In the last year alone, GLP-1 medications have completely changed the weight-loss landscape. Clients are walking into coaching sessions quieter around food, less consumed by cravings—and yet, still deeply confused about their relationship with eating, their bodies, and themselves.
At the same time, emotional eating hasn’t disappeared. If anything, it has become more visible.
As health coaches, we’re now supporting clients across a wider spectrum than ever before: some using GLP-1 medications, some choosing not to, and many moving between those phases over time. What hasn’t changed is the need for compassionate, skilled support around emotional eating, mindset, nourishment, and sustainability.
I’m a board-certified health and wellness coach and mind-body eating coach, and my practice supporting women’s weight loss has evolved to support both GLP-1 and non-GLP-1 clients—without bias, without shame, and always within scope. I believe this dual approach isn’t just relevant—it’s essential. As my practice evolved and more clients began asking about GLP-1s, I realized emotional eating support was needed more—not less.
In this article, I’ll walk you through how emotional eating shows up today, what health coaches need to understand about GLP-1s, and how to build a coaching practice that truly meets clients where they are. I’ll also share practical ways to structure your offerings so you can support women’s weight loss with integrity and long-term impact.
I’ll be expanding on this framework and sharing real-world tools for weight loss coaching in my free webinar Emotional Eating in the Age of GLP-1s on February 23rd.
Emotional eating isn’t a willpower problem. It’s not a nutrition knowledge gap. It’s the use of food to regulate emotions—stress, anxiety, loneliness, boredom, grief, or overwhelm—rather than physical hunger.
Most clients already know what they “should” eat. What they struggle with is why food becomes automatic during emotional moments and how to respond without judgment when it happens. Approximately 1 in 5 of U.S. adults report emotional eating behavior ‘often’ or ‘very often’. There's nothing wrong with enjoying birthday cake at a celebration or reaching for comfort food after a difficult day—the issue arises when these choices become automatic habits, trigger shame and restriction, or negatively impact how someone feels about themselves and their relationship with food.
Women are disproportionately impacted by emotional eating. Research consistently demonstrates that women report higher rates of emotional eating across diverse populations. For example, in a clinical study of patients preparing for bariatric surgery, 75.9% of women reported significant emotional eating compared to 44% of men. This gender gap appears in non-clinical populations as well, suggesting a broader pattern. This may be due to cultural expectations, chronic stress, caregiving roles, hormonal shifts, and decades of diet culture messaging that equates worth with control and thinness. During perimenopause and menopause, these patterns often intensify as biology, stress, and identity shifts intersect.
Many clients describe this experience as food noise—the constant mental chatter about food, rules, cravings, guilt, and anticipation. While GLP-1 medications can significantly quiet food noise, the emotional patterns underneath don’t automatically resolve.
This is why emotional eating requires specialized support. Health coaching addresses the behavioral, emotional, and lifestyle layers of eating—helping clients build awareness, self-trust, and sustainable change.
GLP-1 medications have become an important tool for women's weight loss and metabolic health. Prescriptions for GLP-1 drugs to support weight loss in overweight or obese patients rose 587% from 2019 to 2024 and have continued to climb steadily since, reflecting their growing role in weight management. And their effects can be significant. Clinical trials show that these medications can reduce daily caloric intake by 24-39%. By influencing appetite regulation, satiety, and blood sugar signaling, they often reduce hunger and cravings in ways that many clients have never experienced before.
What’s critical for health coaches to understand is this: GLP-1s change appetite, not habits, identity, or emotional coping patterns.
Clients using GLP-1s still need coaching support to nourish their bodies adequately despite reduced appetite, prevent under-eating and muscle loss, address emotional eating that isn’t hunger-driven, and build skills that support long-term sustainability.
From a scope-of-practice standpoint, health coaches do not prescribe, dose, or manage medications. Our role is to provide nutrition education, mindset support, habit development, and lifestyle coaching—always as a complement to medical care, never a replacement.
Just as important in weight loss, coaching is addressing coach bias. Whether a coach personally supports or questions about GLP-1 use, effective health coaching requires neutrality. Meeting clients where they are—without judgment—creates trust. And trust is what makes behavior change possible.
For clients not using GLP-1 medications, emotional eating coaching remains foundational.
My approach centers on identifying emotional triggers and eating patterns, differentiating physical hunger from emotional hunger, rebuilding internal cues for hunger, fullness, and satisfaction, creating structure without rigidity, and shifting from control to curiosity.
This work is sustainable because it doesn’t rely on perfection. It helps clients feel safe in their bodies and confident in their choices.
One client shared that emotional eating used to feel like a personal failure. Through coaching, she learned to see it as information instead of shame. That shift alone transformed her relationship with food. Within months, she described feeling calmer around food for the first time in decades—less reactive, less self-critical, and more trusting of her body.
I’m especially encouraged that IIN is expanding The Health Coach Training Program to include compassionate education around supporting clients who use GLP-1 medications. This reflects a growing understanding that emotional eating support must evolve alongside medical advancements—while staying rooted in holistic nutrition and bio-individuality.
On February 18th at 1:00pm ET, you’ll have the chance to join IIN’s new Visiting Faculty member and clinical nutritionist, Jessica Brown, for a conversation around approaching GLP-1s with Self-Compassion. You’ll learn about GLP-1 medications and the often-overlooked emotional experience around them, and how The Health Coach Training Program equips coaches with self-compassion and mindset tools to support sustainable habits and long-term change alongside GLP-1 therapy. This webinar is part of IIN's newly updated 2026 Health Coach Training Program curriculum, which now includes expert lectures on supporting clients through modern weight loss approaches including GLP-1 medications, AI-assisted health coaching, and oral-systemic health connections."
When clients are on GLP-1 medications, coaching doesn’t disappear—it adapts.
Some clients feel immediate relief when food noise quiets. Others feel disconnected from hunger cues or uncertain how to eat when appetite is low. Emotional eating can still surface during stress, fatigue, or social situations—even without physical hunger.
An integrated coaching approach includes nutrition support that emphasizes protein, fiber, and micronutrient adequacy, gentle structure to support consistent nourishment, emotional regulation tools that don’t rely on food, and support through body image and identity shifts.
One client told me that GLP-1s helped her lose weight, but coaching helped her lose fear—a fear of food, fear of regaining, and fear of trusting herself.
Nutrition and emotional support don’t compete with medical treatment. They strengthen it.
I teach this full integrated framework—along with practical coaching language and client examples—in my free webinar Emotional Eating in the Age of GLP-1s that I’m hosting for the IIN community on February 23rd, at 12pm ET.
Both group and individual coaching models can be effective for emotional eating work.
Individual coaching allows for deep personalization, nuanced emotional support, and trauma-informed pacing. It’s often ideal for clients with complex histories or medical considerations.
Group coaching offers normalization, community, and reduced shame. Clients quickly realize they’re not alone—and that realization can be profoundly healing.
In my practice, I use both models. Some clients thrive in hybrid programs that combine group education with individual check-ins. The key is aligning the format with the client’s needs, not forcing a one-size-fits-all model.
| Factor | Individual Coaching | Group Coaching |
| Best For | Clients with complex histories and/or medical considerations | Clients seeking community and normalization |
| Cost | Higher investment | Shared curriculum + individual application |
| Personalization | Fully customized | Shared curriculum + individual application |
| Accountability | 1:1 touchpoints | Peer support + coach guidance |
| Pacing | Client-led | Cohort-based |
If you’re interested in specializing in emotional eating and weight loss coaching, consider these steps:
1. Develop emotional awareness and nervous system regulation skills
2. Learn to hold neutrality around tools like GLP-1s
3. Market outcomes—peace with food, confidence, sustainability—rather than methods
4. Anchor your work in IIN’s philosophy of bio-individuality, honoring that different paths work for different people
This specialization allows health coaches to lead with compassion, relevance, and integrity.
The future of weight-loss coaching isn’t about choosing sides. It’s about meeting clients where they are, honoring bio-individuality, and offering support that’s compassionate, ethical, and effective.
Emotional eating sits at the heart of sustainable change—whether or not a client uses GLP-1 medications. For health coaches, this specialization offers a powerful opportunity to support women’s weight loss in the GLP-1 era through scope-aligned, bio-individual care.
Rebecca Kastin, NBC-HWC is a board-certified health and wellness coach and mind-body eating coach specializing in emotional eating, women’s weight loss, hormone balance and sustainable behavior change. A graduate of IIN’s Health Coach Board Certification Training Pathway, she supports both GLP-1 and non-GLP-1 clients using a compassionate, bio individual approach rooted in holistic nutrition, mindset work, and lifestyle support, helping clients build trust with food and their bodies over time.