Stress and Emotional Eating
Good morning! I was just not feeling
the writing bug yesterday so this blog is coming to you on Thursday
morning. So as always yesterday was weigh in day and I was worried
with my slip in food that I had gained 5 pounds but no I actually
ended up losing. I'm glad I lost weight but I don't want to get into
the habit of eating poorly and expecting these results because that's
not how it works. I've gotten back to keto and honestly I am full and
satisfied on the keto diet I just get cravings for certain foods
sometimes when I'm super stressed. I stress eat my comfort foods
which I have to find a way to counter that and change that behavior
because its a bad habit to have. How I'm going to counter that I have
no idea. I hate the idea of just “powering through” because
sometimes that makes stuff worse when you try to power through and
ignore the cravings. I know why I crave them too, for the record my
comfort foods are things like fried chicken and potatoes. That
typical southern food is what I crave when I'm stressed and I'm sure
its because that's what I grew up eating its comfortable hence why
its my comfort food. I did some research on this subject and I'll
reference all the articles below this blog so you can read them as
well but what I've found in my research are things that I'm going to
put into practice for myself when these cravings hit. I want to
change the way I respond when I get these cravings and if you're like
me these tips may help you as well.
So first off what I've found is that
stress eating falls under the category of emotional eating; which
feels accurate because I also eat when I'm bored and upset but I've
learned to spot those triggers and stop myself so its a matter of
doing the same for stress eating. What do I mean by emotional eating?
Well its the idea of eating to make yourself feel better or feel
something in some way. One of the most common things we think of with
emotional eating is a pint of ice-cream over a breakup, that's a text
book example but what about those moments when you're watching a
movie and want popcorn? Or that moment about 2 in the afternoon the
afternoon lull has set in before the day is over and you're starting
to get bored with work so you grab that snickers as a pick me up.
These are emotional eating essentially filling a void with food and
stress is right there. So one of the articles I found asked 7
questions about emotional eating and I'll post them here:
- Do you eat more when you're feeling stressed?
- Do you eat when you're not hungry or when you're full?
- Do you eat to feel better (to calm and soothe yourself when you're sad, mad, bored, anxious, etc.)?
- Do you reward yourself with food?
- Do you regularly eat until you've stuffed yourself?
- Does food make you feel safe? Do you feel like food is your friend?
- Do you feel powerless or out of control around food?
These questions really struck me
personally because at any given point I've done one or all of these
at the same time. So what now? How to I change this habit? Well first
thing is to admit that you emotionally eat. The second thing is to
find your triggers. What causes you to emotionally eat? For me its
usually when I'm extremely stressed, bored, or need a pick me up.
Fortunately, I've already been working on my habit of bored eating by
snacking regularly during the day on healthy snacks and getting up
and walking around more. That has cut down immensely on me eating out
of boredom. The other two are bit more tricky because they go hand in
hand for me. When I'm stressed I want to feel better therefore I need
a pick me up but I don't always need a pick me up because I'm
stressed I could just be having a bad mental health day that day and
want something sweet to make me feel good. This relationship with
food is very bad and I can honestly say this goes back to my
childhood when I would sneak food after school. I'm sure my parents
knew I'd make those grilled cheese sandwiches but school was
stressful for me especially during middle school. I don't want to get
into details but lets just say life took a turn for me at the same
time I was going through puberty and it essentially effed me up. This
is not anything my parents did, in fact I don't think there's
anything they could have done more in that time of my life aside from
what they did. I can honestly say my mom was one of the best and
essential people in my life at that tumultuous point in my life but I
learned bad habits because I didn't learn how to cope with stress. I
didn't learn how to communicate about what I was going through
properly and I hid a lot from my family and turned to food as
comfort. So now that we've established my history what's yours? I
feel its important to figure out when it started because this is
about your mental health as well as your physical health. Life sucks
sometimes but turning to food for comfort CAN NOT be our answer to
making us feel better.
So now that we've established what it
is that sets us off how can we stop it? Great question, there are
actually a lot of ways depending on what it is that triggers you. For
example if you stress eat like I do get up and walk. Take the dogs
for a walk, walk around the mall, do something active. If you can't
get active for some reason try and play a video game, read a book, or
take a bath. Do something other than eating that will relax you in
some way. For me that varies honestly, exercise helps me out a lot
and I love the Just Dance app that I can do on my phone and computer
its a free app that allows you to earn more songs or you can buy them
and you use your phone to play! It's fantastic I highly recommend it.
If I can't motivate myself to exercise sometimes I'll just take a
bath or sit and watch a movie. Sometimes just sitting down and
watching a movie where I'm not sitting at my computer makes a big
difference for me since I sit at the computer for 12+ hours a day.
Yay desk jobs am I right? I don't get a lot of activity so I'm trying
my best to do the activity thing more and more.
Another thing to think about is when
you have a craving hit are you really hungry? Ask yourself if you
need to eat now or if you can wait just a few minutes. While waiting
try and think about how you're feeling at that moment; are you
stressed, are you upset, are you extremely happy? Yes you can
emotionally eat when extremely happy think “celebratory cookie”.
Thinking on these things will help you identify why you're eating and
help you stop. And finally embrace the way you feel, stop trying to
hide it. It's ok to feel things whether good or bad. Embracing our
emotions and mental health will help us become a more healthy person
all around. I hope these tips help you and please don't forget to
check out the articles below for more information on emotional/stress
eating.
Harvard Medical:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/diet-and-weight-loss/struggling-with-emotional-eating
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