If your routine feels kind of like wake up, walk over to the fridge, take on your day, and make multiple trips back and forth to the fridge, I’m here to tell you that you’re not alone. Emotional eating is an all-too-common transformation killer that sometimes feels impossible to deal with.

Due to the general sense of stress that’s happening, it’s not surprise that now more than ever, emotional eating is an important topic. BUT, it can be an issue beyond what’s currently happening in the world: Whether it’s drama in your marriage, the loss of a loved one, or just good old stress at work, the inability to deal with our emotions in a healthy way can lead us to blind binge on foods we know are not on plan! Please don’t feel you are alone…Chris and I have both struggled with emotional eating our own lives as well.

Best Ways to Control Emotional Eating + What to Do to Stop Stress Eating

Through the years of working with people (and being one of them!) that “eat their emotions”, we’ve found/created 4 helpful ways to combat urges to?emotionally eat, and stay?on track. Let’s break it down:

• Track your foods. If you’re tracking your food intake day in and day out, regardless of whether you’re feeling like you’re on the verge of a binge or not, it can keep you on the right path. Seeing how well you’ve been eating and realizing what a damage eating that entire bag of potato chips would be to your goals is an amazing motivator to put down the crap and get your booty to the gym instead. Highly recommend this one!
• Phone a friend. If you don’t already have an accountability buddy…get one! When trying to drop some pounds and stick to a new lifestyle, having someone right next to you to cheer you on and keep you on track when you need it most is vital to success. Find someone you can seriously trust, and when you’re about to gorge on a gallon of ice cream, call her/him for an uplifting chat instead.
• Stay busy. This is the tactic I’ve found works the best for me. Instead of wallowing in your sorrows on the couch, mindlessly eating chips and salsa (totally guilty), hop up and get moving. If some exercise is just not in the plan, no worries! Head out the door and run some errands or go to the mall instead. Anything to get your mind off your struggle and get your body moving.
• The rubberband trick. This is something we’ve done with our EWL peeps for years, and it seriously works. Grab a plain old rubber band, decorate it if you’d like, then throw it on your wrist and leave it there. Then, when you’re feeling like you’re on the verge of diving into a dark zone, snap your wrist with the rubberband to refocus your attentions. It may sound silly, but we have found it to work again and again.

If you’re asking yourself, “What can I do to stop stress eating,” starting with these tips and tricks will really help you along the way. There are so many different ways to keep your mind and body on track when the urge to binge comes up, but these 4 have proved to be the most successful for us and our peeps. Try one or all of them out next time the craving calls!

Xo,

Relating reading:

Ask The Powells: How Can I Structure My Meals?
Reignite Your Fire To Achieve Your Goals
Ask The Powells: How Do I Gain Healthy Weight?