How to overcome Stress eating
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pbm89gt
Posts: 42 Member
I'd like to hear how you've stopped stress or emotional eating. This is one thing I still struggle with, especially at night and especially Sunday nights. Ever since I started MFP I've been able curb some of this or I'll eat healthier options. I still have those moments that I have to force myself to stay out of the kitchen, lol. My old go to was a big bowl of vanilla ice cream with lots of peanut butter added 😳
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I moved some of it to increased physical activity. As in move (walk/pace/get out) when stressed
Moved some of it to lower calorie options, modified the concept of meals to count random stress food as meals if the calories correspond to such.
Yogurt with cereal, low cal puddings, fruit, fudgecycles instead of Haagen-Dazs, or trade a gelato for a meal. Back in the day the ice cream was on top of the nutritious food because dinner was dinner and a right. Now I'll just have to make do within my calorie limits more or less (some leeway and flexibility allowed balanced against ending with run away reactions.. which still happen. Hopefully not too often)
It does help that I've always eaten late and that for better or worse I tend to keep a full meal worth of calories (30+% of the total) for the end of the day. Doing so can and still does backfire. In fact it's one of my enduring problems.
So the answer from my end is not complete victory. Just mitigation and harm containment with varying degrees of success depending on the size of the stressors
And yes before I lost weight I did not even recognize that I was stress eating.
Has you asked I would have truthfully stated based on my belief that I was not.
It took all the mitigations and a reduction in frequency till I eventually got better at recognizing when I was actually hungry as opposed to just eating to relieve stress.
Still confuses me at times
But that's why I try to rely on multiple layers of defences as opposed to just willpower2 -
PS
If you find the solution and bottle it I will buy some!2 -
Me too.
My best defence against stress eating is walking in response to stress. That doesn’t always work because walking is not always possible. But when it is after I walk the stress has usually dissipated a bit and I don’t feel so inclined to eat poorly. I might want to eat but I tend to want crave something better for me. Unless I’m stupid and take that first bite of something bad and then it just completely unravels.1 -
I too would like to order a few dozen of those bottles if you find the answer and bottle it2
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Ditto here! I know stress and anxiety eating have always been my problem. Eating my troubles and thereby creating even more stress. You’d think it would be an easy fix but no.
I try to be extra careful when I know a stressful/emotional event is coming. Unexpected things - I try to remove myself from food sources. Last resort is to select one or two things to comfort eat and kind of plan.
My goal is to avoid uncontrollable binging. Sadly that doesn’t always work. So I forgive myself and try to do better the next day.2 -
Don't get stressed.
That will be 50€.
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Kidding. XD
Exercise is a pretty good de-stress pill for me, but also something that I have seen working in the past is to simply sit down and think it over for five minutes or so.
If I find out that I am not really hungry but just bored/stressed/irritated...I then decide to not indulge on it any more. Since that is what I decided, I have no option now. No food for me sir, I'm done.
This works for me...about 80% of the time. For the rest, I simply eat and then subtract it from the next two days energy budget so that my weekly calorie allotment does not change.3 -
Yeah. I do too (the averaging) but only to a degree. And mostly because I am not in the process of losing (fast) already, thus SOMETHING has to be done to contain a weight gain if I were to just eat at maintenance after an overage.
My "rule of thumb" *currently* is that the averaging can take place at no more than a ~3-500 Cal true deficit. i.e. if the averaging creates a larger deficit it will have to be over more days or I will have to "take the hit" and move on. Because, at least in my case, creating larger deficits could create/perpetuate a restrict binge cycle just because of the larger deficit.
In the days of "rapid loss" i.e. when I was consistently engaging in 500+ Cal deficits on a regular basis, then I would not engage in any "forward" / make up math.
it was just a tomorrow is another day policy as the deficits would just keep rolling and the only effect would be a lengthening of the total time period of weight loss... which is of no consequence as far as I'm concerned.2 -
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Thank you both for your sharing your intelligent insightful methods. We can tell your words come from people who have been truly been there.1
