Essentially. I fasted down 15lbs in about a month. (out of the 50 ish my doc told me I need to lose)
But due to work I’ve started stress eating and gained back 10 lbs.
Aside from exercise (I am but still eating too much) what’s a good way to manage stress eating?
Is there other habits that are healthier I can replace them with?
Strangely enough I used to stress eat by eating large amounts of candy and here’s how I overcame that:
I was severely dehydrated back then and that caused me to have headaches, which I tried to remedy by continuing to eat candy (of course it made it worse)
This has helped me so much, I was amazing by how important the way you breathe factors into how stressed you are. Especially with my anxiety of crossing roads and socialising.
This was a short-term remedy for me, but it also helped in it’s own way. It was like being able to rant 24/7 without needing someone there, calming down, then looking back and seeing the progress I’ve made.
Last but not least which is probably self explanatory:
I’ve always been an emotional/stress eater. The tiniest “stressful” moment I’d throw in the towel and binge eat/drink. In my head I was making excuses for it, I can eat this because this happened to me today. I realised I was using food/drink to distract myself and not properly deal with my emotions. Rather than sort things out, I was avoiding it, thinking that what I ate or drank would make it better. It obviously didn’t, just made me feel worse.
I started journaling which really helped. I woke up earlier each morning, writing 1 thing that I was looking forward to that day, what potential challenges I had coming up & how I was going to overcome them. And then at the end of the day revisiting my journal, noting how I overcame the challenge, what I was grateful for and what was the best thing that happened that day.
I also read Atomic Habits by James Clear which recommends habit stacking to help implement good habits.
I find that I’m more prone to stress eat when I have easily bingeable food in my house. Like, I rarely keep ice cream or cheezits in the house because I know in my moments where I’m stressed or want comfort, that’s where I’ll go. I think one beautiful practice of fasting, is it allows a little more space for reflection. Asking myself questions like “do I need this emotion right now? What does my heart actually need?” And sometimes the answers are hard. (I’m also a big supporter of therapy!!!!)
I also think, by keeping nutrient dense, healthy foods in your home that you have to cook, your intentions can move from stress eating to “I’m saute-ing these vegetables and chicken because they’re good for me!” And then, if you still stress eat, at least it’s food your body really needs.
Anyway. You’re not alone. Please don’t give up. Create a game plan and see how it works. Change as needed. Fall down 7 times, get up 8. :)
Eliminating snack foods and comfort foods as much as possible. Recognize what foods you tend to eat when stressed. I stress eat and binge eat comfort foods like cheese or things that are crunchy, and I can’t have things like pork rinds or most cheeses in my house because I will eat them when stressed.
Try to identify what your stress triggers are so when they happen you can have better control over not going to stress eat.
Drink water. A lot of water. Most people I think are dehydrated.
Eat at set times.
It’s really hard isn’t it? What I tend to do is to sit down and think about what is causing me to want to eat. It’s very rare that I can admit to actual hunger; but it helps when I can remember the specific triggers that caused this feeling.
Yesterday I was trying to do a longer fast. About four hours to go I was really hungry! Went downstairs open the fridge… And then I simply asked myself hey, why eat now? What’s causing this? And I realized it was the result of a phone conversation had.
This is probably not helpful, because it’s a bit harsh, but in July I was experiencing some pretty bad depression. I understand why, it’s valid, but still it happens. I decided to eliminate sugars for the whole month, and told myself “if you’re going to be miserable… You might as well be miserable without sugar“! And it’s weird but it really worked.
dont buy foods you dont want to be eating, have easy healthy alternatives to hand (dried fruit instead of crisps, meals you’ve made from scratchd stored in the freezer instead of takeout etc)
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figure out what you are stressing about at work and fid a solution to the problem