Stop the Comfort Eating!

[tankini]

It is a known fact that most of us use food for some sort of comfort. This is when we make the worst food decisions. Wether it's boredom, loneliness or stress, research shows that over 40% of us will mindlessly eat. If you find you are craving or wanting a certain snack, ask yourself the following questions:

* How am I feeling right now? Is how I am feeling causing me to want this food?

* Is there a better choice I could be making? – a lower calorie snack or could I distract myself with something else? I.e. exersize or reading? Sometimes at night I will just go to bed if I get hungry. Boring I know but it works.

* Do you need to deal with your emotions – sort out the argument with your partner, deal with the root of your stress or take out your anger by getting your trainers on and pounding the streets for half an hour?

If you are STILL wanting the food after this, then have a big glass of water and wait 10 minutes. Sometimes your body is just thirsty and mistakes it for hunger.

[madscientist]

Good advice. And a good habit. Thanks Tankini. Half of my eating is boredom or habit

[mikeym]

I went to a guy who used NLP on me. It worked really well. Didnt have any sugar cravings afterwards.

[ChristySmiles]

there's the added benefit that after you go through all those steps, you'll be so tired you can't eat anymore LOL

[freddyboy]

But it's so comforting!

[madscientist]

I think NLP is neurolinguistic programming. It's not hypnotherapy. It doesn't claim to have "magical" results like that. It's a way of thinking things out in terms of words to make you decide against something.

One example I saw was that hypnotherapy can't tell you that an ice cream cone tastes bad, but if you think of it in terms of globs of viscous fat flowing through your stomach acids until they're sucked out into your bloodstream in yellow slimy lipids then you can get turned off that tasty food, right?

That's my understanding of it.

[Kyra]

Maybe if you can't stop comfort eating, then what you should do is change the foods you gravitate to! That might be easier than having to break a whole habit

[Tiff]

Once you ask yourself questions and you find out that you're not really hungry, you're comfort eating, what do you do instead so that you aren't hungry anymore?

[tara]

By the time I ask myself all of those questions and think about the answers, I've already eaten two cookies and have a third out of the box I've tried to replace them with veggies more recently. At least if I"m going to stuff my face, I"ll be making better choices.

[tankini]

By the time I ask myself all of those questions and think about the answers, I've already eaten two cookies and have a third out of the box I've tried to replace them with veggies more recently. At least if I"m going to stuff my face, I"ll be making better choices.

I know right. It's all about keeping the right kinds of foods in the house and the wrong kinds out. Can't do too much damage with a bunch of vegetables!