How To Stop Comfort Eating

Do you often find yourself craving for an extra helping of mac and cheese or high-cal food after a day’s toil at work? Does digging your forks deep into blueberry cheesecake and chomping on banana nut muffins lift up your spirits in a snap and leave you with that much-needed high? Mindless snacking can be very addictive and if you find yourself lusting for a sugar rush after a bad day at work or wiping your tears over a packet of salty chips after you have had a tiff with your mate, then it’s time to get out of your comfort “bingeing” zone and regain control over your emotions, diet and life on a whole. Anything from PMS to loneliness to anger, stress and depression can call for an overwhelming urge to give into sinful and satiating comfort food. While bingeing on these delish high-cal junks can be a real stress buster and one of the best ways to pamper your wounded egos, know that comfort eating is a grave psychological condition that can just leave you with worse kinds of mental anguish and worse, an expanded waistline. If you wish to get over your cravings and get through a day without glutting yourself, then these tips on how to stop comfort eating should put your life back on track.

Tips On How To Overcome Comfort Eating

We all have those days, weeks and months of tough grind when pressure and stress seems to hit its max and bingeing on fries, pies, cookies, mac, and cheese is the only thing that seems to steady our nerves. However, before you lunge for that bag of salty chips to allay your anxiety next time, just pause for a while to consider if you are really starved or just stressed. The best way to keep a tab on your unhealthy bingeing habits is to maintain a food journal and cram it with every minute detail on what you eat, when you eat and why you eat. Difficult as it may sound, keeping a track on your food habits would make you conscious about your comfort cravings and may be even help you to shun this bad habit.
If you really wish to put an end to your mindless snacking habits, then identifying with the type of hunger should do you some good. Remember, physical hunger is different from emotional hunger, and comes on slowly unlike comfort food cravings, which are intense and quick. So, next time your tummy raises an alarm just pay attention to the response of your stomach. If your tummy growls and feels empty, then eating would leave you appeased. However, if the hunger subsides after sometime, you will know that it was a false alarm.
Another way to put a check on your comfort “bingeing” call is to divert your mind. Agreed, it is difficult to think of anything else when your mind craves for a cookie or a bar of chocolate. However, with a little determination and loads of will power, you can easily reroute your mind to healthier things. Next time you feel the urge to relieve your anxiety over a vat of strawberry ice cream or couch in front of the TV with a tub of buttered pop corn, just plug in your I-pod and perch yourself on the patio with your favorite book or sprint out of the house and go for a leisure stroll or a long drive instead. In short, engage yourself in anything that would give your mind a breather from unhealthy bingeing.
And the most important step of all- dump the cookies, chips, chocolates and ice-cream from your kitchen shelves and fridge and pile it up with healthy fruits and vegetables instead. If there are no junks in your house, chances are that your temptation to indulge in some mindless snacking would drop considerably.

Food addiction is no good addiction! Ditch your food cravings and switch on to a healthy lifestyle. Get plenty of exercise, eight-hours of goodnight sleep and a good foot rub and bid adieu to stress for good. If all else fails, then the above tips on how to stop comfort eating should get you out of the diet rut soon.

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