How To Avoid Comfort Eating
Go for a walk head to the gym heck go shopping for pete s sake.
How to avoid comfort eating. Try taking a few deep breaths before starting your food putting your utensils down between bites and really focusing on the experience of eating. Instead of aiming for a short lived boost from comfort foods get a natural high from exercise. And supporting yourself with healthy habits.
But you re not going to find them in your refrigerator on a pastry cart or in a restaurant. Learn to recognize and acknowledge emotional overeating for what it is so you can start eating to satisfy real hunger and not give in to a habit of using food to distract yourself from dealing with feelings. Take common offenders out of your pantry consider trashing or donating foods in.
Try reaching for healthy snacks like fresh fruit or vegetables plain popcorn and other low fat low calorie foods. Stress and emotional eating. Pausing before you eat.
Research tells us that there are other things that will create a response similar to the one junk food brings without the guilt and frustration of overeating. Slowing down and savoring your food is an important aspect of mindful eating the opposite of mindless emotional eating. Try the waiting game.
Our best tool to combat stress eating is to create a list of other activities that will make us feel better without the guilt that overeating often brings. Strategies to help avoid comfort eating include. Or make a list and put them on the fridge or biscuit tin.
When you re feeling the need to eat because you re either bored or you just want to feel better it s time to get out the door and go do something. Learning to accept your feelings. This encourages the release of mood boosting endorphins which can give you the same effect but without the calories and slump in mood often associated with comfort eating.