Image courtesy of stockimages — FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Hey guys! Before you go off and enjoy your weekend here’s one last guest post for this week 
Marcela De Vivo has shared some great tips on fighting stress eating, and breaking harmful habits in general, check it out!
Tips To Stop Stress Eating!
Human’s handle stress in a variety of different ways, but we will often immediately run to something that comforts us in order to escape from the anxiety we experience. In many times of stress, we tend to resort to the comforts of food.
It’s not unusual for food to be one of those comforts, thus giving us the term “stress eater.”
Stress-eating typically has nothing to do with how hungry the person is or whether or not they actually need to eat. Instead, we’ll often turn to food as a stress response. The problems that go along with developing this habit can have far-reaching implications, and the severity of those implications will depend on a particular individual’s level and frequency of stress.
Though it does offer temporary comfort, food that is eaten as a response to stress can cause a variety of short and long term health problems, the most typical of which is becoming overweight.
What makes matters worse is that the type of food that people often crave when they are stressed is junk food, or what has come to be known as “comfort food.”
Usually high in sugar, salt or fat, these foods are unhealthy enough to actually make people more stressed in the future as a result of poor health and overall physical condition. As you might have guessed by now, that only leads to more stress eating.
A good first step to breaking this cycle is to choose healthy foods to snack on when you’re stressed. Veggies, fruits, yogurt, whole grains and oats are all great snack options, regardless of how you’re feeling.
If you want to eventually eliminate stress eating altogether, here are a few tips that will help you kick the habit once and for all:
1. Replace stress eating with something constructive.
Whether it’s exercise, reading, writing or whatever you may choose, find something that’s a constructive activity that you can do in place of stress eating.
It might not calm your food cravings at first, but after awhile, you’ll get into the habit of engaging in that activity as opposed to giving into the temptation to overeat.
2. Listen to your body and only eat when you’re hungry.
Your body was designed to tell you when it needs food. That’s not something we do voluntarily; instead, our bodies just know when it needs to happen.
When it does happen, you’ll feel hungry, tired or low on energy– like you need food– and if that’s not happening, then you probably don’t need to be eating. In many situations, your body has a genius way of tricking you into thinking you need food, when in reality, you may just be dehydrated.
Try drinking a few glasses of water instead of reaching for a snack.
3. Write it down.
It might be tough at first to know exactly when you need to eat, but what can be helpful is to have a food journal, where you can keep track of what you eat, when you eat and how you feel after you eat.
Be careful not to dwell on this aspect too much. Instead, use it as a tool to get yourself back on a regular eating schedule.
4. Cook meals and keep a healthy diet.
A healthy diet will usually consist of three to four well-balanced meals a day, with a reasonable amount of healthy snacking in between. Furthermore, making your own meals will also help you to avoid a majority of prepackaged and processed foods, as well as the comfort foods that exasperated the issue of stress eating in the first place.
Eat well and make sure you’re keeping a good diet with plenty of fruits, veggies and lean meats. The exact type of diet that works for you will be unique to your situation, but the healthier your overall meal plan is, the easier it will be for you to resist food cravings.
Reset your Mind
It’s not an easy process, but what these tips will help you do is eventually reset your mind to where it doesn’t default to craving foods with empty calories. The longer you can keep it up, the more your cravings will fade into the background and, eventually, disappear.
Marcela De Vivo is a freelance writer, proud mother of three and health enthusiast who writes for NorthWest to share her knowledge of personal health and wellness. As a business owner and mother, it can be very difficult to stick to her diet, but following these tips makes it much easier for her to get by. How do you avoid stress eating? Share your comments below!
