Stress Eating: How to Prevent It When You're Often At Home
Stress eating, also known as emotional eating, is a coping mechanism where we eat excessively or mindlessly to feel better. It isn’t caused by hunger but rather due to the desire of suppressing or alleviating negative feelings.
In the pro cheer community, this is a rampant problem especially for dancers who juggle multiple responsibilities like work, studies, and motherhood. According to a study, the case has even risen in women due to the pandemic.
While stress itself is already a problem, the weight gain followed by it due to stress eating compounds the negative effects. In this article, we’ll share tips on how you can control your stress and deal with your cravings.
These tips should help you stay fit for upcoming pro cheer team auditions or when rehearsals start for the next NFL or NBA season.
1. Keep a food diary
Write down everything about your meals. What do you feel while you eat? How much are you eating? What are you eating? What are you feeling while you eat? How hungry are you when you decide to eat? These records will let you see a connection between your mood and hunger.
2. Control your stress
Mitigate stress or avoid it. Take time off social media. Kick someone out who brings toxicity to your life. Spend more time with yourself if you have to. Meditate or do yoga when you feel stressed. Follow a healthy sleeping schedule.
3. Identify the cause of your stress eating
You cannot control your stress eating if you don’t know what causes it. You must first go back to the events before you start eating more than you should. It could be due to a loss of a loved one or a problem at work. Whatever the reasons are, find the best ways to deal with them.
4. Keep temptations out of sight
Accessibility of delicious yet unhealthy foods at home is another cause of stress eating. If you find yourself guilty of taking a cookie out of the jar every time you visit the kitchen. You should store that jar in a vault with a 3-layer combination lock or avoid putting cookies in that jar in the first place.
5. Exercise
Stress causes the release of the hormone cortisol. One of the best ways to reduce cortisol levels in your brain is through exercise. Working out also stimulates the production of endorphins - the hormone responsible for mood elevation and painkilling.
6. Seek help
If you can't deal with your problems alone, you should talk your feelings out or seek help from a professional. Having someone like a friend, relative, or therapist is one of the best ways to release the pent-up negativity in you.
7. Practice mindful eating
Before you stuff food in your pie hole, ask yourself first, “Am I really hungry?”, “Do I really have to eat this plenty?”, “Do I really have to eat this kind of food?”, or drink a glass of water. Then wait for a minimum of 10 minutes. This will help you determine if you’re just craving, bored, or really hungry.
8. Eat healthier
Even with plenty of diet strategies for weight management, some people cannot avoid stress eating. Are you part of this demographic? If yes, then you’re fortunate because you can still overeat while staying fit. To do so, make your snacks healthy by eating fruits and fiber-rich products.
9. Find something else to do
As I said, boredom causes stress eating. So keep yourself busy at all times when you’re at home. Done working out? Try some gardening. Clean your home. Learn to play an instrument. Do some art. Do your audition prep by improving your public speaking skills and makeup application.
10. Don’t deprive yourself
Sometimes, calorie restriction causes your cravings and response to be intense and uncontrollable. As much as possible, don’t banish your favorite foods from your list. Eat them once or twice a week. Eating high-calorie and fatty meals through cheat meals can boost your metabolism.
Stress eating is easily avoidable if you’re mindful. This means being able to quickly notice changes in your thought process and behavior. If you’re able to immediately detect internal stress, you can then easily prevent yourself from making unhealthy decisions. And this would lead you to avoid stress eating altogether.
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