The Blog
Making Peace with the Pantry
My free eBook and companion eCourse is here to support you on your journey to food freedom
Strategy #5: Your Quarantine Stress Eating Survival Guide
Address Your Stress
Our health is greatly determined by how balanced the two branches of our autonomic nervous system are - the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. Chronic stress causes most people to spend more time with the sympathetic nervous system dominate and active. This post outlines several ways to address your stress and bring your autonomic nervous system into balance.
Strategy #4: Your Quarantine Stress Eating Survival Guide
Rest and Repair
Our culture teaches us that we must push ourselves into the ground in order to get results and achieve success. I fell for this belief hook, line and sinker. But this philosophy also broke my body. In this post, I share how chronic stress took a toll on my health and also offer an invitation to challenge this long-standing cultural norm and redefine what it means to work hard.
Strategy #3: Your Quarantine Stress Eating Survival Guide
Rig Your Environment In Your Favor
It is very empowering to set your immediate food environment up in a way that encourages healthy eating and reduces the likelihood you will overeat or make unsupportive food choices. Here are some tips on how to arrange your kitchen space so that it invites you to make better nutritional choices.
Strategy #2: Your Quarantine Stress Eating Survival Guide
The Art Of Making Tiny Shifts
This strategy is helpful to use after an episode of stress eating, emotional eating or general overeating. It offers a way to shift perspective so that an episode of stress eating doesn’t become an invitation to make one unsupportive decision after another.
Strategy #1: Your Quarantine Stress Eating Survival Guide
Create A Schedule. But One That Works For You.
This is a time of uncertainty and many unknowns. Both of which are incredibly stressful. So it makes total and complete sense that you might feel nudged to snack more often than usual right now. One of the best ways I have found to counter the unsettling feelings that accompany uncertainty, is to purposely and intentionally create certainty where you can. And one super simple way to do this is to establish a quarantine schedule.
Your Quarantine Stress Eating Survival Guide
The desire to mindlessly snack and emotionally eat has increased substantially since our COVID-19 quarantine began. I have found myself looking in the pantry and refrigerator on a pretty regular basis these last few days. I am not physically hungry but I am stressed, overwhelmed and incredibly antsy. And I am wanting a distraction.
As most of us know, food can definitely provide that distraction for us. However, the relief we experience is only temporary. Not to mention, it is usually followed by varying degrees of guilt, shame and/or overeating. How is it that one mindless pretzel can, oh so easily, turn into the entire bag?!
How to Become More Resilient in the Face of Stress and Overwhelm
The last several weeks have been particularly stressful for a variety of reasons. But as I navigate what would have formerly sent me to the pantry for comfort, I can see that things have changed. I no longer need food in times of stress. It's no longer my go-to coping mechanism. And I have been able to take the last few weeks in stride and approach them with relative ease considering the chaos. And this, my friend, is HUGE!!
So what is different?
As I was reflecting on this, I identified 5 things that I do now, which have undoubtedly, helped me consistently manage stress and not be triggered to eat my face off.