Emotional Eating

karenkoen

Any tips for emotional eating? I tend to snack when I am anxious, upset, sad etc, single mom with high stress job with a lot of travel time.

rubyautumn4

Drink water
Go for a walk instead...even just around the house
Clean something - by the time I'm scrubbing the tub I'm too gross to do anything other than finish cleaning it and taking a shower
Keep cut up veggies and fruit handy to snack on

imchicbad

water, gum, pickles lol works for me:flowerforyou:

imchicbad

Oh and 100 calorie popcorn!

cplangfo

For me, the trick wasn't to substitute my snacks with something healthier; it was to break the addiction to snacking entirely. Now I drink water or-better--write in a journal, clean, or take a walk that gets me away from food. After a couple days, I found that the desire to snack--to just have something to chew on--was gone.

vjsmiles

Journal!!! I am reading a good book about emotional eating. The best thing has been writing down not only what I am feeling now, but also my relationship to food going back to childhood. It's called "Stop Eating Your Heart Out." I haven't read the whole thing, but so far I would highly recommend it.

snoopynut1972

I had to retrain myself. I'm a stress eater, so when I'd get stressed or worked up about something (especially at work), I headed for the vending machine for some chocolate. Now, I put on my tennis shoes and take a few laps around the parking garage when I get stressed. The cravings for chocolate go away and I get some extra steps in!

Find something that eases the stress, or occupies your brain so you aren't thinking about food. It will take time to retrain yourself, so in the meantime grab a healthy snack and some water if you can't shake the need to snack.

karenkoen

Thanks - I seem to do ok at home - kids keep me pretty busy and by the time they go to be I am way too exhausted to do anything much less eat. I have a horrible time at work - when I am not traveling I sit in front of a computer all day. 3pm is my danger time - tired, bored, stressed etc. And of course when I travel, I eat out every meal and half the time in the airport. I have ordered a Polar FT4 to track when I do work out and 3 new cookbooks that will hopefully help along the way for healthy meals.

karenkoen

I will look that up on my kindle - thanks!