Stress eating, also referred to as emotional eating, is a way of coping with your emotions. When you stress eat, it’s not your body that dictates how much you eat or when to stop, it’s your emotions. Sometimes your emotions creep up on you slowly and then suddenly you’ve eaten through bags of chips and don’t remember how you got there.
1. Portion your Snacks
Something that really helps to make your stress eating semi-healthy is portion control. I found a way to trick myself recently by putting snacks into Ziploc bags. When you fill the bag and then reach for one to stress eat you’ll eat one or two little baggies of a snack instead of an entire family sized bag of something. I’ve portioned out my chips a lot lately. Chips and salty things are my weakness so when I portion them out it really helps keep them from disappearing so quickly.
2. Only Buy Healthy Snacks
Something that makes you feel a little less guilty after stress eating is healthy snacks. If you love salty things, try salted almonds. They’re good for your hair and nails as well. If you like sweet things, try dried fruit or fruit chips. My favorites are dried pineapples, mangos, kiwis and banana chips. If you like sweet and salty things get saltine crackers and marshmallow fluff, put the fluff on the crackers and make sort of a sandwich out of it. Make four of those and no more and you’ve got yourself a great snack to not feel guilty about.
3. Make Smoothies
Smoothies are healthy and no you can’t actually eat them but cooking helps relieve stress and once you relieve that stress, you’re not as hungry anymore. Plus, smoothies are sweet and juicy and can be made out of anything. Literally. Plus, they’re filling. Typically once you’re full you stop eating. So make a nice smoothie, relieve some stress and sip on something sweet.