Is Stress Making You Eat? Top Five Tips on How to Stop: Part 12
Updated: Jan 22, 2022
Have you ever found yourself munching your way to the bottom of a large bag of chips even though you just ate a meal a short time ago? Only to find yourself gaining weight and feeling tired all the time. Plus, the Stress-Free Diet is about practicing Intermittent Fasting (only eating between specific windows of the day). I do the 16/8 approach. I eat during an eight-hour window and do not eat after that. It is also essential not to snack between meals, especially carbs and sweets. This approach will keep you in fat-storing mode all day.
By following Stress Free Diet, I am in my mid 60's and weigh what I did in high school.
You may have decided to stop eating when you are stressed. But then a stressful situation happens, and your willpower melts like a pat of butter in a hot frying pan.
That is because willpower doesn't stand a chance when faced with survival. Instead, when we are stressed, it signals our stomach to increase ghrelin levels (the hunger hormone), signaling the body that it wants to eat. Our body is designed to survive, knowing that it needs the fuel to run away from or fight the physical threat.
Our brains cannot distinguish between physical danger and mental danger like the boss yelling at you. Either way, it triggers a stress response, and you reach for the half-gallon of ice cream at home or raid the snack machine at work.
Last month, I was at the car dealership waiting for my car to be serviced, and I walked over to where the snack machine was. You know the kind that has the clear front with each snack on those large screws that turn and drop the snack to the bottom drawer. Everyone one of the snacks except one which was nuts, contained high carbs and or sugar.
When stressed, our bodies burn through glucose (the body's fuel source) much faster than when we are not stressed. So when the peanut butter hits the fan and you find yourself staring into the refrigerator deciding what you want to eat. That is not the time to try to stop your stress eating.
Instead, eliminate the sources of stress, and you will not have the desire to stress eat. It is that simple.
At the Stress Free Diet, we use the term Stress Switch.
A Stress Switch is a person, place, or thing that causes you stress.
We have over 100 of the most common Stress Switches listed in our book STRESS FREE YOU available on Amazon. The book also shows people how to remove stress from their lives.
Here are the top five Stress Switches you can start turning off today.
Stop watching the news. It is all negative and designed to keep you in a stress response. The news organizations put content that will embarrass your grandmother and enrage your grandfather.
Take a break from work. With many people working from home or connected by technology, you can stay engaged with your job 24/7. We all need a break. Allow at least 12 hours a day and all weekends to be disconnected to work.
My dad used to say that people are either givers or takers. Does your circle of acquaintances have people that are heavy maintenance? Try to limit or eliminate your exposure to them.
Unplug from technology. Stop staring at the device in your hand and go out in nature. Who cares how many self-absorbed, narcissistic likes, comments, or views you get on your posts.
Stop watching sports. It is hours sitting on the edge of your seat, stressed out by each play, all for it to be decided in the last seconds of the game—all the while eating and drinking carb-heavy foods because you are stressed. If there is a game I want to watch, I watch the highlights on YouTube a couple of hours later in less than 15 minutes and only if my team won.
So if you want to stop stress eating, the best way is to remove the stress that is causing you to eat. Once you do that, you will find the ability to lose unnecessary pounds and gain the vitality you deserve.
We hope this helps you on your journey to a Stress Free Life.