Say Goodbye to Emotional Eatingনমুনা

Do you ever feel like you’ll never break free from the control of food? I used to feel that way. Every so often, I’d start a diet, all fired-up to “change my life and lose that weight!” but then something would happen to derail me. A hard day at work. A difficult conversation. A glitch on my diet.

Before I knew it, I was back to eating everything in sight and all thoughts of “changing my life!” flew out the window.

This pattern went on for years until one day I discovered a discipline that changed my life. That discipline is the renewing of the mind. Romans 12:2 tells us we’re transformed by the renewing of the mind. This renewal works for anything we want to change, including saying goodbye to emotional eating.

In this devotional we’ll look at how to renew our minds so we can break free from the control of food. Let’s begin with a definition of emotional eating.

Emotional eating is letting your emotions determine when and what you eat, not your will. So instead of just eating when we’re hungry or at mealtimes, we eat when we’re emotional. When we’re happy. When we’re sad. When we’re annoyed. When we’re overwhelmed. You name the emotion—we’re ready to eat for it.

Our culture is all about letting emotions and desires rule, but God isn’t.1 Corinthians 6:12 tells us, “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.” When I eat for emotional reasons, I’m engaging in an activity that may be profitable in the moment, but it’s not profitable long-term.

I’m also letting my emotions and desires master me. They’re telling me what to eat and when to eat, and I’m sitting back and letting them do that.

But here’s the thing: in the old days, I didn’t feel like I had any other choice. I would hear Christians—people who never struggled with food a day in their life—tell me, “You have a choice. You can choose to say no to the second bowl of ice cream and the third handful of chips.”

But I knew otherwise. That food controlled me hook, line, and sinker, and I was powerless to say no. This made me feel defeated and hopeless. Where was the power of God in my life?

Well, the power of God was in the truth (John 8:31-32). And while it’s true that the Truth sets us free from death to eternal life, it’s also true that the truth can set us free from emotional eating.