Emotional Eating Strategy #6

This strategy is a bit different from the previous ones. They dealt mostly with emotions and conscious eating. In a sense, this one does also, but this is about stocking your cupboard so you are prepared for when the urge hits. Because, it will hit, sooner or later!

Strategy #6: Have a Stash of Healthy Choices

I'm not talking about carrot sticks and celery...we all know that is not going to do a thing for you if you are an emotional eater. And frankly, if you ate a pound of carrots rather than chocolate you haven't changed the behavior at all...so even though you would have taken in fewer calories and some nutrients, it really isn't the answer to behavior modification!

What I'm talking about is seeing if there is something that will help you be giving you some emotional satisfaction but perhaps have some nutritional value...or at least less damage!

For example, I'm an ice cream addict...now, eating ice milk and low fat ice cream does nothing for satisfying my emotional eating. In fact, if I eat the 1/2 fat stuff I find that I eat twice as much (or more.) In that case I'm better off eating the ice cream I really like and employing some of the other strategies.

What I've done instead is found some chocolately items that taste really good that feel like a treat, but have fewer calories and fat in them. One such treat is dark chocolate covered espresso beans...I can have a few of those and it helps give me the chocolate sensation without a lot of fat. They have the added benefit that I can't physically eat very many of them! I've also found a protein bar that tastes good and gives me a chocolate boost. So while I could still overeat the bars, at least I am getting more balanced nutrition that way.

If chips are your downfall, you may be able to have a baked chip that has less fat and enjoy it with salsa or sliced avocado--which is good fat.

You still want to avoid overeating for emotional reasons, but as I said in strategy #2, having a little "mental health food" is not what made you fat...and it won't keep you fat or make you fat again. We didn't get fat with a few espresso beans once in a while...we got fat by repeatedly overeating...by not addressing the emotions we were feeling and just stuffing them down with a side of apple pie a la mode!

Be sure to come back tomorrow to see another very simple strategy to help curb your emotional eating and have weight loss success!