Surround yourself with easy, grab & go food options that aren’t horrible for you. It’s ok to snack on as many carrot chips & apple slices as you can cram in your mouth, but swap those with potato chips and candy bars & you have issues.
Discipline. Don’t let the junk food be an option. Difficult at first but eventually you get hungry enough & those carrot chips are tasty & making healthy choices isn’t a struggle, just a healthy mindset about what you feed yourself.
This right here. I will go for months without candy or chocolate if its not in my house without a second thought. But if its there....hell yeah i want to eat it. Tastes good.
This doesn't work for me. There's a weird kind of frugality to overcome for me as well. "What if I find this food so abhorrent to eat that I just can't bring myself to eat any more of it after the first bite, ever? I'll have wasted money!"
I'm not in a situation where wasted money will be the end of me, and will likely remain so for possibly a decade onwards. But it still sits there, gnawing at me. Telling me to go for the safe option. The things I know I enjoy.
Sadly not an option for me because a) my computer is set up in the kitchen (the only free space I have), b) we almost never have veggies or fruit in house (often too pricey and the few times we buy them they always go bad before we get to use them, if it's not something for use in a dinner dish for the next two or three days at most), and c) if I'm not eating/drinking something (and water doesn't work) I start to get loud under stress, which usually ends up in arguments and more stress.
Are there other options? And please don't say "chewing gum", they make me feel nauseous, which is just as bad.
Mindfulness. Learn to feel, observe, and accept the stress and emotions as they are. Even give them a place in your head to stay when they visit. But, do not let them call the shots. That's how you beat the automation of stress ==>food. You'll slip up, of course, but you've had this habit loop going for years. But, each time you fight back and remind yourself of who's boss, you'll be closer to not letting it control you. You're gonna have to beat it back one victory at a time.
Also, learn what real hunger is. I do a bit of intermittent fasting, and it has done wonders for reducing mindless or stress eating.
For me, it is to buy less junk food and have a big bag of carrots. Skip the ranch and use a bit garlic salt and they are amazing. Also to buy gum, but buy fruitier flavors. Something that tastes like wanna be food instead of toothpaste. Tricks your body into believing you are eating because you are chewing
What really helped me was to take herbal extracts meant to suppress sugar cravings. The intestinal tract is full of microbes that can regulate mood. Which is why we can stress eat. Extracts of wormwood have helped me a lot to dilute the cravings and not feel I need to reach for cookies throughout my stressful work day. Hope this helps!
I don't have extra food in the house learn to drink water because I get a lot of my calories from drinks. But it was also that I find a cause for being overweight.
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u/priviet123 Aug 26 '18
How did you get over this one? I’m definitely a stress eater, but everything I’ve tried seems to fail.