Preventing Stress Induced Binges

[nicksaiz65]

How can I eliminate the stress eating, while I’m on my summer shred?

This is definitely an issue I’m working on solving. Whenever times get really stressful for me(usually through work) I end up stress eating, binging, and undoing a whole week on my diet. I am absolutely a stress eater, and I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it. Or even worse, if I’m at home, I start drinking too, to make myself feel better.

I’ve heard tips to exercise instead of stress eating. That’s a good idea, but it never worked for me because the stress is usually coming from work. I’m on the clock, and I can’t just take time off to hop on a bike.

The solution I came up was this: do everything in my power to minimize stress, by getting super ahead at work and so on. But even with that, some stressful situations will inevitably come up, because that’s life. At the very least, it won’t be work/deadline stress: so I can push through and deal with it without binging. 100% of the time when I’m stressed over a deadline, I end up binging. But that is under my control, I can ensure that I don’t end up in that situation to begin with whenever possible.

Then I just have to make it through that stressful situation without binging. Push through, the same way that I would push through hunger. Stress is just one of those things I have to accept, just like hunger. If I binge, then I just have to accept that I’m cheating on my diet and I’m taking myself farther away from my goals. I just need to accept that losing fat is really really really hard. Stress(and not doing the stress binging) is one of the many factors that makes weight loss so difficult, and it takes lots of willpower to look great. And if you want to look good and be successful: you just CAN’T be binging, no matter what. Because that is not what successful people do.

I’ve mastered dealing with social eating in the context of a diet. However, I’ve noticed that two triggers for binges are sadness, and the stress. The sadness is an easy one to tackle. Just play a video game or watch a funny movie. The stress, is why I’m making this thread today.

I’m thinking that’s a foolproof method. I just wanted some feedback. What other methods can I use to stop the stress eating, which drops a nuke on my diet every time?

 

[BackInTheGame78]

It can be tough...one thing that helps me is to make sure I am drinking enough water.

Many times the brain confuses the signal for dehydration with hunger so you'll feel hungry even tho you actually should be drinking.

Water also keeps you feeling full longer.

Try meditating when you are feeling stressed out for 15-20 minutes. That will take your mind off things.

Try going for a walk...

Basically anything that distracts you from going to the kitchen for food.

 

[Red Pill Divorce Lawyer]

It's psychological. An idea I always go back to is the pleasure/pain principle that I first learned from Tony Robbins, but I don't think Tony invented it. It goes like this. Human beings do two things in life, and that's it. They either pursue pleasure or avoid pain. Avoiding pain is the far better motivator. To achieve something, you must utilize both of these drives to their fullest extent. You need to go through a process of assigning massive amounts of pain to being fat and out of shape. And you need to assign massive amounts of pleasure to having the body of your dreams. But remember, the pain is 1,000 times more motivating than the pleasure.

My current body is ripped and muscular, but I've actually struggled with binge eating most of my life. I still do it sometimes, but rarely. One of the ways I control it is by not having ANYTHING in my house that is unhealthy. Literally nothing in my house has added salt, sugar, or fat. I have no processed food in my house. So if I do end up binging, it's on apples or strawberries, and that has no effect on my diet or body. If you stock your house ONLY with fruits and vegetables, you can go on a three-day BINGE-O-RAMA and it still won't really matter. I also live alone, so I am in complete control of what food is in my house.

When I'm outside of my house, I don't touch anything that is unhealthy. This is also part of a budget that I have committed to. I can maintain this because I absolutely hate the idea of being fat, out of shape, and unhealthy, and I enjoy saving money. I also despise the idea of overeating in a world that has millions of people dying of starvation every year. I HATE ALL OF THAT. I hate it so much that I despise unhealthy food and I don't touch it. I've assigned so much pain to not having the body I want, that I am disgusted by unhealthy food.

I believe many people are too complacent and neutral in the modern world, which leads them to lack a mindset that would be capable of assigning massive amounts of pain to their current condition and massive amounts of pleasure to their future, desired condition. So they just stay in the same situation with the same body forever. There are forces in this society, including the Feminine Imperative, that promote mediocrity and complacency in the male population.

The person that NEEDS success the most is always going to be more successful than the person that just WANTS success. When someone NEEDS success like they need to breathe air, then they will be successful. Thus, when you NEED to lose weight like you need to breathe air, then you will lose weight. You will find a way because losing weight now equals survival to you, and failure is not an option. This is the type of mentality that wildly successful people have.

Nearly everyone tries to solve their problems through superficial tricks and easy shortcuts, but the root of our problems is usually in a flawed psychology and not rooted in the external world. Our beliefs and views of the world dictate our results far more than anything else. People can stack tricks upon tricks on top of each other in an attempt to solve the problem, but if the foundation is a flawed psychology, no trick will be effective for very long.

 

[RBK]

I have this issue as well but mine is at night. I intermittent fast and I start my first meal around 2pm so at 10pm I'm STARVING lol.

 

[Namebejed7]

I have dealt with this a lot and dealing with the physiological symptoms, i.e. the hunger, did nothing for me. For me, this is about distracting myself from whatever is causing the stress. I find it is at it's root a fear of something; fear of failure, fear of rejection, etc. and I would binge to distract myself from that fear. The best (only) successful way I have found to deal with it is to get to those root fears and confront them head on, then just allow them to be. Tell yourself you'll be okay if whatever your afraid of is true. Learn to be okay with uncertainty.

 

[Bible_Belt]

You're not supposed to be hungry. Find free foods you like. I second the tip above to only keep healthy foods at home.

For people fasting, I have found that coffee with raw honey has a satiating effect on hunger. You have to get real honey and not the cheap stuff. There was a study on diabetics who were fed about a pound of raw honey every 5 days and they actually lost weight. Honey is sugar, but the glycemic index is low. I find it to be the opposite of the high and then crash that processed sugar creates.

 

[FlexpertHamilton]

I find fasting to be the only solution. When you fast all day it's surprisingly hard to want to binge on sh!tty foods; you will end up craving real sustainance instead especially if your eating window is very short. If I already ate breakfast or lunch, paradoxically, the odds I'll want to eat ****ty late at night is higher.

I would also just find healthier "comfort foods" as an alternative. My go to sugary snack is dark chocolate&pb granola cereal. Not healthy, but certainly better than chips or ice cream.

I have this issue as well but mine is at night. I intermittent fast and I start my first meal around 2pm so at 10pm I'm STARVING lol.

Why not just eat between 6-10pm?

 

[RBK]

I find fasting to be the only solution. When you fast all day it's surprisingly hard to want to binge on sh!tty foods; you will end up craving real sustainance instead especially if your eating window is very short. If I already ate breakfast or lunch, paradoxically, the odds I'll want to eat ****ty late at night is higher.

I would also just find healthier "comfort foods" as an alternative. My go to sugary snack is dark chocolate&pb granola cereal. Not healthy, but certainly better than chips or ice cream.




Why not just eat between 6-10pm?

I can't make it to the 6pm mark to eat lol

 

[MtmVaott]

I find fasting to be the only solution. When you fast all day it's surprisingly hard to want to binge on sh!tty foods; you will end up craving real sustainance instead especially if your eating window is very short. If I already ate breakfast or lunch, paradoxically, the odds I'll want to eat ****ty late at night is higher.

You have to ban everything with sugar, for several weeks. Except after workouts, then you have to eat the sweet stuff with high GLYX.
The crave for sugar will get much weaker.
Try to resort to whole grain (noodles, bread, ...), you can mix fat (raps oil, olive oil) into your food in the morning and evening (slows digestion), add beans to dishes (fiber slows digestion, special enzymes slow it further). High share of your calories from protein leads to eating less calories in total, as we subconsiously try to saturate our daily protein minimum with food. If you try to saturate it with grains only, this will result in more total calories than with, e.g., chicken breast + rice.

Counting calories helps me personally. And having fixed meals in the calory counting app.

I came to intermittent fasting with no intention of doing so: 1 meal in the morning, 1 lunch, 1 early afternoon. That's it. Calories filled.
Being hungry in the evening/before night is way easier than during day. You have to set yourself up for success, ignore every talking about discipline and willpower. Nobody has infinite willpower, and you want to use your willpower pool for more important stuff.

 

[MtmVaott]

Btw, stress eating is a solution to cope with exceeding stress.
So you can do sports any time of the day, it will lower your overall stress level. That leaves you with bigger "stress buffers" against stressors.

You can practice breathing exercises / Progressive muscle relaxation. In order to make your body learn to relax, as soon as you are starting the relaxation technique. In the stressful situation, you can then trigger yourself.

And there is a book https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend. Never read it though. It's about reframing the stress as positive, like it's a challenge.

That's just what I know. I didn't practice anything besides doing sports (yet).

 

[nicksaiz65]

It can be tough...one thing that helps me is to make sure I am drinking enough water.

Many times the brain confuses the signal for dehydration with hunger so you'll feel hungry even tho you actually should be drinking.

Water also keeps you feeling full longer.

Try meditating when you are feeling stressed out for 15-20 minutes. That will take your mind off things.

Try going for a walk...

Basically anything that distracts you from going to the kitchen for food.

Water with lemon or lime juice is my absolute favorite. I can’t get enough of the stuff. I don’t try to drink a gallon a day or anything though… I just try to drink whenever I feel thirsty tbh.

I really need to try meditation. I’ve had it recommended to me by many people, I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

Distraction has been very helpful, it’s a nonissue when I’m really into my work. I’ve been grinding hard for work the last couple of days, and I feel great.

I do like exercise to deal with stress too. Running is a favorite of mine. I can only do that when I’m off the clock though, of course!