Let’s get one thing straight, food can be one of the best things in life. It gives us energy, helps us to relax, makes us feel happy and connects us with loved ones. But all too often, food can become an easy solution to deal with uncomfortable emotions.
Using food to appease an emotional or psychological need such as stress can easily become a habit. Without realising it you can slide into the habit of using food to fix every emotion from anger and stress to depression and boredom.
If you’re familiar with raiding the fridge after a tough day or reaching for the cookie jar at 3pm each day, it’s time to stop and break free from the stress eating cycle. In the short term these foods can make you feel great, there’s no doubt about that, but at some point, the pleasure ends and the negative feels can creep in. Guilt and remorse often don’t stop us, they can lead us to eating more and so begins the self-destructive cycle of emotional eating.
Research has shown that when we’re stressed we are more likely to reach for sweeter, higher fat, energy dense foods. There is also research to suggest that once ingested, foods that are high in added sugars and fat seem to have a feedback effect where they inhibit the parts of the brain that produce and process stress. These types of foods really are “comfort” foods in that they seem to counteract stress and this may contribute to stress induced cravings for these particular foods.
Don’t worry, you don’t need to follow a strict diet plan to protect yourself from the cookie jar. In fact, completely avoiding a particular food can often do more harm than good and will not help you conquer emotional eating in the long run. However, implementing the below strategies may help you regain control and break free from the cycle of stress eating.
1. Recognise when you are stress eating
How often do you eat when you aren’t physically hungry or needing a meal?
When it comes to breaking free from the stress eating cycle, it’s important that you become aware of what your personal triggers are and how you respond to them.
Is there a certain time of day you struggle most?
Does it happen when you’re tired?
Certain times of the month?
Certain situations or people?
Knowing what sets you off will give you insights and help you devise a plan. When you feel the urge to open the fridge or pantry door, you need to realise that you’re experiencing some form of discomfort. Sure, sometimes its hunger – but often it’s emotional.
Practice asking yourself why you are eating or why you are feeling hungry instead of focusing solely on what to eat. This helps you identify the root cause of your overeating. If you ate just a few hours ago and don’t have a rumbling stomach, you’re probably not hungry. Give the craving time to pass.
2. Start the day with a balanced breakfast
Breakfast has the potential to set you up for the rest of the day. Eating within a couple of hours after you wake ensures that your blood sugar will be stabilised throughout the morning, which can help prevent dips in energy levels that could put you in the stress-eating cycle.
Incorporating protein rich foods into your breakfast such as yoghurt, eggs or nuts creates a longer lasting sense of fullness and satisfaction which is important to prevent overeating later on in the day.
Healthy breakfast ideas:
- Breakfast smoothie with oats, yoghurt, milk and fruit/veg
- Bircher muesli
- Boiled eggs on toast with avocado
- Homemade baked beans on toast
- Sautéed vegetables on toast with feta
- Natural peanut butter toast with a banana
- Banana pancakes with Greek yoghurt
- Greek yoghurt, muesli and fruit
Check out The Biting Truth Cookbook for more healthy recipe ideas!
3. Eat more stress-lowering foods
When we’re really stressed, the last thing we may feel capable of is overhauling our diet. Instead, focus on making small improvements to your diet such as adding foods that can help to reduce stress and boost mood and brain functioning.
Incorporating these foods can make a huge difference in stabilising your blood sugar levels to support a more stable mood and enable you to incorporate nutrients that may help improve stress response and improve your focus and concentration.
Include these stress-lowering foods:
- Oily fish
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Oats
- Legumes
- Nuts
- Berries
- Leafy green vegetables
4. Don’t skip meals
Give your body something to run on! When life becomes stressful or busy, diet is often one of the first things to become compromised. However, skipping meals can actually increase the stress load on your body. Be sure to keep your fuel intake consistent. Not eating breakfast, eating at odd times, or going too long between meals can contribute to weight gain rather than weight loss.
Establishing an eating schedule and sticking to it can do wonders for helping to regulate your blood sugar and cortisol responses to food, thereby helping to control appetite, boost energy levels, and prevent stress eating. Further, if you let your fuel tank get too low, you may lose your resolve to eat healthy foods (we’ve all been in that situation before). The hungrier you get, the greater the chances you’ll eat too much, make poor food choices, and worst of all – not care!
Ideally we recommend consuming a minimum of three fuel stops a day, with optional mini-stops (i.e. snacks) in between. You don’t need to eat a lot at each fueling. In fact, many people do well by eating five or six times a day, dividing food into small meals and healthy snacks.
Here’s an example:
- 8am breakfast
- 11am snack
- 1.30pm: lunch
- 4pm: snack
- 7pm dinner
5. Ditch diets
Finally, but probably most importantly. Ditch restrictive diets.
Virtually any restrictive diet program will help you lose weight. Whether it’s the Paleo diet, Ketogenic, Intermittent Fasting or any of the myriad of other choices out there, they will all help you lose weight. Why? Because they all restrict total energy intake. Restricting your intake consistently will likely result in weight loss however the issue is that these types of diets aren’t sustainable in the long term. You might have great intentions, lots of willpower and self-control when starting a restrictive diet, however, as the reality of a busy lifestyle progresses it can make sticking to a restrictive diet a little bit more difficult. Think about it – a busy day at work, minimal sleep and someone offers you a delicious cupcake – chances are you’ll find it a lot harder to say no. This often leads to feelings of guilt or failure and may result in giving up and overeating all those foods you know you shouldn’t and hence the cycle comes into play again!
Rather than jumping on the bandwagon of these types of diets, become aware of stressors in your life and set up strategies to manage these. Managing your stressors will make it much easier to implement some of the tips we have recommended above. It is these dietary changes that will be sustainable for the long haul.
Key takeaways from this blog
- Being stressed can lead to increased intake of energy-dense foods.
- To break the stress eating cycle, you must first recognise when you are doing it.
- Starting the day with a balanced breakfast can prevent drops in energy that may lead to stress-eating.
- Incorporating oily fish, extra virgin olive oil, oats, legumes, nuts, berries and leafy greens may help improve the stress response as well as improving your focus and concentration.
- Skipping meals can increase the stress load on your body – instead establish an eating schedule and stick to it.
- Avoid restrictive diets! These aren’t sustainable and guilt from “slipping up” can put you back into the stress-eating cycle.
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Notes
- If you would like 1:1 nutrition, please get in touch and we can work with you to create a plan that will work for you and your lifestyle.
- Check out The Biting Truth cookbook here.