Need help staying motivated under stress

meg7117

So I'm in college and I always do better with sticking to my calorie goal when I'm not worrying about writing papers and tests. For some stupid reason whenever I get stressed out about those things though, I ALWAYS turn to food and I hate it. It's particularly sweets. I'll be super worried about finishing a paper so I will go and eat some ice cream or a cookie as a 'break' from my working and then, once I have one cookie or one bite of ice cream, I can't stop! It's like a have no will power and I know deep down that I truly want to lose weight, but in the moment it always gets the best of me. I also know that this thing alone is what's keeping me from losing weight, because I'll go like 2 days eating healthy and then the next day I'll splurge on sweets while I'm doing homework. I really want to break away from this. I love exercise and I do it 6 days a week so this problem I have with food is my biggest issue and I guess I just don't know how to properly address it. Advice from you guys would be great!

Psychgrrl

Meg,

One of the ways to beat stress eating is to develop coping mechanisms giving you alternatives. Most likely, your college has a counseling center and you're already paying for sessions with your student fees. They can really help!

As other alternatives ... make your break getting outside and walking a bit. If the weather's not with you (I do forget that--I live in Southern California), maybe stroll a hallway, do a quickie workout on fitness blender, I have an app of yoga routines, many of which are super short. I'm sure there are tons of others. You need to find alternatives that work for you!

Can you not buy your trigger foods for a while? Keep them out of your reach while you develop new habits to help you deal with the stress?

In the end, there are things which can help, but you need to develop the willpower to overcome the urges--it's up to you! We've all been there--you can do it!