It is not strange that you may be looking into how to stop anxiety eating, especially in today’s climate. Life always comes with hassles and situations that take a toll on our emotional, mental and physical health.
With or without being aware of this fact, our most powerful food cravings hit us when we are emotionally at a low point. This can be when we are feeling idle or bored; when we are feeling overwhelmed with work or personal life; and even when we are facing a pressing problem.
Subjecting oneself to unrestrained food cravings in these aforementioned moments is what causes stress eating. If this becomes a habit, it turns into a condition known as a stress-eating disorder.
Thus, this article on 12 secrets revealed on how to stop anxiety eating forever is here to provide proven solutions to ease you into a life of stress-free food consumption.
How To Stop Emotional Eating Forever
Emotional eating is caused by feelings of anxiety that overwhelm our nervous system and can lead us to feel depressed or drained. In order to know how to stop emotional eating forever, read below.
Why Does Anxiety Make Me Want To Eat? Emotional eating can be addictive as it provides an outlet to soothe unwanted emotions we experience. These emotions include loneliness, boredom, sadness, heartbreak, and loss.
When these negative feelings overwhelm us, our brain receives them and begins looking for solutions to release serotonin and make us happy again. This can often mask itself as a strong desire for a sugary sweet treat.
It becomes important to know how to stop anxiety eating because no matter what leads us to stress eat, the result is fleeting joy and lasting guilt.
How Do I Stop Emotional Eating? To prevent a relapse, here are tips on how to stop emotional eating forever.
1. Know Your Triggers: The presence of certain factors can have you reaching for a treat and consuming it swiftly, with minimal enjoyment, to distract you from the stressors at hand. These can include financial constraints, relationship disputes, fatigue, and health issues.
When these triggers start propelling you to overeat follow these tips;
2. Keep A Food Diary: Keeping a food diary is a great solution when looking into how to stop anxiety binge eating.
Most times, it can be very easy to lose track of how much food goes into our stomachs daily. When we try to gauge it at face value, it may look like we have had only a few bites to eat.
This is where a food diary comes in. Writing down what you eat, when you eat it, how you feel before eating it, and how hungry you are when eating will help you learn your consumption rate and daily calorie intake. Not only that, but it will also help you identify your eating pattern and reveal the relationship between your emotions and your food consumption.
3. Battle Your Boredom: When learning how to stop emotional eating forever, overcoming boredom with healthy feel-good solutions will go a great way in achieving this goal.
It can be easy to order some food or go rummaging through the refrigerator for something to keep your teeth busy. Thus, when boredom hits, try to distract yourself until you are hungry. Log on to your social media platforms and catch up with friends, read a book, watch a movie.
You can also have healthy alternatives on standby like nuts, grapes to keep the boredom at bay while you engage in these leisure activities.
4. Never Say Never: When trying to lose weight or eat healthily, it is important not to be too hard on yourself.
What this means is that you should include cheat days in your diet where you get to enjoy the treats you like.
If your diet is too strict, it may consist of the same bland foods. This monotone nature of your diet can make you frustrated and serve only to increase your cravings. Thus resulting in you snapping and binge eating.
How To Stop Anxiety Eating Using Exercise Therapy
Exercise is not only a great way to stay healthy and lose excess body fat but it is a great tool when wondering how to stop eating due to anxiety.
Exercise reduces the presence of stress hormones in the body, such as cortisol and adrenaline.
What Can I Do Instead Of Eating My Feelings? Engage in exercise therapy. When you engage in exercise, your body system produces a substance known as endorphin. Endorphins also promote a happy feeling in your body akin to the substance known as morphine.
When you first begin to exercise your body, you will notice a spike in your heart rate but, as time goes on, there will be a significant improvement in your level of fitness and your heart will become balanced. This means that the level of your resting heart rate during workouts will be much slower over time.
When trying to understand how to stop having anxiety while eating, exercise is a solution that can help do that while promoting total well-being and improving lung and heart functions over time.
5. Partake In Aerobic Exercises: It has been discovered by scientists that constantly partaking in aerobic exercise has been proven to significantly lower the degrees of stress and tension in the body. Aerobic exercise has been proven to balance and raise moods, promote better sleep, all the while improving confidence and self-esteem.
Incorporating five or more minutes of aerobic exercise into your daily life can produce effects that reduce or dispel anxiety and stress eating symptoms.
How do I stop eating as an emotional crutch? Understand that the relief food provides is temporary while the guilt is more lasting. There are better ways to get yourself out of an emotional rut without having to be on a strict diet. Such as the following;
6. Get Your Heart-rate Up The Healthy Way: Aerobic exercises that increase your heart rate are the most beneficial when looking into how to stop eating as an emotional crutch.
Aerobic exercises that are great for dispelling your anxiety include playing tennis, brisk walking, and working out with hula hoops.
7. Go Dancing: Dancing is a fantastic exercise with many other benefits on the side. Put on your headphones and dance away the stresses of the day, sweating away your anxiety and frustrations.
Not only does this release endorphins that increase happiness but it also helps you shed water weight and excess fat. Dancing also helps you shake away cravings and reduce your appetite.
Going dancing with a few close friends is another great tip when wondering how to stop anxiety eating, this is because socializing is also a mood booster. You can sign up for a dance class with your friends or simply go out together, for a fun night of dancing and positive companionship.
8. Journey Into Yoga: Even though yoga does not classify as an aerobic exercise, it can go a long way in quelling anxiety and lowering bodily stress levels.
When wondering what to do instead of stress eating, yoga is a less demanding exercise that joins deep breathing, meditation, and bodily movements to create the ultimate activity to relax your mind and quell your worries.
Signing up for a yoga class with your girls is a great way to meet up, distress together and also chat about things that could be stressing you at the time. You can also get a professional instructor either by paid subscription or by downloading one of the many free yoga applications on your mobile app store.
You can also stream yoga videos online. Plug into a soothing soundtrack of the ocean or raindrops to amplify the experience.
9. Start Swimming: There is something about being around a cool body of water that makes a person naturally relaxed and happy. For this reason, swimming is one of the most fun ways to exercise.
Focusing on your strokes while swimming is a great way to unwind and brighten your spirits. Not to mention, it provides you with a full-body workout. You may not even notice the time passing by as you immerse yourself into this meditative experience.
• The benefits of swimming do not end there. Studies show that 1 out of 6 persons in the UK battle depression. The studies revealed that partaking in swimming exercises led to a 30% increase in overall satisfaction with life as well self-esteem.
• Swimming also increases attention span, memory, and focus which is great for people living with dementia.
• Swimming provides great entertainment in social settings. Going swimming with your close buddies is sure to boost your endorphin levels.
So get yourself new swimwear and allow yourself an hour or more in a month to enjoy swimming.
Activities To Replace Emotional Eating
If you have read the above points on how to stop anxiety eating, you would have picked up that boredom, stress, and emotional problems are the reasons for it.
Here are some activities to replace emotional eating.
10. Get Into High-Intensity Interval Training: You can significantly better your mood and increase your fitness levels with short sessions of exercise, of about 10 to 15 minutes per session. That means you can exercise for only 30 minutes a day and break the exercise into 10-minute sessions, six or seven days a week. Exercises can help prevent anxiety disorders from developing in people.
Why Do I Keep Stress Eating? Stress eating occurs because of cortisol production in the body. A Cleveland psychologist, Susan Albers, revealed that when we are stressed, our body is flooded with cortisol which makes us crave carbs, sugar, and fatty foods.
Stress is also known to promote and sustain lifestyle behaviors which include inactiveness, eating disorders, and smoking.
How To Stop Stress Eating At Work
Trying to balance all of the obligations and responsibilities at work while juggling personal life issues can take a toll on anyone.
Thus, it becomes easy to turn to food for comfort during such moments of frustration and anxiety. But it is possible to learn how to stop stress eating at work by following the proven tips provided below.
11. Never Skip Meals: Skipping meals will affect your nutrition when you are at the workplace which will most likely increase your urge to binge later in the day.
When your body does not receive enough amounts of magnesium or suffers dips in blood sugar level, the consequence of that is a surge in cravings for instant foods high in sugar and fat. Even worse, you may eat too quickly causing stomach bloat and possible indigestion.
12. Have Healthy Alternatives On Standby: Just like the saying goes that prevention is better than cure, taking preventative measures on how to stop anxiety eating is a way better choice.
You can solve your concerns on how to stop stress eating at work when you have healthy snacks at your desk in case you begin to feel peckish.
Fruits such as apples and grapes, yogurts, and nuts are healthy options. You can pack yourself a parfait with Greek yogurt, granola, and grapes. Not only is this delicious, but it is also very filling and sure to satisfy your sweet tooth while promoting overall health.
Shop for yogurt, granola, and grapes. Keep the grapes and yogurt refrigerated and the granola in an airtight container. Then prepare your parfait in a minute and take it to work with you.
This brings us to the end of our article, “12 Secrets Revealed On How To Stop Anxiety Eating forever”. May these tips light your path towards a forgiving, fun, and anxiety-free lifestyle.
Do not forget to share this article and be a lifesaver to someone else. Cheers!
