Emotional Eating
Considering how long I’ve been a personal trainer, Emotional Eating is probably the number 1 culprit in terms of being a hindrance on people mindsets toward losing weight.
Emotional eating is something you must address now if you intend to eat better and improve your mindset in 2019.
Stress is a part of life and essentially everybody has to deal with it. However, it is up to you as far as how you handle it. If you are someone who “Eats” their feelings then, you will find it very difficult to lose weight if you don’t discover positive outlets for stress.
Here are a few tips on how to Tackle Emotional Eating and change your mindset:
1. Keep a Journal of what you’re feeling when you begin emotional eating: It can be helpful to identify what is exactly on your mind when you find yourself reaching for that ice cream. This will help you begin to identify a pattern of your behavior when stress eating situations arise.
2. Write down what you eat when you stress eat: Look at the types of food you reach for when you are stressed out. Is it sweet, salty, savory or something else? It is helpful to identify which foods are giving you the most trouble
3. Look at alternatives to the food you are eating under stress: Perhaps there is a healthier alternative to those cookies you reach for when you’re stressed, maybe you use almond flour instead of regular flour. Or maybe there’s a healthier way to make that pizza, perhaps you make cauliflower crust instead of using regular dough for the pizza. Maybe you use spaghetti squash instead of regular flour noodles. Bottom line, there are better alternatives to the regular unhealthy ingredients.
4. Find a healthy outlet for stress: Because stress is likely to arise in your everyday life, you are well-suited to find constructive alternatives that will help not hurt you. This may mean a variety of activities that you can do instead of eat such as take a walk, go for a jog or run, got lift weights, take a yoga class, meditate or simply count from 1 to 20. Simply ignoring stress will likely not work however, having a positive outlet certainly can.
5. Snack Healthy: Reach for healthy, easy items that you can simply grab on the go from nuts, to fruit, to raw veggies, to snack bars, protein shakes and much, much more there are a ton of items that you can have on hand in the event you need to have something to chew on when you get stressed out.This way, if you do get stressed out, you don’t have to wreck you nutrition when you decide to indulge.
6. Schedule a cheat meal: Identifying a day of the week where you will have some of your favorite foods can help you stay focused during stressful times. Knowing that you will get to have that tasty cookie of a plate of wings can help motivate you to reach for healthy foods during other challenging times of the week. Using a cheat day as incentive can be helpful in encouraging you to grab something healthy when life’s challenges arise.
7. Learn from setbacks: If you slip up during this process, that’s totally normal. But don’t beat yourself up. The key is simply to get back on the right path once you have a slip up. You really want to avoid falling off completely. If you have a bad lunch or dinner or maybe even a bad day, you want to be sure that you have a plan to do better next time. For instance, something simple as having snacks on hand or have an uplifting passage that you can read in the event you find yourself dealing with stress.
8. Get some support: Have someone that can be there for you in the event that you find yourself in a stress eating situation, or if you are having a particularly stressful day. Having someone to guide and support you can work miracles in helping you to get thru a challenging situation.
Conquering your emotional eating will go a long way towards helping you build confidence in yourself and ultimately changing your mindset.
Salute to your success,
Akil Sherman, CPT
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