Life is Hard but Eating is Easy

It was another stressful day at my job.  I just got home, went straight to the fridge and started eating every food in sight until my stomach was about to burst.  I only realized what has happened after I slipped onto my bed and laid down on my back.  I just overate, I was disappointed and furious at my actions.  I was on a diet and I just ruined it.  I felt ashamed of my out of control eating habits.  I felt like a failure and remembered all the times in the past I went on a diet and ruined it.

Did that sound familiar?  Do you ever eat comfort foods or junk foods due to stress?  Do you find yourself eating more than usual on stressful days?  What about when you are feeling depressed do you ever notice how you try to comfort yourself with food?

For me I disliked my job at the time, and all the stress that went along with that caused me to engage in emotional eating.  Emotional eating is simply eating to cope with emotions including anger, disappointment, fear, boredom or depression.

Emotional eating is by far the most common cause of overeating and weight gain in general.  So the question is how do you stop emotional eating or eating for comfort?

Well first it’s important to remember that life is hard but eating is easy.  I gotta be honest with you life isn’t pretty.  The happy and satisfying moments in life are few and far between.  We often take everything for granted, and are never really grateful for what life hast to offer.  Additionally having a “happy” life is very tough.  You see happiness requires constant growth and improvement whether it’s your health/fitness, work/finances or relationships.  No one is happy with his or her life if it’s standing still.  We feel happy when we grow when we improve yet that takes a lot of work.

With my old job I knew that the solution was to quit.  However the stress of having to look for another job, update my resume and go to those stupid interviews took over me.  It was a dilemma.  On the one hand I hated my job but on the other the thought of finding a new one stressed me out.  So I resorted to overeating as a way to comfort myself.  You gotta admit eating a twinkie or a bag of potato chips can be comforting at least for a few minutes.

Emotional eating often helps an individual escape from their current state of emotional or psychological stress.  However as you already know it never solves any problems.  Emotional eating is just like an alcoholic who drinks a shot or two when he is stressed out.  It might help distract him from his difficult life for a few minutes.  However he’ll always wake up the next day and have the same tough life.

When you realize that life is hard you expect difficulties.  This is important because often we assume that life is a utopia of some sort, some perfect existence where everyone is nice and everything works out.  It’s not.  Life is hard.

To deal with emotional eating you must first become aware of when you are doing it.  Think of the last few times that you fell off track with your healthy eating and examine your thoughts/emotions at the time.  That’s a great way to become aware of your own eating habits.

Once you become aware of your emotional eating you need to deal with it in two ways…

First in the moment when you feel like you are craving those comfort foods or about to engage in emotional eating you need to do an alternate relaxation activity such as taking a walk outside, going to the library, taking a shower, taking a nap or going cloth shopping.

Secondly, you need to eliminate as much stress from your life as you can.  If your job stresses you out consider finding a new one.  If a friend of yours is always a pain in the butt then spend less time with them.

It’s your life, you only live once, so make it a good one I’m interested in your comments, so please leave me one below, thanks.