Wings of Inspired Business with Melinda Wittstock: Episode #779: Emotional Eating: Why High-Achieving and Resilient Women Entrepreneurs Are More Prone

How to Overcome Food Addiction and Overeating

Ever find yourself standing mindlessly in front of the fridge at night looking for something, anything to eat. Or at the end of a stressful day munching through a whole bag of popcorn or an entire pint of ice cream without even realizing how much you’re eating? It’s not that you’re eating because you’re hungry, but you are craving something. And chances are you are eating out of an emotional rather than physical need.

Entrepreneurship is stressful, and founders must be resilient to cope with all the ups and downs. Yet that very resilience that propels you forward to success, can also lead you down a path of disassociation, and all too often it manifests as emotional eating.

Maybe eating makes you feel grounded. Maybe it numbs out the emotional highs and lows of the day. It could provide a soothing comfort or a sense of security, it could be entertainment, it could be anything – and anything that stops us from truly feeling our emotions.

Jessica Procini says emotional eating is a form of disassociation, a sense of denial, and women entrepreneurs contending with all the uncertainty and stress of entrepreneurship are especially prone. It’s a pattern that usually begins in childhood, when parents give you a treat when you’re upset – and then reinforced by a food industry hellbent on getting you to override your body’s natural cue to say enough is enough. It’s not an eating disorder, though it can lead to one. And many women who eat emotionally are not necessarily overweight.

When Overeaters Anonymous and therapy didn’t work for Jessica, she went deep into research and the result is her signature program Escape from Emotional Eating – now helping thousands of women entrepreneurs and executives heal the emotional patterns that lead to food addiction and overeating.

Listen to the full episode here.