Question:
I have this bad habit of running to the fridge and EATING whenever I am
stressed, or angry, or upset. Does anyone else have this same urge? And how
do you defeat it?
Answer:
This is me to a tee. I'm pretty sure stress eating is how I gained most
of my weight in the first place - that and getting a desk job. Things
I do/have done to stop it are:
1) I eliminated as much stress as possible from my life. I changed jobs, and
I work hard at not letting stupid things stress me out. Fortunately most of
my stress was coming from work, so I was able to eliminate it in one fell
swoop.
2) I don't keep unhealthy food in the fridge. This means that if I get
stressed out I either have to eat something healthy, or I have to go out
and get something. Thankfully my stress seems to come with built in
laziness.. :)
3) I eat regular, healthy, meals. This way should I become stressed out,
I won't be physically hungry as well mentally hungry. It also limits the
amount I can eat if I do start eating.
4) I have a very supportive boyfriend, I have explained the situation and
asked him to help me when I get stressed out. Either he comforts me, or
he tries to talk me out of it by reminding me how bad I feel after I eat
junk food. It doesn't always work, but if I'm borderline stressed, it helps
more often than not.
5) I exercise regularily. This helps me to deal with whatever stress does
occur, and also temporarily dampens my appetite. It also speeds my metabolism
and helps me feel better about myself.
Despite struggling with stress eating on and off for a while now, it seems
to be working. I've only had the urge to eat because of stress once since
August 25th, and because I'd been doing so well for so long, even that was
a pretty limited urge.
I have a bad habit after a stressful day at work of trying to talk myself
into having a big "treat" of some kind just because I made it through a,
quite frankly, shitty day. Now, if that's not self-delusion, what is? So,
yes, I often have the urge to eat out of stress or other strong emotions.
The way I defeat it is by thinking it through. I don't just say, oh, screw
it. I actually ask myself, why do I want to eat and why am I craving the
food I'm craving. If I decide that I'm wanting to eat just because of some
emotion, then I'm not eating out of hunger and don't really need to eat,
I've been there and done that. Recently I've done a lot of research on
Seratonin diets and medications. They all indicate that when your running
to eat high cal, high carb foods it's because your seatonin level is down.
They recomend eating a complex carb, wait a half hour and then eat
another one if you still need to. Another theory that relates to this is
the Zone diet. You can read about it in the book called
