The FLOW Method
A Simple Sustainable Approach to Managing Emotional Eating
You might think that emotional eating comes from a lack of willpower but that’s not the case.
It’s a way to cope with stress, boredom or anxiety among other things. It’s not always related to negative emotions though, it’s also often used to celebrate the good times too.
Unfortunately, emotional eating can leave us feeling disconnected from ourselves and frustrated with our eating habits. If you’re here and reading this then I bet you’re ready to try and break that cycle.
Emotional eating is something I have used throughout my life, mostly in stressful situations - probably the most common emotion of all that leads to this kind of eating.
Over the years I’ve learned different strategies to help with this and that’s where The FLOW Method has come from. FLOW is a simple and realistic framework that helps you move through emotional eating with more awareness, compassion and control. It stands for Feel, Learn, Overcome and Win - the 4 essential steps that give you the tools to understand your relationship with food so you can build healthier habits that will stick.
I’m going to walk you through it here.
F: Feel - Get in touch with your emotions and hunger
The first step in breaking free from emotional eating is learning to feel your emotions instead of numbing them with food. Emotional eating often happens as we try to use food to avoid or soothe uncomfortable feelings. If we can learn to pause and really feel what’s going on instead, it will open the door to making choices from a place of awareness instead of habit.
Here’s How To Get Started Feeling those Feelings
Practice the Pause: I love this tip - it helps with so many things in life, not just coping with emotional eating. For now just do this: next time you feel the urge to eat when you’re not physically hungry, stop for a few seconds. Check in with your body and ask yourself ‘Am I truly hungry or is there something else going on?’
Name that emotion: Learning to identify what you’re feeling is very powerful. Whether it’s stress, anxiety, boredom or loneliness, naming it helps you face the real issue rather than reaching for food as a distraction. If you struggle to name the emotions - the feeling wheel is a really useful tool - check out a copy of it here:
Journal It: Ok, ok, I know this isn’t for everyone, personally I really can’t get on with journalling but it’s a well researched practice that can really help in these situations. Something as simple as keeping a note on your phone of the emotions you’re feeling when you get that urge to eat can help you to recognise the patterns and build more awareness over time.
By getting in touch with your emotions and your actual hunger cues you’ll start to recognise the difference between emotional and physical hunger. This is a huge first step in changing your relationship with food.
L: Learn - Understand what’s triggering your emotional eating
Once your comfortable with recognising, naming and feeling your emotions the next step is to learn what’s behind your emotional eating. Emotional eating doesn’t just happen from nothing - it’s usually triggered by specific situations, people or feelings.
Once you identify your unique triggers, you can be more intentional about breaking the cycle.
How to Learn your triggers:
Pinpoint stressful situations: Think about those times you’re more likely to reach for food to soothe an emotion. Is it after a stressful workday? Late at night when you’re home alone? After a challenging conversation with someone? The situations you identify are your triggers.
Assess your environment: Take a look around. Do you have a lot of foods that are easy to grab when your emotions are running high? If you have a well stocked snack drawer and you find yourself constantly dipping in there it can help to reduce those foods in your environment or make sure that you have some healthier, more nutrient dense options available too.
Reflect on your relationships: Often it’s specific people or work/social situations that can trigger emotional eating. Maybe you feel overwhelmed by social pressure or a specific relationship dynamic is causing you stress, recognising these can give you more power and control over how you respond.
By reflecting on what sets off your emotional eating you’ll be able to recognise patterns, avoid triggers where possible and create strategies to manage them when they arise.
O: Overcome - Find healthier ways to cope with emotions
Now that you’ve started to feel your emotions and learn your triggers it’s time to take some action by finding healthier ways to overcome the urge to eat emotionally.
This step is all about replacing food as your go-to emotional outlet with other activities that help you to process and manage those feelings. Note: It’s important to accept that there are times when food is the right answer - food is a perfectly valid method of coping now and then - it gives us nourishment and comfort. What we want to do is implement other coping strategies so we’re not always relying on food.
Here’s how to overcome emotional eating:
Create a self care toolkit: List out some activities that help you to deal with your emotions - some suggestions are journalling, going for a walk, taking some deep breaths, listening to your favourite music or talking to a friend (pets included!) Instead of reaching for food by default - try one of these instead to see if it helps.
Practice mindful eating: When you do find yourself eating, make it intentional. Slow down, savour your food. Choose a treat that you really enjoy instead of the first thing at hand. This will help you stay in touch with your hunger cues and can help prevent the mindless eating that often accompanies emotional stress.
Set small and achievable goals: Remember as always we are looking for progress not perfection. Steer clear of the all or nothing approach and take small steps e.g. Try and eat one of your meals without distraction every day.
These small steps will help you manage your emotions without needing food as a crutch.
W: Win - Celebrate your progress and focus on long term success
The final step in the FLOW Method is about winning - celebrating your progress and keeping the long term goal in sight. This is not about being perfect, it’s about making consistent progress and building a healthier, more balanced relationship with food.
How to keep winning!
Celebrate the small victories: Every time you make a choice that helps you cope with emotions without relying on food, take a moment to acknowledge it. Even small steps before pausing before an emotional eating episode or choosing a non-food coping strategy are worth celebrating.
Be kind to yourself: This isn’t a straight path, you will mess up and that’s ok but don’t beat yourself up. Self compassion is key and you have to keep reminding yourself that every step forward counts.
Build lasting habits: The FLOW Method is designed to create long lasting change. There is unfortunately no quick fix for emotional eating so keep on practicing your emotional awareness, identifying your triggers and building healthy coping strategies. Over time it will become easier to manage.
So what’s next?
Remember The FLOW Method - Feel, Learn, Overcome, Win - is a practical and sustainable way to address emotional eating. By tuning in to your emotions, understanding your triggers, developing healthier coping strategies and celebrating your progress you can create a balanced, empowered relationship with food.
Remember this isn’t about a quick fix or a restrictive diet - it’s building awareness, practicing self compassion and making progress over time.
If this is something that you’d like some help with you can message me below I’d love to chat.
Rosie xx