You may be wondering how come that whenever you are overcome
with incredible stress, you want to reach for something
to shove into your mouth and engage in stress eating? Of course the best time to eat is only when you are hungry,
but none of us are perfect.
You've probably noticed already that a lot of times when you are stressed, you feel like eating something crunchy.
The first thing that comes to your mind is chips ( or chocolate ). However, there is a healthy alternative - raw vegetables.
Carrots or celery can satisfy the need for crunching as well or better than chips, and actually provide nutritional value.
A few properly prepared nuts can also do the trick if craving something crunchy and you will certainly be providing your body with more nutrients by choosing something other than chips as a snack.
It helps if you plan ahead. Make sure you will have some crunchy veggies within reach when the crunch attack sets in. Keep the veggies in your drawer at work. If you're going to be running errands in your car for a couple of hours, make sure you take some healthy snacks. If you have a healthy snack within reach, you will be less likely to buy junk food from the nearest vending machine or drive-thru window.
For more info, download Stress Eating, a free ebook.
Different types of stress can cause you to crave different kinds of foods. Talk to yourself and find out what emotions you are dealing with and notice which type of foods each emotion cause you to crave.
Once you can recognize that the stress is causing you to crave the food, and not hunger, you may be able to avoid eating as a stress reaction. Or, at least, you may be able to find a healthy food to satisfy the craving.
You may have discovered that if you choose to be overwhelmed with stress, reaching for sugary sweets is just like reaching for a drink or other drugs. People reach for the carbs to get a sugar high and escape that emotion for the moment. This never works (as we all know) because after you have started to come down from the initial rush, you are left feeling a little sick and sometimes depressed and guilty.
Changing your eating habits is not a test to see how powerful you can become over junk. It is just a choice to eat foods that will nourish your body, feed your cells and help the body rid itself of toxins. The more often you eat foods that do this, the healthier you will be. Try to find healthy alternatives to food for coping with the challenges of life.
Calorie Count is a useful tool for calorie intake calculation and diet planning. Calories do count and it's also important how efficiently your body burns them. Calorie Count also contains a diet planner with professional advice on food combining, detox, suggested daily calorie intake for men and women, calorie intake from beverages consumed, as well as some useful guidelines for speeding up the metabolism and making the most of it. People make the mistake of thinking they have to make drastic changes to lose weight and get in shape, but the secret is to make small changes and incorporate them into their lives permanently.
