Weight management for stress eaters -
But once you get into the habit of turning to food for comfort, you may not know how to stop stress eating. How do you define stress eating, anyway? It makes sense that some people turn to food when negative emotions come up—eating is a very calming experience.
As for hearing? Think: thee crunch of a crisp apple, or the slurp of a warming soup. Emotions are very much a physiological experience as well, Chase points out. There are other ways to cope with negative feelings than turning to something external like food, says Chase.
Changing a stress-eating habit takes hard work and practice, but thankfully there are experts to guide us there. Read on as nutrition and mental health pros share tips and skills to manage your stress better and tame those stress-eating tendencies. Chase recommends first and foremost to increase your awareness around when and what situations trigger stress eating.
Keep track of what's happening and what's going on in the moment, and really look at the stress and emotions involved. Maybe you just had a really rough meeting, and realize that every time you meet with this particular coworker, you end up engaging in this behavior.
Once you recognize this pattern, you can look into what other strategies you can use that are a good fit. Remember: It's an individualized sort of solution, so find what works for you.
Consider keeping a log in a food journal or even in your smartphone for a bit about the times of day or circumstances when you typically get cravings, plus how you feel at those times. Maybe you get overwhelmed after dinner about tomorrow's to-do list and go hunting for ice cream, or you know you go hard on snacking whenever you're dealing with stressful travel.
If you know your patterns, you can spot them, pause, and have an internal convo with yourself about whether you're really hungry. When Rebecca Scritchfield, RD, the author of Body Kindness , is feeling emotionally driven hunger start to kick in, she checks in to see if this is a time of day when she usually has cravings.
If it is, she makes sure she eats something that will satisfy her instead of going for the first thing she can reach. This way she can think more intuitively about her "typical needs and preferences," she says.
If impending deadlines routinely have you elbow-deep in a bag of something salty, be extra conscious that you're sitting down for regularly scheduled meals and snacks on those days, says Rachel Goldman , PhD, a psychologist in New York City who specializes in eating behaviors.
Planning to eat breakfast , lunch , snacks, and dinner keeps her from mindlessly eating just because she's feeling pressured. One of the key ways to eating more intuitively is to stop and check in with your brain and body to figure out what caused this hunger confusion in the first place, according to Monica Auslender Moreno , RD, a nutrition consultant for Essence Nutrition.
If I still want the food, I allow myself permission to eat that food and enjoy it. She warns, though, to keep an eye on portion sizes. But eating a reasonably sized snack or meal should be much easier after taking that moment to emotionally cool off.
Because now, your choice to eat will be an intentional one. So, instead of turning to your go-to stress snack right away, Goldman suggests chewing some gum or drinking tea to hold you over.
Sometimes all it takes to get your brain off of food and back to what matters is the sensation of putting something in your mouth to satisfy and calm the mind a little.
If not food, what will meet this need? It takes patience and time to learn to be a mindful eater. We know that emotional and physical hunger can be very different things.
But making sure you are getting enough to eat is an important background habit. Our brains are wired to make sure we eat enough for survival.
Many people find that eating a variety of foods with their meals is the most satisfying. You can experiment to see what meals are most filling for you.
If you find that you are often physically hungry during the day, adding more protein may help. Protein sources may keep you feeling fuller for longer.
It can take some practice to start to notice what physical hunger and fullness actually feel like. Being aware of physical hunger cues can help you notice when you are eating for emotional reasons.
Some signs of physical hunger include :. Level one is extreme hunger. You may feel physically unwell, weak, and ready to grab anything that might be edible. Ten is extreme fullness, like after a giant holiday meal.
Make a point to check in with yourself every few hours and ask yourself what your hunger level is. This can help you to notice your natural patterns of hunger and fullness.
As you get more practice, you may start to notice some of the early signs of hunger. It can also help you identify when you feel like eating but are not physically hungry. Resist isolation in moments of sadness or anxiety.
Those are tough feelings to navigate on your own. Even a quick phone call to a friend or family member can do wonders for your mood. There are also formal support groups that can help. One self-reported pilot study found that social support and accountability helped the participants better adhere to eating-related behavior change.
Overeaters Anonymous is an organization that addresses overeating from emotional eating, compulsive overeating, and eating disorders. You can explore their website to see if this feels like it would be a good fit for you. Look for a dietitian with experience supporting people with emotional or disordered eating.
They can help you identify eating triggers and find ways to manage them. A mental health professional can help you find other ways to cope with difficult emotions as you move away from using food. They often use cognitive behavioral therapy CBT. CBT for emotional eating often includes behavioral strategies, such as eating regular meals at a planned time.
Scheduling your meals can help curb physical hunger. The sense of feeling full may also help curb emotional hunger. Some research calls this the cold-hot empathy gap.
Whereas in the hot state, you overestimate how hungry you actually are emotional eating. In one study , meal planning was linked with food variety, diet quality, and less obesity. Instead, consider building a weekly meal plan that includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack. Then, decide what time you will eat each meal.
For instance:. If you experience an intense desire to eat, think about your next scheduled meal. It may only be a half hour away. Ask yourself if you can wait to eat.
Try not to schedule meals too close to bedtime, and keep all of your meals within a hour window , like a. to p. This means you should eat a meal about every 3 hours. If possible, give food your full attention when you eat. This can increase the enjoyment you get from the food.
When you are distracted, you are also more likely to eat faster. One behavioral strategy mental health professionals use to cope with this conditioning is stimulus control.
Stimulus control works by changing your food cues. Positive self-talk and self-compassion are more tools to use on your journey to managing emotional eating. It has been shown to improve healthful eating.
Try to become more aware of the stories you are telling yourself. It may be helpful to write down some of the repeated negative thoughts you are having.
Get curious about where these thoughts might be coming from. Once you are more aware of all the negative thoughts that show up, you can start to work on changing them. Make notes on how you could change the way you talk to yourself. Consider how you would talk to a dear friend and use that language with yourself.
Food may feel like a way to cope but addressing the feelings that trigger hunger is important in the long term. Work to find alternative ways to deal with stress, like exercise and peer support. Consider mindfulness practices. Change is hard work, but you deserve to feel better.
Making changes to your emotional eating can be an opportunity to get more in touch with yourself and your feelings. Emotional eating can be part of disordered eating.
Disordered eating behaviors can lead to developing an eating disorder. If you are feeling uncomfortable with your eating, reach out for support. Try snacking on a handful of almonds, soy nuts, or baby carrots. Take a few moments to reflect on your feelings and think of ways you can solve your problem.
A brisk walk or a cup of herbal tea might work instead. You can also try listening to music, meditating, reading, or calling a friend and talk things over. Delaying tactics can be a good strategy. Emotional eaters continually reinforce the idea that the best way to treat negative emotions is with food.
For instance, one bad day may habitually lead you to five hours of television and one quart of ice cream. If stress is an appetite-killer, try eating smaller amounts of food more often during the day.
Give yourself permission to eat. If caffeine keeps you awake at night, drink decaffeinated coffees and teas. When you eat mindfully, you try to become more aware of your internal signals of hunger and fullness.
You also become more in tune with what triggers you to eat in the first place. Mindful eating can help you avoid overeating and allow you to enjoy your food more—even when you eat less. According to new research from Edith Cowan University , a diet rich in fruits and vegetables is associated with less stress.
In a study of over adults in Australia, it was found that those who ate at least grams of fruit and vegetables per day — which is somewhere around five average servings — experienced 10 percent lower stress levels than those who consumed less than grams, or just over two average servings.
Fruits and vegetables are rich in antioxidants that are linked to lower levels of inflammation, which can impact mood. These healthy foods also add fiber and can contribute to your daily hydration needs.
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