3 tips to manage food stress in your life

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I returned to my office yesterday after a 4-day weekend. Wow, the number of emails, messages, Facebook notifications and faxes was truly overwhelming. Then the phone calls started…people somehow know the minute I sit behind my desk.

I was overwhelmed. That overwhelm caused me to procrastinate on getting some projects done, like this blog for IE Wednesday which I am writing quite late!

What I didn’t do was turn to food. Yet so many people do.

Food has become a way for so many women in my community to distract from pain, procrastinate from work, and deal with the stress and overwhelm they experience in their lives. The problem is that food does not fix any of these things!!

Food is supposed to be enjoyed. Yet, when speaking with so many clients, and potential clients, they tell me that food is stressful. All aspects of food, whether its deciding what to eat, shopping and preparing food for meals, or even the thought of going out to eat food.

And certainly, the guilt they feel after they eat what they think they “shouldn’t eat’!

Stress, stress, stress!

So today I wanted to share some strategies with you to help you manage food-related stress, without turning to food to cope!

If you have had a difficult relationship with food for some time now, then you can probably relate with today’s topic.

I know you probably want food to be a non-issue in your life. And you know what? It can be.

Let’s first start with 3 strategies that you can put into place immediately to help you minimize the stress around food.

Strategy #1: Set up your environment for success.

While I’m all about teaching you how to be intuitive in your eating (of course…I teach intuitive eating!), I am also very practical. It is important to be mindful of your eating and one way to do that is to reduce your external eating cues. That means put all food away after you’ve eaten and don’t leave food on the counters or table. If food is left out, it can very easily lead to mindless munching which then leads to feelings of guilt and frustration for eating when you weren’t hungry.

Strategy #2: Seek assistance from your family members.

Food shopping and meal prep doesn’t have to just be your responsibility. Get everyone involved in the menu planning. Even better, assign everyone a night to prepare the dinner. This way the whole family is involved, the kids will more likely eat what they help to prepare, and you get quality family time too.

Strategy #3. Start to use meditation and visualization.  Meditation can be a powerful tool to help keep your mind clear and stress-free. You can use meditation as a way to visualize yourself being stress-free around food and, by visualizing that, you can start to believe it will happen too.

These strategies are a good place to get started and you can use them as a way to figure out what works best for you.

But I have more right inside my online ‘do-it-yourself’ program where you will get my best strategies to decreasing the stress and overwhelm in your daily life!

And, because reality has it that there will be times when stress just happens, I teach you the most important questions you need to ask, and practices for you to use to beat that stress without turning to food (because let’s face it, it’s not about the food, it’s about the reasons you are eating!)

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