If you’re a woman physician who’s struggling with stress eating, emotional eating, or binge eating — and you’ve tried every plan and still feel like you can’t get it together — this post is for you.
Not because you haven’t tried hard enough. Because you’ve been trying the wrong things.
Why Every Plan Has Failed You So Far
Diet culture has one answer for stress eating: eat less of the wrong stuff and more of the right stuff. White-knuckle your way through the cravings. Just don’t go to the drive-through.
But if that worked, you wouldn’t still be dealing with this.
The real problem is that nobody has taught you why you eat the way you do. And until you understand that, you’re just trying to stuff your hand into an oven mitt every time a craving shows up — hoping it’ll somehow hurt less this time.
I spent years going through the Wendy’s drive-through on my way home from clinic, sometimes craving those french fries as early as 10am. I knew it wasn’t hunger. I knew it wasn’t helping. And I could not figure out why I kept doing it. Not because I was broken. Because I hadn’t yet been taught to look in the right place.
That’s what this four-step plan is about.
This Approach Is Different (and That’s the Point)
What I’m going to share isn’t about what to eat or what to cut out. It’s about understanding why you eat the way you do — and learning a problem-solving skill that you can use in any situation, forever.
Think of it this way: diet culture gives you the fish. Understanding why you eat teaches you how to fish. Once you have that skill, it doesn’t matter what situation you’re in. You can problem-solve your way through it.
Here are the four steps.
Step 1: The Only Pep Talk That Actually Helps
Most of us start a new eating plan with a version of “okay, this is it, we’re going to do better, we’re going to stop eating the thing.” Big energy. Big promises.
That pep talk has never worked.
Here’s the one that will:
No more shaming myself about my eating.
That’s it. That’s the pep talk.
Because shame is the thing that keeps you stuck. The second you shame yourself for eating the crackers out of the patient snack station at 4pm or eating half a bag of chips while you were finishing consult notes — you slam the door on understanding why it happened. And without understanding why, you can’t change it.
You’re learning new skills. Skills take practice. You wouldn’t shame a resident for struggling with a procedure the first few times they tried it. Don’t do it to yourself either.
So when you catch yourself going into shame spiral mode, just notice it. And redirect: I don’t do that anymore. I wonder what was actually going on.
Step 2: Look Back at the Last Two Weeks
Not at what you ate. At when you ate it and what was going on.
Here’s what to do: Think about the times in the last two weeks where you felt out of control around food. Just brainstorm them. Write them down. Then for each one, ask yourself:
- Where was I?
- What time of day was it?
- What was I feeling? Stressed, exhausted, bored, frustrated, celebrating, restless?
- Was I alone or with people?
- Was it a work day or a day off?
- What was I saying to myself?
You’re not looking for what you ate. You’re looking for the landscape around the eating. The context. The emotional weather.
Then you look for themes. Because they’re there. Maybe it’s always after a brutal clinic day. Maybe it’s always around 3pm when you haven’t left your office. Maybe it’s always weekends when the structure falls away. Maybe it’s always after a really hard patient encounter.
Your themes are yours. Nobody can tell you what they are. That’s why no diet has ever fully fixed this — because they’re trying to give you an answer that fits everyone, when the real answer has to fit you.
This doesn’t have to be an elaborate exercise. It could take five minutes on a scrap of paper. Do it fast. Do it messy. Just do it.
Step 3: Pick the Easiest Theme and Problem-Solve It
Here’s where it gets different from everything you’ve tried before.
Don’t pick the hardest theme. Don’t go after the most shameful eating pattern, the one you’ve been avoiding, the one that feels the most overwhelming. Pick the theme that feels most approachable. The low-hanging fruit.
Why? Because as you work on easier things, there are ripple effects. Other patterns start shifting too. And also — you already have no extra energy. The solution that takes the most effort is the one you won’t use when you’re post-call at 7pm with three kids who need dinner.
Once you’ve picked a theme, ask yourself these questions. Write them down.
How can I catch this as early as possible?
Whatever your pattern is, you want to catch it before the craving train is fully running. For me, with stress eating at work, I learned to catch the physical tightness in my chest. Not when my head felt like it was going to explode — that was too late. Earlier, when I first noticed that tension starting.
If your thing is 3pm eating, maybe it starts with noticing the first moment you wish you could just take a break. Catch it there.
What do I actually need in that moment?
This is the key question. Because the food isn’t what you actually need. When you’re craving something at 3pm, it’s usually because your brain has been using food as a break since you haven’t taken one. Your brain is handing you the only thing it has available to give you relief.
So what do you actually need? A break? To let off some steam? To feel less restricted? To process something hard that happened in a patient room an hour ago?
What’s the simplest possible solution?
Not the most impressive solution. The simplest one. The one that’s almost as easy as just eating.
If you need a break and your brain keeps offering food as the break — what’s something almost equally easy that actually gives you a break? What could you do in three minutes that would help? That’s the kind of solution we’re looking for.
Brainstorm a bunch of them. Try one. If it doesn’t work, try another. That’s it.
Step 4: Be Willing to Fail — and Stay Curious
Here’s something I want you to hear: you are going to eat things you didn’t plan to eat. I’m telling you now so you’re not surprised when it happens.
That is not the end of the process. It’s a normal part of it.
When it happens, get curious. Not critical. What was the theme this time? Was it one I’ve been working on, or something new? What could I do differently?
This is the skill. Not perfection. Not a clean run. The skill is staying curious and compassionate when you don’t get it right — and then doing the problem-solving again.
These patterns of eating have been running for a long time. Sometimes the reasons go pretty deep. You’re going to be peeling layers. Any work you do with these four steps will start to shift things and create ripple effects, even if you can’t see it right away.
The only thing that stops it from working is deciding you’ve failed and giving up. That’s just diet culture thinking showing back up. Notice it. And go back to the four steps.
One Last Thing
In the most recent episode of the Thriving As A Physician podcast, I walk through all four of these steps in detail — including stories from my own journey and what it actually looks like to use this approach in a real physician’s life.
If you’ve been putting a ton of energy into fixing your eating and not getting the results you want, this episode is worth your time. Listen on your favourite podcast app or click below to listen now.
And if you want to do this work with direct support, I’m opening doors soon to Thrive Academy for Overeating – everyone’s welcome!. Get on the waitlist at weightsolutionsforphysicians.ca/waitlist.
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