Emotional eaters and finding your Triggers
Okay so you’re on a diet. Its all working fine, then suddenly BAM! You for no apparent reason eat 5 bags of chippies and a donut, some pizza and whatever else and completly blow yourself out of the water.
Firstly, dont panic! the excess calories will even themselves out over the week, dont go dropping the diet just because of one blow out – you are slightly off track but still very much on track.
Now go back in your head, try and figure out what exactly were you feeling at the time? Tired? Emotional? PMS? Menstrating? something else?
This is identifying what your “triggers” are and what sets you off. Personally im set off by being over tired, however some people just binge eat, or eat because they are upset, depressed, or various other reasons.
This is NOT an excuse to screw your diet up. Its a chance to figure out WHY you did it and avoid those exact set of circumstances again or make some sort of emergancy ‘food’ that you can go lose on without breaking the diet too badly.
If you know being around a particular person sets you off everytime you see them then try and avoid them. If thats impossible then make sure when you see them next there are plenty of low calorie foods to binge/snack on when you find yourself going.
Binge Foods
Air popped popcorn is great, a bit of salt to flavour it is fine but dont go to hard on the sodium stuff. Try and leave butter off it or other toppings.
Fruit and Veges or low cal deserts are awesome too. If you like meringues then try making a lemon meringue with Equal rather than sugar – it has almost no calories so long as you leave the pie base off and just cook it without in a bowl.
Another thing that seems to work for me is taking a long easy walk, or some other form of punishment.
Just remember, YOU are the boss, not your body. You need to tell it whats what and dont let it rule you.