Hi, my name is Dani and I’m a stress eater.
Oopss.
I often get “hangry” (hungry+angry=hangry) and I have been in a “funk” of sorts for the last 48 hours, so when I arrived home hungry and frazzled state after another stressful day at work, I set straight to work organizing our guest room since we have a friend visiting this weekend and another friend staying with us for an extended period of time.
Normally I wouldn’t be stressed out about doing a little cleaning, but my building work stress on top of the pre-visitor cleaning and our new (to us) couch* being delivered later in the evening, I was a mess. And someonething had to be the victim.
I set my sights on the innocent container of gum drops sitting on the counter and by the time I had finished rearranging, cleaning and “editing” our possessions, the container was no mas. And this was all before dinner time. OOPS. After having some whole wheat pasta for dinner, I was still feeling grumpy…so I decided to wander into what was left of our secret stash of Sun Chips-which were an impulse buy. DOUBLE OOPS.
It is true...
If you can’t tell yet, I’m a stress eater, which, as much as I don’t want to admit it, is a form of emotional eating. I usually try to keep my blog as happy and light as I can, but sometimes I have to get a little serious (and touchy feely). Mixing emotions and eating has always been touch and go for me, especially when I’m stressed out or bored. I’m always working on ways to put things in perspective and find constructive outlets for dealing with my stress, which is of course one of the reason that I enjoy working out, it usually brightens my mood in a snap.
I’m always strengthening my arsenal of tools to deal with the dreaded stress and emotional eating, I wanted to share a few things that have worked for me as well as some insight from some of my favorite bloggers.
- H.A.L.T-Monica at Run, Eat, Repeat came up with this great acronym to make you think before you eat.
- Work stresses me out…so I posted this on my computer from a great post on stress from Jen at Peanut Butter Runner.
- Jillian Michaels. She knows what she’s talking about. Her podcast episode, “The Jillian Michaels Show“>Stop Snacking Tips”, is a great podcast to listen to for tips to stop mindless snacking. She’s also hilarious-even Jillian has DOUBLE OOPS moments.
- Tina from Faith, Food Fitness, did a great post a few weeks ago about emotional eating, triggers and being a work in progress. I always appreciate transparent blogging!
All smiles!
She better hide.
*As I was writing this post, Miss Fiona added to my stress levels by staring directly at me and squatting on our brand new couch. Suffice to say my stress levels are once again high and she is on my you know what list. Luckily there are no more gum drops to be had.
emotional eating is a tough one and i think that everyone has different triggers. i think realizing what triggers it is huge because then you can deal with the trigger to prevent the emotional eating (like you mentioning stress and dealing with it in this post).
thanks for the link back. i think that is a great image to have handy at work!
Emotional eating is such a challenge, isn’t it!? I think the best we can do is focus on what triggered us when those situations happen and figure out ways to help make sure they don’t happen (or they are easier to deal with) in the future. And always go back to normal everyday balanced living after such an occurence. Trying to restrict does NO good.
Thanks for the link love!
Ohhhh bad kitteh! I’m sorry you’re stressed, but by the time your friend arrives, you’ll be in a much better place
Also, sometimes I think it helps to just step away for a minute and go for a walk around the block or just do some crunches or something. Anything to release some stress energy.