The Problem with Stress Eating? It Doesn’t Work
Written by Janice Asher – www.drjaniceasher.com
OMG, what a stressful time this is for all of us. It’s hard to cope with all that’s happening. Many people have written to me to tell me how tight their pants are getting and how disgusted with themselves they are for the way they’re eating and drinking. Maybe I can help.
When you’re stressed and worried, as we all are right now, your brain does not go to the land of, “What I could really use right now is a nice stalk of celery.” Rather, it saunters over to the land of chocolate, potato chips, ice cream, wine, back to chocolate…
Here’s the problem: in the short term, your brain tends to be comforted by sugar or fat or salt—or all three. But soon the brain reacts, especially to a high dose of sugar, by feeling irritable and wanting more sugar. You may feel like a shark tasting blood—you just want more.
In my book, The Permanent Weight Loss Plan, I talk about what I call the Comfort Circle of Hell. Here’s what it looks like:
The Comfort Food Circle of Hell
- I want a cookie.
- I find the package of cookies that I’d supposedly hidden from myself.
- I eat a cookie.
- I want another cookie.
- I eat another cookie. And another.
- I feel better. Calmer. Soothed. Then numb. Then irritable.
- I realize what I have done and feel disgusted with myself.
- I want to feel better.
- I eat a cookie . . .
This cycle is the kind of pattern that ends in misery. “Eating your feelings” started as a way to comfort and protect yourself, but it may now have become self-defeating. There may be a better way – one that does not mean giving up comfort or feeling one that doesn’t blur the line between reward and punishment.
Here’s a suggestion: make a list of non-food sources of comfort – talking with a friend, listening to music, dancing, writing in a journal, reading a novel…you get the point.
Each week, I’ll talk about ways to cope with stress in an almost unbearably stressful time.
One more thing: if you do eat all the cookies, just move on. You did what you needed to do at the time. You’re good enough already.
Written by Janice Asher – www.drjaniceasher.com
