July 16, 2025

What to Do When You’re Full but Still Looking in the Pantry [Ep. 156]

Ever find yourself reaching for a snack even though you're not hungry? In this episode, we dig into what’s behind that urge—whether you’re on a GLP-1 medication or not. I’ll help you uncover the thoughts and feelings driving habit eating and show you how to pause, process, and choose something that actually meets your real need. START HERE: Download my FREE GLP-1 Success Starter Kit Let’s talk about whether support for GLP-1 use is right for you—book a free consult HERE More from Well with Li...

Show Notes
Transcript

START HERE: Download my FREE GLP-1 Success Starter Kit

Let’s talk about whether support for GLP-1 use is right for you—book a free consult HERE

More from Well with Lisa:

Schedule a free session: wellwithlisa.as.me
Your Go-To Meal Guide: grab it HERE
Instagram: @well_with_lisa

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This is the Eat Well Think Well Live Well podcast.

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I'm Lisa Salisbury and this is episode 156.

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What to do when you're full but still looking in the pantry?

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Welcome to eat well.

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Well, the podcast for busy women who want to lose weight without constantly counting, tracking, or stressing over every bite.

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I'm Lisa Salsbury, a certified health weight loss and life coach, and most importantly, a recovered chronic dieter here.

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You'll learn to listen to your body and uncover the reasons you're reaching for food.

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When you're not truly hungry, freeing you to focus on a healthier, more fulfilling approach to eating.

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Hi there.

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Welcome back to the podcast this week.

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Today I wanna talk about a moment.

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I know so many of you experience, it's that moment when you're standing in the kitchen.

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Maybe you've even just finished dinner.

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Maybe you're not hungry at all, and yet you're opening the pantry door.

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Checking the fridge for something that might sound good.

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You've had enough food, you're not actually hungry, but something in your brain just says, Hmm, I just need a little something, something.

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Today, we're gonna unpack what's going on in that moment because it's not about willpower or self-control, and it's definitely not a reason to beat yourself up.

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In fact, I of course want you to use this as an invitation to get curious.

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It's my favorite emotion, right?

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You know that.

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Okay, we're gonna talk about why that urge shows up, what it really means and what to do.

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And this will apply to you whether you are using GLP one medications or not.

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Okay?

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So let's start with why that urge even exists.

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When people ask me what I do and I say, I'm a health and weight loss coach, they kind of look at me weird and they usually assume like I just like prescribe macros.

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Or maybe it's like a weird way of saying I'm actually a personal trainer.

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And then.

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I mentioned that I usually work with a lot of emotional eaters and helping them figure out why they're eating when they're not hungry, and they go, oh yeah, because we've all been there.

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Right?

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Most people know it's a, it's a tough place to get out of.

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So I wanted to do an episode specifically on this again, even though I have lots of emotional eating episodes, but I was just thinking about what my intro says.

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Where I say so much of weight loss, it's less about the food and why we're eating when we're not hungry.

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So I really wanna get into that specific, just kind of that very, very narrow topic.

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So for so many of us, eating has become a catch all response.

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We eat to celebrate, to relax, to push through the afternoon slump, to wind down at night.

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And over time, our brains learn to associate eating.

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With soothing or even just pausing or honestly.

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Just all of the above, right?

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We just associate eating with anything and everything.

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So it makes total sense that when you hit an emotional or a mental snag, like boredom, stress, fatigue, or just the feeling of I need a break.

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Your brain says, Ooh, let's get a little snacky.

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And this shows up even when you're not hungry, and especially when you're not hungry, right?

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Because your brain isn't asking for food.

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If we actually are hungry, your brain goes, Hey, it's time for lunch.

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It's not like, Ooh, what about a little snooky snack?

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Right?

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There's just a difference.

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You can hear the difference like, oh, I think I'm ready for lunch.

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Oh, I think I need to start making dinner.

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Like that's physical hunger, right?

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But when the brain is asking for relief or for comfort.

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That's when we know it's coming from that emotional space.

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And food just happens to be the tool that it knows best.

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So, there is a little bit of a difference depending on whether you are on GLP one medication or not.

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And again, this applies for either way, but just gonna give a little bit of a difference here If you're not using medication, this often looks like grazing through the afternoon, even though lunch might have been filling enough or standing at the pantry after dinner because you're just unsettled.

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It's subtle, but it's common.

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Um, again, you're, you're not broken.

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This is really, really common.

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It's about habit and emotional unmet needs.

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For those of you that are using GLP one.

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This moment can feel especially confusing because your hunger is blunted, sometimes even completely gone.

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And if you, if you're not using medication, you can kind of trick yourself in that emotional hunger space into thinking that you're actually hungry.

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Whereas if you are, if you're on the proper dose of a GLP one, you, you're pretty clear that you're not hungry.

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But the problem is that emotional.

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Urge might stick around because you still have negative emotions, right?

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And so this is where a lot of women get stuck.

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They tell me, I don't even want food, but I still want something.

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And it's because again, we have emotions.

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We don't know what to do with, but the medication has quieted your appetite, but it hasn't erased your brain's learned association.

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That food.

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Equals comfort.

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You might find yourself reaching for something before you even realize you don't want it, or you'll take one bite and stop, but you then end up feeling emotionally unresolved.

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And that unresolved feeling is what we want to address here because it happens either way as well.

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So if you don't eat when you're not on medication, um, you're still gonna have that unresolved feeling.

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So it just feels a little bit more confusing when you're on medication because you have like sometimes zero hunger at all.

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And so it, it seems kind of confusing.

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So let's take a closer look at what's going on in these moments.

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I'm gonna talk a little bit about the model that I work with with my clients.

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I've got, again, several episodes in my backlog about the model, but I'm gonna be referencing the thought and emotion line specifically.\ The whole model goes circumstance, thought, feeling, action, result.

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Um, and we're gonna be focusing in on those thought and feeling lines.

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So sometimes what's happening is you're feeling a negative emotion, you're tired, you're stressed, you're overwhelmed, you're lonely.

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And remember, this doesn't have to be like the depths of despair in, in fact.

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It rarely is emotional eating is usually more of a subtle response to often what is a subtly negative emotion.

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Typically we're not, you know, crying our face out, you know, right down into a full quat of ice cream, right?

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That's what we kind of picture if we wanna, like, if you google a picture of emotional eating, that's what it looks like, but your emotional eating is much more subtle.

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Sometimes it's just habitual.

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It's what you always do when the kids go to bed or when you sit down to watch a show, or when you get home, or when you go get in the car.

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It's those transition times especially that are habitual.

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Sometimes it's your brain wanting reward, especially if the day's been all about other people.

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And sometimes, and this is an interesting one, it can be somewhat physical, but it's not hunger.

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So this would be dehydration or fatigue if you didn't sleep well.

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And I'm always talking about how those two things.

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Both will send up physical sensations that are false hunger cues.

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We don't actually need food as far as calories go, but we're feeling tired in the body or we're feeling dehydrated.

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And so in order to compensate for those things, the brain sends up a false hunger cue.

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So that is a little bit of a different situation, but you do wanna watch out.

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For that as well, for those on GLP ones, the tricky part is that your body may not be giving clear signals anymore, but your mind still remembers that food used to help.

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So, um, it doesn't help in the same way, which again, can feel disorienting, but.

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Because we're not getting clear signals.

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You know, it might be dehydration, it might be hunger.

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So you wanna make sure, um, in either way, whether you're on medication or not.

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Regardless, you wanna make sure your hydration is on point all of the time so that we're not getting a.

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That false hunger cue from a dehydration situation.

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Obviously I can't always say like, and be sure you're getting eight to 10 hours of sleep every night, because it doesn't always work for people.

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But on those days when you're not getting good sleep, just be sure you are, you know, kind of on top of that, like aware that you might be having those signals come up.

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All right, so here we are.

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Let's get back to the moment we're standing in front of the pantry and you're like, oh, shoot, I'm not actually hungry.

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What's going on?

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So.

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Just pause just for a moment.

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No judgment, no pressure to make a perfect decision in this moment.

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Just take a breath, see if you can identify the thought and name the emotion that proceeded this urge to grab something from the pantry.

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So here's some examples.

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There's no one home and I'm missing having my older kids around and the emotion I'm feeling is lonely, or maybe I'm not sure what task I should start next.

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That's a really common thought for me, and the emotion is restless.

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Or Oh, I always grab a snack when I get home.

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And so that's kind of an underlying thought that you maybe not even are aware of, but the emotion might not be as easily identified with this kind of habitual eat So you wanna like see like, why do I always grab a snack when I get home?

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Like, see what what's under there?

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And it might be because I deserve it.

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I just got home.

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So I deserve a snack.

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Might actually be the underlying thought from that habit thought.

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And so maybe entitled is the feeling there that's like that we deserve a little something, something after work or errands with the kids or whatever it is you're arriving home from.

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So let's use that last example to move forward with what to do.

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But, um, you can apply that to any of the thoughts, emotions that I gave, examples or whatever it is you're feeling.

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So let's say you're feeling entitled to a snack.

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Even just subtly, your action is to follow the habit, right?

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Reach for the snack without questioning it.

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And your result is you reinforce the idea that reward comes from food, So instead of trying to shut down the action.

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Right, like just force yourself.

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That's willpower.

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Like, oh, don't get a snack.

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Or distract yourself with something else immediately, which is often the advice.

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Try instead to, like I said, pause, find that thought, and then ask yourself, what's the feeling that comes with this thought?

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So we identified that it's, if it's the entitlement, let that be there.

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And then don't push it away.

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Just notice, oh, this is me feeling entitled to a reward.

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That makes sense.

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I've had a long day.

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Of course, I feel that.

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And here's the key, is to let yourself sit with that emotion.

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You don't need to fix it immediately.

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You can even say, this is what entitlement feels like in my body.

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And locate where it, where it's coursing through.

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This is what the reward seeking energy feels like.

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It's in my, maybe it's in your legs or arms, maybe it's in your chest.

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I don't know.

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You tell me.

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Feelings like entitlement or restlessness or even boredom don't actually last very long when we're willing to stop.

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And feel them.

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They start to dissipate when we give them a name and allow them to be felt instead of acting on them automatically or pushing them down, ignoring them.

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That's willpower.

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So the real skill here is not just swapping in a different behavior, but learning how to interrupt the model at that action line and give yourself a chance to choose a new action, which in this case is the processing.

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Okay?

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So the, when you interrupt this model, your action is actually feeling the emotion, okay?

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Then you can definitely move on to a different activity.

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Other than eating, but the difference between advice, that's like feeling like a snack.

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Just go take a walk.

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And this advice is that they are missing the step of identifying why we are even feeling like we wanted that snack in the first place.

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Finding the thought.

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And the emotion processing that for just a second.

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This whole process only takes, you know, 5, 10, 15 seconds before trying to change course.

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It's a subtle difference, but it does make a difference because the first option where I just said, you know, oh, just immediately go take a, take a walk.

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If you feel like a snack just leaves you with the emotions.

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That entitlement or that boredom or that loneliness stuffed down inside, you've just put a walk on top of it instead of some sugar on top of it, right?

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But the second option of interrupting the model, processing the feeling, acknowledging it, naming it.

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That allows for emotions to be present in your body, knowing there's nothing to fear from them, and then moving on after allowing them to be felt.

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Just processing or acknowledging the feelings like boredom or stress or loneliness, doesn't necessarily solve.

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For those emotions.

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Once we identify why you're staring into the refrigerator when you aren't hungry, it's still helpful to have some ideas of how these emotions can be soothed without food.

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Yes, they will dissipate, but if we're continuing to think about those same thoughts, right, they'll kind of keep coming back around.

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So after you process them, you might wanna think, okay, what are.

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The things on my list that help me continue to process these emotions with some action.

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Okay, that's the next step is to process with a action.

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So yes, a walk around the block, grab your dog, go get the mail, anything like that.

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Just get out of the house for a minute.

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Um, if that's not an option, also lying down.

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Listen to a meditation, like a nons sleep, deep breath type video.

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Call, text or send a video message to a friend.

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I just started Marco Ping some friends of mine.

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My daughter is like, oh my gosh, mom.

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That is like such an old person thing to do, but I kind of like it, right?

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So whatever, whatever works for you for, um, connecting and true connection with friends.

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Don't just get on social media.

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That's not true Connection.

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Uh, take a shower or bath.

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Journaling helps in this moment.

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Um, another one that I really like is getting busy with a hobby or something like hand work or a puzzle.

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So creation in this moment can go a long way.

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I haven't talked, talked much about this, but things like knitting, sewing, crafting of any kind, um, putting together puzzles or creating in the kitchen, chopping vegetables, rolling dough, anything that uses your hands can really help shift your brain.

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So not every tool will work every time.

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Not, not all of these are options at every moment, but the more you practice identifying the thought and the feeling, letting the feeling be present, and then redirecting to what will actually help with that feeling, the easier this can get.

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So let me leave you with this.

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If you are feeling frustrated that this urge keeps showing up time and time again, please know that that is normal.

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It doesn't mean something wrong with you, it means your brain.

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Is doing what?

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It's practiced.

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So much of this emotional eating is actually habitual eating.

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It is just what we have practiced and practiced and practiced because this is the way we have the habit of soothing that emotion.

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So whether it's a habit of eating immediately after getting home, or it's a habit of using food to solve for your loneliness.

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Either way, this is a very.

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Practiced routine and will take some time to interrupt.

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If you're on a GLP one, this might feel even more frustrating because food doesn't numb you the way it used to.

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But think of this as this powerful opportunity that you have.

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You finally get to feel these emotions.

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Learn how to meet your emotional needs for real.

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You're learning to build a relationship with yourself that doesn't depend on food, and that is.

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Ultimately the definition of the work that I do with my clients, it's not just weight loss, it's real personal growth.

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If you're working through this right now and you want some support, it's really exactly what I help my clients with.

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Whether you're navigating new habits on, on medication, or trying to understand your emotional urges.

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Around food coaching gives you the tools and the clarity.

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Ultimately, I help you see your blind spots in your thinking and in your emotional life.

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You can grab a free consult call with me at the link in the show notes to see if coaching is right for you and if you're on a GLP one or even considering it, be sure to grab that success starter kit I made for you.

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Remember, what you eat matters, but what you believe about yourself matters more.

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Thanks for listening and sharing the Eat Well Think Well Live Well podcast.