Stress Eating

Stress eating, also known as emotional eating may be the way you put on weight- even if you mostly eat in a balanced way most of the time. When you’re feeling stressed many people use food for emotional comfort. If you are stressed, or bored, and find yourself rooting around in the pantry or refrigerator for something to eat, you will start adding weight.

Stress increases cortisol, the stress hormone, in your body. EVEN IF YOU DON’T EAT MORE, you can still gain weight from stress!  This is thoroughly researched and documented although the diet industry doesn’t want you to know this. Furthermore, guilty thoughts you feel from eating something “bad” or “cheating” can and add pounds even though you are not over-eating! Belly Fat is the result of excess cortisol in your body and it is the result of stress!

Comfort Food?

Comfort is our very first association with food is love ! Newborn babies cry because their stomach is empty, and this warm loving body comes along and feeds you. The link is obvious: Food = Stopping the Pain, and the person who stops the pain is someone we love! What pain are you trying to stop by feeding yourself? Those are your stress triggers that send you for relief using comfort food.

The first way we can start dealing with stress eating is to become mindful. Before you put food into your mouth, ask yourself a question: Am I eating because I’m hungry? If not find the word that expresses the stress trigger:

• Boredom
• Loneliness
• Frustration
• Sadness
• Anxiety
• Anger
• Name YOURS

Diet Stress

Stress not only effects how your body metabolizes food, but also where the fat is placed on your body. The belly fat is the area that expands when our adrenal glands are affected by continuous stress. As soon as you go on a diet, your body shifts into stavation prevention mode. Your metabolism slows down to deal with the perceived threat of starving because of lack of food. This is a type of diet stress.

No matter how much dieting and exercise you do, once your adrenals are exhausted from habitual stress, the weight is not coming off and staying off! Dieting actually CREATES STRESS in your body!

Law Of Attraction and Dieting

Just thinking that you are on a diet affects your thought patterns, and even has an effect explained by the Law of Attraction! Have you ever realized that as soon as you tell yourself that you are on a diet all you notice are food advertisements while watching TV? When you are away from home, your may find yourself only noticing stores that are selling food. Smells from these places become most prominent in your senses as well! That is The Law of Negative attraction.

Instead of telling yourself you are on a diet (negative), replace the statement with the positive affirmation: I am taking care of myself by choosing to eat healthy foods that taste wonderful. Positive affirmations reboot your mindset. Positive affirmations repeated, and said with feeling, can help you focus on doing what you know is good for you, improve your mood and feel better about yourself! That lowers your cortisol levels in your body! Mind/Body medicine really works. That is the Law of Attraction at work!

Bottom line: don’t be hard on yourself. Focus on eating only when hungry, not for emotional reasons; and love and accept yourself the way you are to relieve the stress. And if you really want something, EAT IT. But be mindful and enjoy it!

Stress At Work

If you are an entrepreneur or work out of your home, that refrigerator and pantry are always there tempting you. Even if you work for yourself, your boss can be very hard on you- expecting work to be done on a tight timeline, not being satisfied with the work you’ve done. You have a lot of pressure on yourself as an entrepreneur, but at least you can prioritize work and MAKE TIME for stress relief.

At a job that can be a bit more difficult. But you can use your “coffee breaks” for stress relief time. You can even do chair yoga for a few minutes at a time to lower your stress level and give your body a break it needs from sitting still in your chair!

Feel Guilty?

So, some of the things you can do to help are: First, don’t get angry at yourself, and realize the frustration is self-defeating (creating more stress, ugh!). Start by thinking about food in a new way: you are eating for health, and enjoyment. Then you can feel good about what you are doing to take care of yourself- that’s a positive view, rather than an “I should…”. Don’t “should” on yourself. Use plenty of positive talk such as, “I am taking care of myself by eating healthy food”. “I enjoy eating food that is good for me”. Be compassionate and loving with yourself.