mebeing
No matter how motivated you feel to eat healthily, there are times when you find solace from eating the junk. For some reaching for French fries or ice cream is considered comforting to calm down the emotions after a stressful day or some binge on sugary items to comfort the stress of a challenging task. Eating too much of these kinds of food can disturb all your healthy diet and contributes to an unhealthy weight gain. It also exacerbates your negative mood and takes you closer to your chronic diseases such as heart attack, diabetes, or other diet-related conditions.
Following are the few strategies that you can adapt to handle stress-eating:
Pay attention to the real problem:
Stress eating is done when you fail to achieve what you had in mind. Instead of going to the root cause, you find comfort in eating something that is absolutely not good for your health. When you face such a situation, the first thing you should pay attention to is towards the real issue. Ask yourself that how you feel and what the actual thing is that you want at that time.
Focus on the future:
When you are confronted in a stressful situation, take some time out to think on the long-term basis. Think how you want to look in a period of some time and it will help you move towards healthier food choices.
Become mindful:
People, who are usually involved in stress-eating, remain unclear of what their thoughts are. According to experts in mindfulness training, you need to learn how to identify your feelings and accept the ones that are not pleasant. Then focus on your breathing to stop yourself from reaching the food that is a threat to your health.
Indulge in self-compassion:
The easiest way to disconnect from stress-eating is to be kind to yourself. It means that if you do stress-eating at some point, do not beat yourself up for the mistake and realize it can happen to anyone. All you need to do is to commit to making better food choices in the future.
Enjoy what you forget the food:
When you find yourself in a stressful situation and fear that you will take comfort in stress-eating, make a list of nonfood ways to quell stress. Go out for a walk, do squats, jumping jacks, jumping rope, etc. Take deep breaths, meditate, and also add a short nap to your list.
