's talk about when food isn't just about hunger. So many of the women I speak to in my coaching in Strong Bones Club, they share this kind of pattern. We watch the fridge, not because we're hungry, but because we need a break from the work we've been doing all afternoon. We go to grab those biscuits, not because we really want them, but because it's the only moment of sweetness and joy. In a stressful day, we pour the glass of wine, not because it's a celebration, but because it's the buffer between who you are at work and who you're trying to be at home. So this is emotional eating. It's not a failure, it's just your system doing its best with what it has. Often what we need isn't food. It's a pause, but we've never really been taught how to tell the difference between real physical hunger and emotional hunger. So let's explore that for a moment. Now, when we look at physical hunger, we'll notice some differences. Physical hunger often comes on. Gradually you feel it in your body, your stomach rumbles. You might notice your energy dipping and you feel a steady satisfaction. After eating, you probably find you can take your time with your food as well. Or when the onsets of physical hunger starts, you feel like you can sort of wait to cook a proper meal. Does that sound familiar? The difference with emotional hunger is it comes on suddenly. It feels urgent sometimes specific often for high fat, high sugar foods, perhaps you feel you just have to have the chocolate right now, And often it doesn't go away after eating. In fact, it might be followed by guilt, shame, or regrets, and still a strange kind of emptiness. So when we've established the difference between the two, this comes with gentle monitoring, observing without judgment, taking time to really notice what are we actually feeling. There's another tool I share with my clients, and it's called The Hunger Scale. It's a simple tool to tune into where you are. It goes from one to 10. And as an example, we have on the bottom of the scale, number one, which is absolutely starving. You've gone far past yourself, waited far too long to eat, somewhere around three to four. This is probably where true hunger is setting in. You might feel those first light pangs of hunger knowing that you are ready to maybe cook something soon if you haven't already prepared some food. When we get to around five or six, this might be where we are slightly satisfied. After eating, you probably feel like you could eat a bit more. You definitely feel like you have room for pudding. But this is actually quite a good place to stop because sometimes it can take our stomach, our stretch receptors in the stomach, time to recognize that food is there. We've received the right balance of food if we've managed to have a balanced meal, and that nothing more is needed. Of course, if you do decide to have the pudding, you might feel more like a seven to eight this comfortably full. And again, nothing wrong with that. Depending on what your goals are, where you want to be, you may decide to balance your meals between the five or six or the seven to eight kind of levels, depending on what you've got going on in life. When we get to nine and 10, this is overly full or uncomfortable. So you might feel like this after a big celebratory meal for me. And in, uh, where I've grown up, it's often called the post-Christmas dinner feeling, but we really have overdone it and again. No shame if this happens. It can mean that it can derail all day a bit. You might feel like you want to have a lie down afterwards, and perhaps on special occasions, this isn't too bad. But what we probably don't want is this to be derailing our day on a regular basis, especially if we have had a lovely meal with family for connection. It doesn't feel too good if you're constantly having to unbutton. Your jeans or go for a lie down, and that kind of disrupts the whole point of it, I think. So the goal here is not to control or to stick strictly to certain levels. It's just to bring awareness. Because when we have awareness, we have choice. And when we pause and ask ourselves what kind of hunger we're really feeling, we can respond more with choice and not just a reaction. So let's talk about something else that's often overlooked how food can become a transition tool. I've never actually heard anyone else talk about this, so I'll give it my best go here. So imagine you've just finished your work, your adrenaline is still high, and you walk in the door and the fridge is the first place that you go. Perhaps you've smashed a high intensity class. You're absolutely buzzing, and the moment you walk in the door, your hunger feels overwhelming. Your body isn't just hungry for food in this moment. It's hungry for grounding for a come down. But we haven't learned how to do that. Well, not always, you know, I do my best here. So food often becomes our bridge. And again, it's not wrong. It might not be what you truly need. There are other ways to find your way into a calm, into your center without the use of food. So what I've seen in my most peaceful, grounded clients is that they pause before acting. They notice their needs. They respond with breath, movement, connection. And when they do choose the chocolate, they eat it with presence, not guilt. That nourishment is led by presence, and that's super powerful. So here's a few practical tools that you can perhaps try and that maybe it'll help you make a different choice, or at least allow you to lead with the choice that feels most aligned to you and your goals. So number one, you can try a pause and a check-in simply to stop and ask yourself, what am I really feeling? Am I actually hungry? Am I tired? Bored, needing a break? You can try a non-food alternative, perhaps a five minute walk, a stretch, a moment of stillness. A few breaths. Give your nervous system another option. Number three, if you eat, eat with compassion. Choose your food. Sit with it. Taste it. Nothing but presence changes everything. And a fourth one, you can use breath and movement as regulation tools, a slow breath in and out the nose. An extended exhale, a mindful walk, a shoulder roll. Let your body feel safe before reaching for a snack to do the work for you. Now, this episode isn't here to give you more rules. It was just an invitation to get curious to notice what your body is asking for and whether food really is the answer. You're not weak for ones in comfort. You're not failing your food. Still feels like a struggle, but maybe just maybe you're ready to find a new way. Not one that's gonna give you restrictions, but one that respects you. So if this conversation has stirred something up for you, if you're ready to find peace with food, not just another plan, I'd love to support you. You can book a free clarity to call anytime@carlykill.com. I'll leave a link in the show notes. And whether you're looking for breath work, presence, focused coaching, or support with your strength. So until next time, stay strong and take care.