I’ve been thinking about how much I think about food and have come to the realization that food occupies a lot of my time. But I think this is a healthy thing. Why? Because food affects my body and my weight, which is what I’m trying to control. In order to control it, I have to go to the root of the problem: the food. Why do I eat what I eat? Sometimes it’s from stress, other times it’s from boredom, and now it’s because I’m trying to fuel my body and provide it with energy for working out and losing weight. Believe it or not, you need to eat to lose weight! Your body can actually go into starvation mode and hold onto the excess fat if you don’t give it enough nutrition.
Stress eating is an issue that needs to be resolved. Lately, when I think about food, I think about what I want to eat because I want to create something new for my recipe archive, to have some new pictures to post. I hope this interest continues so I will continue to make health-conscious choices. But in case I do get bored, I have to conquer my dependency on food as a method of coping with stress. Law school was stressful. Law school included lots of long nights of drinking and then drunk binge eating (Jumbo Slice, here’s looking at you). I honestly believe that I’d be lying to myself if I claimed that I will never resort to food as a method of dealing with stress ever again. For me, it’s not possible. When life gives me stress, I eat it away. But the key thing is what and how much to eat.
Now when I think I’m hungry, I drink a bottle of water first. Most of the time, the body’s reaction to dehydration is the same as its reaction to hunger. If I’m still hungry, I bust out the pretzels, but I measure out the portion size first before I start eating. This way, I can control how much I eat and not go through the entire bag. It’s never bad to eat things. It’s just the quantity that matters. If you eat a slice of cake, so be it. But for me, a slice of cake turns into the ENTIRE cake. That’s when there’s a problem. Another way I’ve been coping with stress eating is by sleeping earlier. My college student lifestyle of staying up extremely late leads to poor eating choices because I’m hungry when I should really be asleep and letting my body rest. Believe it or not, resting is also essential to weight loss.
What I’ve concluded is that stress eating need not be overcome. Rather, I just need to be prepared for those types of situations. It boils down to mental control and discipline, yet again. There will always be various stress factors in life, whether it is school, a career, money, family, friend…the list goes on and on. However, it’s the way we cope with stress that counts.
How do you cope with stress eating? What are your methods?
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Female. 25 years old. Chinese. Cook. Foodie. UCLA grad. Traveler. Musician. Scuba diver. GWU Law. Runner.