Conquering Stress Eating

I’ve had a problem with food for a long time, longer than I care to remember. The pattern is always the same. I get stressed, I eat. I get upset, I eat. Or, I get pissed about being heavy, and I eat. I think I finally broke the behavior.

I’ve had difficult time over the last two months. I was working from China on a difficult project and under a ton of stress. This alone is enough to make me stress eat. Then my dad took a turn for the worse and eventually died. I would have normally eaten large amounts of comfort food to cope, but I did not. Something had changed.

I think my son helped. He dropped over a hundred pounds in less than one year. He’s healthy, in great shape, and enthusiastic about his weight loss method. It’s simple. He counts calories and gets exercise.

My wife and I started counting calories a few months ago. We use livestrong.com. She’s lost 25 pounds already and looks great. I’ve lost about 17. Given I was on the road and under a ton of stress, I’m pretty happy. Once I learned how many calories were in my food, I set a easy to achieve daily calorie goal. I’ve managed to stay under my goal on all but a very few days. I’m on track with my weight loss goal of 5 pounds per month. That helps me get through the next day.

Concentrating on calorie content makes me think about what I’m eating. Once I think about it, I usually choose a healthy or lower calorie option. When confronted with the desire to eat, I usually make the right choice. For the first time in my adult life, I’m losing weight without doing something stupid. This helped when the stress came. I made the right call on food, plus I was able to say no. There was no massive overeating. Instead of a large heavy meal, I chose a smaller version, or a healthy alternative. I did not gain weight, which makes me a happy man.

Hot tip: the Eat This, Not That books are helpful.

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