• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Living Well Kitchen
  • Home
  • Recipes
    • Breakfast
    • Appetizer & Snacks
      • Snacks
    • Main Dish
      • Vegetarian
      • Seafood
      • Meat
      • Poultry
      • Pork
    • Specific Recipes
      • Vegetarian
        • Vegan
      • Kid Friendly
      • Gluten Free
      • Dairy Free
      • Nut Free
      • Egg Free
      • Soy Free
    • Sides
      • Vegetables
      • Beans
      • Grains
      • Potatoes
      • Bread
      • Sauce
    • Salad
    • Soup
    • Drinks
    • Dessert
    • Slow Cooker
    • Instant Pot
    • Season
      • Winter
      • Spring
      • Summer
      • Fall
  • About
    • Meet Meme
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
  • Videos
  • Easy Meals
  • Quiz
menu icon
go to homepage
  • Easy Meals
  • Main Dish
  • Quiz
  • Videos
  • Health
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter
    • YouTube
  • subscribe
    search icon
    Homepage link
    • Easy Meals
    • Main Dish
    • Quiz
    • Videos
    • Health
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter
    • YouTube
  • ร—

    Home ยป Videos ยป Live

    5 Tips to Stop Stress Eating

    Published: Apr 12, 2017 ยท Updated: Apr 12, 2020 ยท Post may contain affiliate links

    Five tips to help you interrupt stress or emotional eating

    Cheese and sparkling rosé happy hour
    • Tips to Stop Stress Eating
      • Identify Your Triggers
      • Observe Yourself
      • Recognize Alternatives
      • Create a Happy List
    • Enjoy What You've Chosen

    Here's the deal... stress isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's your body's way of letting you know that something is off (whatever that may be).

    The problem lies in how you deal with stress. One of the most common ways people deal with stress is with food. That can involve intense cravings, bingeing or overeating, taking extreme control over eating, or avoiding eating altogether.

    Food is something that is easy to control. When your life feels crazy and you feel stressed, it is easy to turn to food to find something that you can control.

    Food can also feel like it has power over you when you are stressed. Maybe you start to crave certain foods when you are stressed or in other situations, and it feels like you have to have that food to satisfy your craving and relieve your stress.

    The month of April is Stress Awareness Month, so I decided it would be a fabulous time to share some tips to help you interrupt stress or emotional eating. These five tips can help you make choices to help you relieve stress that don't involve bingeing or feeling a loss of control.

    What can you do to interrupt the negative pattern of stress eating (or not eating)? Lucky for you, I've got the five tips that I talked about this in my Facebook Live post.

    German Chocolate Brownies from Living Well Kitchen

    Tips to Stop Stress Eating

    Identify Your Triggers

    Notice what the triggers are for you. They are different for everyone.

    What causes you to crave food? What are the signs that lead you to want food to soothe you?

    It's important to remember that it could be something big or subtle. Something as significant as loss & grief or something as simple as being bored or procrastinating.

    Observe Yourself

    Take a moment to figure out what your patterns are and bringing acceptance to them.

    What patterns do you have? How could you bring acceptance to those patterns instead of more stress. When you are tempted to beat yourself up for being "out of control" or bingeing, notice what happened -- what brought about the binge or craving, what habits you have, etc.

    Recognize Alternatives

    Pause and look for the alternative to the situation.

    What could you do instead of stress eating? What are your alternatives? Give yourself some space to notice what those alternatives could be.

    These could be food choices as well as non-food related. These include going to food but not binging; going to a non-food activity; choosing to eat or not.

    How to Interrupt Stress Eating from Living Well Kitchen

    Create a Happy List

    Make a list of all the things that you can do to take care of yourself.

    What ways can you cope with stress? What else is there? Can you expand your coping list to be more than food? You can leave food on it but expand it.

    What are some other ways you can take care of yourself? What are some other ways to distract yourself?

    Create pleasure in your life that doesn't only involve food.

    Enjoy What You've Chosen

    Take pleasure in what you chose to do to help relieve the stress.

    If you've chosen to eat, take the time to enjoy what you eat instead of mindlessly shoveling it into your mouth. If you've chosen something else, try to be in the moment and notice that it's bringing you joy.

    When you take the chance to be present and notice the relief you are getting from what you've chosen, it will reinforce in your brain that food/stress/cravings does not have power over you. You have alternatives. You have choices. And you are fully capable of making choices that are best for you at that time.

    Meme

    Check out the video:

    More Favorites

    • Peanut Butter Potatoes
    • Slow Cooker Boiled Peanuts
    • Bushwackers
    • Slow Cooker Salsa Verde Pork
    391 shares
    • Yummly
    • Share
    • Tweet

    Reader Interactions

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Recipe Rating




    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

    Primary Sidebar

    Welcome!

    Meme (a brunette female) is holding umbrella and spinning around in front of the Eiffel Tower wearing a denim jacket, skirt, and blue shoesHi, I'm Meme, a thirty-something registered dietitian nutritionist from Alabama living in San Diego. Here to help you enjoy food, feel better in your body at any size, and live free of diets & shame.
    Read More

    Let's Connect

    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter
    • YouTube

    Most Popular

    pork tenderloin with gravy, mashed potatoes, and green beans on white plate with yellow and white striped napkin

    Crock Pot Pork Tenderloin

    jar of chocolate sauce with a spoon in it. empty small glass ice cream cups with a bowl of cherries on a wicker table

    Easy Chocolate Sauce

    Protein Pancakes from Living Well Kitchen

    protein pancakes

    white plate with a slice of zucchini lasagna

    Zucchini Lasagna

    spatula holding a microwave cookie

    Microwave Oatmeal Cookie

    stack of almond butter banana cookies with one cookie facing the front on wooden cutting board with a glass of milk, banana, oats, vanilla extract, and almond butter container

    Almond Butter Banana Cookies

    Gluten free Crab Cakes from Living Well Kitchen @memeinge

    Gluten free Crab Cakes

    chicken salad and a ritz cracker in a glass bowl on white table with green napkin

    No Mayo Chicken Salad

    Intuitive Eating

    brunette female holding a heart shaped pizza in a Parisian cafe

    Why Emotional Eating Isn't Bad

    hand holding an apple in front of apple trees

    Should I Eat Conventional or Organic Produce?

    havanese dog standing on arm of cream chair with a quilt in chair

    Intuitive Eating and Weight Loss

    brunette female sitting in a blanket in Versaille garden smiling and holding a container of container of food she is about to be eating

    What is Intuitive Eating

    Easy Meals

    salmon fillets covered in pesto in a white baking dish on wooden table

    Pesto Salmon

    cut open avocado on a straw placemat with a white bowl of white turkey chili with a silver spoon on a patterned napkin

    White Bean Turkey Chili

    white bowls with sausage kale soup with french bread and fresh kale

    Sausage Kale White Bean Soup

    white bowl with avocado egg salad

    Avocado Egg Salad

    Soup

    two bowl of beef soup on blue and white napkins with silver spoons and garlic bread

    Instant Pot Vegetable Beef Soup

    steak potato soup in a bowl with green onions and grated cheese with a silver spoon next to potatoes, pot of soup and block of cheese

    Steak and Potato Soup

    blue and white napkins under two bowls of pumpkin soup topped with bacon next to a small bowl of bacon

    Pumpkin Soup with Bacon

    bowl of ginger beef soup on a gold and white napkin with garlic, limes, and ginger

    Ginger Beef Soup

    As Seen On:

    As Seen On

    In Season

    stemless wine glass with strawberry gin fizzes next to fresh strawberries, bottle of gin, and an orange

    Valentine's Day Gin Fizz

    black spatula pushing Brussels sprouts around on a baking sheet with pecans, honey, and sriracha sauce

    Honey Sriracha Brussels Sprouts

    four twice baked potatoes on a plate

    Twice-Baked Potatoes

    blue pot with sausage hash, cup of tea, bowl of berries, white plate with hash

    Mushroom Sausage Hash

    Footer

    Living Well Kitchen is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

    • Recipes
    • About

    Copyright © 2023

    We use cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Reject Read More
    Privacy & Cookies Policy

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
    Non-necessary
    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
    SAVE & ACCEPT
    391 shares