3 Ways to Overcome Emotional Eating During Mental Health Awareness Month

May is the Mental Health Awareness Month, and for this reason, Kristina Zalnieraite, Head of Nutrition & Wellness at Kilo Health, voices the issue of emotional eating. Kristina shares deeply rooted reasons behind emotional eating, medical explanations, and ways to finally free yourself from eating when you are not hungry.

Identifying emotional eating on the spectrum of emotions

According to the American Psychological Association, emotional eating affects 27% of adults. Many individuals are unaware that they are anxious or elated rather than hungry. As a professional nutritionist, K. Zalnieraite states that emotional eating is connected to both negative and extreme emotions. Studies shine a light on the intense emotional spectrum instead of on negative emotions only.

K. Zalnieraite mentioned that the problem of emotional eating should be discussed more often and in-depth because people are aware of this phenomenon but are often unable to identify that emotional eating is part of their lives. Many people could get rid of being overweight if they understood the reason behind their hunger. 

“Emotional eating is one of the largest unidentified issues related to obesity. People unconsciously consume more food when extreme emotions affect them. In general, there are three groups of emotional eaters: extreme emotional eaters, negative emotional eaters, and positive emotional eaters. 

Studies show that each group of eaters has a slightly different approach. It is usually the most difficult for negative emotional eaters to control their food consumption, while it is the most difficult for all extreme emotional eaters to notice the problem,” says K. Zalnieraite

K. Zalnieraite also mentioned the psychosomatic theory of obesity, which predicts that people with normal BMIs may experience emotional eating when confronted with severe emotions. People with a higher BMI, on the other hand, may experience emotional eating more frequently and not just when they are under significant emotional stress.

Three ways to overcome emotional eating

There are various ways to overcome emotional eating. Yet, some ways require more resources, while others are less demanding. 

K. Zalnieraite provided her professional expertise and advice on how to overcome emotional eating: “It’s really important to help people understand how their emotions are related to their eating habits. Once we understand how this connection works, we will need less strict diets and simply a healthy routine and control over emotional consequences.”

Here are three ways suggested by Kristina to cope with emotional eating:

Identify your emotions and the type of which emotional eater you are
If you suspect that you are an emotional eater, perform a test on yourself. Allocate two weeks for the test. It will only take 15 minutes from your day, but it will provide in-depth findings on your eating and emotional state connections. 

Each day, write down two things: all foods you have consumed and the most apparent emotions throughout the day. After two weeks, analyze the data you have collected, and it will become evident when you tend to surrender to emotional eating.

Write down steps to solve the stressful situation

Once the emotion is identified, choose another method to cope with stress. For example, imagine a day you face work-related stress, and once you come back home, your unconscious relief is the fridge loaded with snacks. 

Instead of grabbing any low-nutrition food, prepare yourself a healthy dinner and write down the steps you need to take to minimize the stress at work. Writing down smart and achievable steps to solve the situation will relieve stress, and your stomach will be full of healthy food.

Practice intermittent fasting
Another way to overcome emotional eating is to set up a routine that works for you. Teach your body when it’s the time for your breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The body adapts to a pattern quickly, and you will understand that random hungriness is often caused by emotions rather than the actual need to consume food.

You may start with the 12:12 intermittent fasting method when you consume food for 12 hours, and the rest 12 hours are for fasting. Simply have three meals per day every 4 hours. 

“This solution works well for all extreme emotional eaters. Intermittent fasting was proven to be beneficial for routine establishment as well as weight and other chronic medical conditions management. Of course, in my personal opinion, people should always seek professional help when starting to practice intermittent fasting. 
For those who find such help too costly, I typically suggest trying apps like DoFasting, which can be a substitute for the professional help from nutritionists,” says K. Zalnieraite.

DoFasting consists of three integrated product lines: the DoFasting app, the DoFasting Supplements, and the DoFasting Smart Scale. DoFasting creates integrated intermittent fasting solutions for people looking to improve overall health, boost immune responses, and lose weight. The DoFasting products offer continuous support, education, and guidance on intermittent fasting, nutrition, and training. Get in touch with us at