Does this sound familiar?
🔥Stress causes your adrenal glands to release a hormone called cortisol. When this happens, you may experience an increase in appetite and crave sugary, salty, and fatty foods. You are not really hungry, it is your brain telling you to eat so you can be ready for a possible dangerous situation.
🔥When you do feel like this, it’s important that you identify your ‘trigger’…this could be a thought, feeling, or situation. Once you identify this you can stop the cycle and make more informed choices.
🔥You will notice that when you crave a particular food, you will generally gravitate towards a type of food that will satisfy you and make you feel good in that moment.
So what can I do to stop stress eating?
➡️ Make a note of your cravings for 2 weeks, and in which situations they occur. This will help you discover a pattern. Ask yourself: am I actually hungry? Or am I bored? Or stressed?
➡️ Eliminate foods that you crave from your kitchen and workplace. If they are not there, you can’t eat them! Always have healthy and nutritious snacks on hand, e.g. fruit, raw nuts, veggies, protein powder as a replacement.
➡️ When you feel the urge or a craving coming on go for a brisk walk. This works a treat!
With the world that we live in today and all the temptations that we are surrounded by, it’s impossible to completely avoid stressful situations. However, if you are aware of your cravings and recognise what’s causing them you have a much better chance of breaking the cycle!
Try some of these strategies next time you feel tempted, I believe in you!
