We’ve all been there: the chaos after your lectures have finished, rush hour at the nearest supermarket, painfully hungry because you were running late and didn’t eat lunch before class. But entering into the pandemonium of the local supermarket on an empty stomach doesn’t do us any good…
1. We ALL eat with our eyes…
We all do it… Take the trolley down the sweet isle. You know you shouldn’t, yet you do every time. Shopping on an empty stomach leads to impulsive buying: you see your favourite chocolate bar, you buy it. You see a packet of your favourite snack, SHARE-SIZE, you buy it.
2. You can say goodbye to any healthy eating plan you had…
If you enter the supermarket on an empty stomach, you are more likely to buy everything that appeals to you, which unfortunately for the majority of us, isn’t celery sticks and fat-free yoghurt. So, venturing into the supermarket hungry could lead to a week of unhealthy eating, and, well, nobody wants that, do they?
3. It doesn’t do our finances any good either…
As mentioned above, doing your weekly food shop on an empty stomach leads to impulsive buying: everything seems like a good idea. Yep, I’ll get a family size packet of crumpets. Shopping when hungry leads to you being more tempted by offers and discounts: buy one get one free, but were you really going to buy one in the first place or are you just a sucker for an offer? Students are often in a mind-set of searching for offers, which is great, BUT, we need to stop being attracted to offers that we don’t actually want or need.
4. Your mood will from bad to worse…
When we’re hungry and haven’t eaten recently, our blood sugar levels and our energy levels drop. Then, it seems like our whole system shuts down and all we can concentrate on is when, and what, we are going to eat. It’s not uncommon for people to experience episodes of bad moods whilst hungry, therefore should we really be going shopping where small children are screaming, the line for the till seems a mile long and the woman behind you is ‘accidently’ shoving you every time she turns around? No. This is when trolley rage occurs.