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Emotional Eating and My Inner Cupcake Debate

Ever feel like your inner 2 year old comes out, screaming and kicking…and whining for a cupcake?

Let me just say that mine came to visit big time just a week ago.

Allow me to break this down.

See, last Wednesday night, out of nowhere, I got hit with a bug. A nasty bug that gave me a fever, a sore throat, and an earache that was beyond painful. Lovely sinus congestion that I haven’t known in a long time (I have more to say about that in an upcoming post.)

I had to cancel everything for the next couple of days…client sessions, a call with my mentor, meetings, and worst of all, I wasn’t going to be able to go away with friends for a long-planned Bachelor celebration in Palm Springs.

Utterly depressing and I felt like I got hit by a freight train. (Did I mention the throbbing headache? Yeah, I had that too.)

Not only that, but my cycle was just days away. My mood was in a dark place, I felt bloated, and really, I just wanted to curl up and cry.

“Why is the happening to me??” I cried out, from my new home on the couch.

My fiancé did everything he could to try and get me comfortable and put me on the path to healing. Since I couldn’t do much of anything, he put on my favorite Food Network shows via Amazon Prime (“Chopped” is my #1!) so at least I had something to watch.

It probably wasn’t the best time to get knee deep into watching Cupcake Wars. Suddenly, all I could think about was delicious baked goods. I started googling on my iphone some of the contestants…perhaps they would be the perfect bakers to create our wedding day desserts.

Though I couldn’t get my bags packed for Palm Springs, I certainly could fantasize about some cupcakes. And my fantasy went right on over to Babycakes.

Babycakes is one of my favorite cupcakes spots, even though I haven’t had one in well over a year. Delicious goodies for the gluten-free, food allergy prone dessert lovers.

Now normally if I really want a baked good, I will make it myself. I like knowing what goes into my food and I actually love cooking/baking.

But in the throws of my cupcake fantasy, nothing but Babycakes seemed reasonable in my mind. I wanted THEIR doughnut, THEIR cupcake. And I wanted it right now.

Then began the inner debate, which went something like this: “Should I have the cupcake? I mean, we’d have to make a special drive just to get them and shouldn’t I just continue to lie here? Plus, sugar isn’t the best idea when you’re sick….But I really want them! Oh but they don’t match my ‘gut healing protocol’…if I have one, it will undo the work I’ve been doing to heal my gut….But I really want one! I just want it already!”

My monkey mind was going a mile a minute. So was my inner 2 year old.

I let Michael know about my desire, which by 7pm that Friday had grown in intensity.

“I’ll go with you to get them if you want. You’re sick and probably shouldn’t be driving,” he said.

“I know you would…but it’s probably not the best thing for me right now. Let me think about it,” I said.

And so I waited, waited until they almost closed, and then exclaimed my desire once more. Though the inner debate was still chiming in my head, my desire for doughnuts was overwhelming my desire for rest, gut healing, and chicken soup.

“They are gonna close soon,” I said.

“I said I would go with you,” he replied. He looked over at me, noticing my eyes were starting to turn red. “Are you going to cry? It looks like you are about to cry.”

And he was right. I was about to cry. Soon Babycakes would be closed. And those delicious baked treats that I could practically taste on my tongue would be locked away for the night. And THEN what would I do?

Honestly, I began to feel a little crazy. In my work as an Eating Psychology Coach, I see these kinds of things come up all the time for my clients. I’ve lived it myself. But for a moment, all my knowledge went out the window. Was I really about to cry over baked goods?

Somehow a food of some sort can become this taboo thing we can’t have and the wanting and the denying of the wanting feels bigger than life. Yes, it’s just a cookie (or a slice of pizza, or a scoop of ice cream or whatever) but in that moment, it feels like the debate of the century.

I realized there were 2 big things going on. #1, I was starting to put a lot of morality around this dessert, which is never a good idea. Granted, I had some good reasons NOT to have it, but still, logically I knew the world would not end if I did have it.

And #2 , the reason I was putting so much weight on this dessert and the reason it was pulling at my heart strings really had nothing to do with the dessert at all. Sometimes a cupcake is just a cupcake and sometimes the wanting of the cupcake is a whole other thing entirely.

I realized in that moment that if I was stressing about it that much, then there was something much bigger going on and it was time to get curious about it.

If the bakery closed, and I couldn’t get to the goodies I was fantasizing about, I would then have to do what I was avoiding like hell…I would have to deal with my real feelings.

So…I let myself cry and tell it like it was.

“I do want to cry…this sucks! I’m sick, I’m missing out on something I really was looking forward to for months. I have this illness; it’s just not fair and I feel like I hell. I just want to go to Palm Springs. I just want to feel better. And right now, I really don’t want to have to think about healing my gut. I just want to eat the doughnut and maybe even a cupcake.”

I pouted, I cried….and I know it might sound ridiculous and childlike…but it felt really good to whine about the cupcake. In the end, it was the healthiest thing I could do because from there, I was able to say what I was really feeling.

Beneath the desire for cupcakes and doughnuts was this:

I wanted to be healthy. I wanted to be with my friends and enjoying my life. I wanted to be out in the sunshine, getting a tan, swimming in a pool, laughing, having a great time, and most importantly celebrating my good friend Greg. Since I couldn’t have those things, the fantasy of the cupcakes and doughnuts felt like the closet substitute.

I didn’t really want the baked goods as much as I wanted to be soothed by the baked goods, to feel a quick hit of joy, and at least get one thing I wanted, since all the other things weren’t happening.

By really feeling the feeling, feeling the sadness and disappointment, and saying what was actually true, the power I was giving those treats faded away. Deep down I knew that the super sweetness of them and the flours which I haven’t been eating would have probably made me feel even worse at that time.

I wound up baking and eating some super easy (and pretty damn healthy) banana muffins that night. (Yes, I should have been resting, I agree.)

Granted, I will say that was emotional eating as well because I was eating to soothe more than to nourish, but at least there was awareness as to why I was doing it. Even if it wasn’t the “perfect” choice, it was a better choice than not saying what I was really feeling and going into sugar shock to boot. At least I understood and broke down for myself why I was obsessing around baked goods.

I wanted comfort in a time when I was feeling anything but comfortable. And though my homemade, healthy banana muffins were indeed something I used to soothe myself, knowing why I was doing it and being aware of that allowed me to let go of the inner obsession that was happening for me. And it kept me from going further down the rabbit hole that would have in the past led me to a full on binge.

(You know, when you feel like you’ve already “blown it” so why not eat everything else you’re not “supposed” to have…)

Instead, I chose progress over perfection.


The next couple of days I cried about missing that important weekend for my dear friend Greg. I let myself be pissed off. I let myself have my feelings, which was really uncomfortable to sit with when you are sick and can’t distract yourself, let me tell you. I ate chicken soup to heal instead of devouring more sweets. And lucky for me, my lover didn’t leave me (thank you, Mike.)

The thing about emotional eating is that we all do it…yes, even coaches like me. My stuff still comes up. (I actually think of it less as emotional eating and more like emotional cover-up eating.)

Sometimes we turn to comfort food because life feels really uncomfortable. It can be hard work to be a human and even harder work to ride the waves of uncomfortability. But the more we can honor what we feel, the more we can get interested and curious as to WHY we are having the reaction we are having, as to WHY only Fill-In-The-Blank will do right now, the more we can let the air out of it.
When we bring it into the light, it loses its power.

We don’t have to hate on ourselves for not having “willpower” or put ourselves down…nothing good will ever come of that. Instead, we can give ourselves a big dose of self-compassion, start to understand what it is we really want, and begin to put our energy there.

Filled with the sweetness of life and owning our desires, sweet treats and food can take their rightful place, and the mental anguish over “to have or not to have” melts away. After all, a cupcake, like life, tastes best with a side of pleasure and presence.

Now, I want to hear from you. What stood out to you about this article? What new tools have you gained around emotional eating? Let me know!

Photo courtesy of Taryn on Flickr.

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