I’m sure you’re familiar with the scenario because it happens to all of us – for whatever reason, at some point in the day, you see a candy bar or a piece of cake or a bag of chips and without really thinking, you just grab it and eat it. If you want to keep binge eating from sabotaging your fitness program, you’re going to need to plan ahead. These tips should help you to avoid silly binge eating episodes:
Keep Track of your Eating
Studies have shown that if you keep track of everything you eat, in writing, you’ll start controlling your eating habits better. The fact is, most people develop a sense of shame over keeping a list of all the junk food they consume daily.
Getting yourself an accountability partner is a great way to enhance the effectiveness of this approach. This involves you and a co-worker or friend sharing your daily lists with each other. You can easily imagine how powerful the urge to control your eating will become after just a few days of this, in addition to which your accountability partner might be able to point out trends and patterns you may have overlooked.
Immunize Yourself from the Desire for Seconds
Rich, sweet pastries, fried foods and sweet adult beverages – it’s so easy to binge on these foods. Nobody’s suggesting that you can never eat any of the foods you love, but they can’t be a regular part of your diet.
If you feel fairly full before having these foods, you can avoid the tendency to overeat – try eating a low-cal food like an apple before digging in to these favorite foods. The secret is to keep the initial snack low-cal – it’s the fiber in the apple that makes you feel full,not the calories.
Take a Pause to Refresh Yourself!
People’s overeating is often a programmed response to emotional issues such as anxiety, boredom and stress. In other words, they are emotional eaters. This approach, by giving yourself a “time out” before sitting down to eat, is an excellent way to bring binge eating under control.
Simply stop and wait for five minutes the next time you’re in a situation where you might make an irresponsible eating situtaion, like in front of the door to any fast-food restaurant, or a pizza joint. There are plenty of alternate activities you can find to do for those few moments – it’s not necessary that you actually stand there for five minutes. Make a phone call (this is a universal favorite), read a newspaper, or if you’re in a crowded venue, just watch people. What you want to do is change your focus from food. If the craving for food is gone at the end of the five minutes, that means you’ve overcome an emotional eating urge. Nice going!
Relax!
In many cases, binge-type eating is an automatic response to stress. If you bring the stress under control, you can also bring the overeating under control. Plus, studies show that a stress-related chemical called cortisol actually causes our bodies to store more fat.
Stress relieving techniques are varied, and range from such outdoor activities as fishing and hiking and camping, to more passive things like meditation and prayer. If your response to stress is involuntarily to grab for a snack, you need to take action. When you find yourself stressed out, you need to develop other responses than eating. There are other things you can do as alternative to eating as a response to stress, of course – you’re not bound by the suggestions here. The important thing is that you’re comfortable, and that whatever you do, it relieves the stress you’re experiencing.
Your weight loss and fitness program has taken a good amount of hard work on your part. Isn’t it a shame to jeopardize it with overeating? Take the above 4 tips into consideration to help you stop binge eating and finally see the results of all the hard work you’ve been putting in on your diet or exercising.
If you’re interested in learning more about weight loss, be sure to check out Eat This and Burn Calories and Diet Solution Program