Solutions for Emotional Eating for Midlife Women: Do You Have Permission to Listen to your Body?

I am a Menopause health coach and Dean of Varsity Menopause. I have integrated an educational background in psychology with a fitness and coaching career for over 30 years, empowering midlife women to achieve clarity and confidence beyond their wildest dreams through a series of online courses that address body-confidence and emotional regulation through research-based journaling and other techniques.

Over 30 years ago I lost four clothing sizes without dieting and have imperfectly eaten the amount of food that sustains this body size ever since through pregnancy, menopause, divorce and all the things life throws us. I know a lot about emotional eating! I’m also a grateful, recovering perfectionist.

EMOTIONAL EATING:

1. What is it?
2. Why do people do it?
3. What you can do about emotional eating in midlife?

WHAT IS EMOTIONAL EATING

We’re talking emotional health and...

Around the age of 10, my mother put me on my first diet. She had only the best of intentions. But, looking back, I realized that my weight had made her uncomfortable. I had been fine with it. The body that made her uncomfortable was functioning just as it needed to be in preparation for the onset of puberty. 

Years later, I have made peace with my cherished anorexic mom, knowing that she loved me as much as a mother could love a child, and was merely passing on what was taught to her at my age. I am grateful for having the right mom for me.

Nonetheless, this began my 14-year spiral deep into the world of what I refer to as “diet mentality,” which included endless dieting accompanied by dangerously rapid weight fluctuation and progressive weight gain, perfectionism, compulsive exercising, people-pleasing and negative self-talk in an effort to feel good enough and thin enough to be lovable. You name it, there was not a diet I hadn’t tried between 1969 and 1984....

Advice on what we “should” be eating abounds. Eat only protein. Fast intermittently. Be vegan. Eat high fat. How does one decide? As someone who has been maintaining a 35-pound weight loss for more than 30 years—without dieting—I am keenly aware of food talk and recommendations about eating. Working in the Wellness and Fitness field, I hear talk about diets almost daily. However, I have not participated in a fad diet for 35+ years.  The philosophy that enabled me to lose weight and keep it off has always been to eat all things in moderation. 

Still, my observations about the nutrition mindsets of my clients is that they continue to focus on “what food plan is the current rage” and “which food plan offers the quickest results.”  Meanwhile, current scientific research shows that high-fat, high-protein diets are not the best option for many adults over 50; especially menopausal women.

Women’s Healthy Aging Researcher,...