You come home from work late and you’re very tired from the long day. Who feels like cooking? Instead, you pick up some fast food on the way home or you order a pizza for you and the family. For some reason, you aren’t in a good mood after dinner—maybe it was the long day, maybe it’s the fact that you’re home now yet still can’t relax, maybe it’s because it’s Monday—or maybe it was the food you ate. Your eating habits do affect your mood, believe it or not. If you’ve been in a slump recently—try eating better and getting plenty of rest. You don’t want to encounter a weight problem because of your grumpiness!
Tackle the challenge
All of this stuff goes hand-in-hand. If you eat healthy foods, you will maintain a healthy weight and a healthy attitude! However, when something is amiss, is it a downward spiral unfortunately.
If you stress easily like I do, you know how tempting it can be to reach for the ice cream and somehow forget to grab a bowl to control your portions—not a good idea! If you’re upset, it will be hard, but try to gravitate towards nutritious snack foods instead of the easy comfort foods we all know and love.
If you are overweight, or maybe you’re an average weight but you still aren’t satisfied with yourself, you will feel more pressure to lose weight and stress about it daily. Worrying won’t help you in this case—the secret is to force yourself to put the chips back and grab some popcorn or fruit to munch on instead.
Tips on eating well despite your emotional struggles
Since being in a bad mood will make it that much harder to resist the urges to slip back into your old ways, eliminate the temptations:
– Keep the junk food out of your house, stock up on healthy snack foods like baby carrots, apple slices, cottage cheese, hummus, peanut butter, etc.
– Cut back on sugary sodas and juices—you shouldn’t keep sodas readily available at all. The typical soda has 36-50 grams of sugar per 12oz serving ( or 1 can), and an additional 150 calories on top of that. While soda has no nutritional value at all, many people get into the habit of drinking empty calories because they don’t like the taste of water. Although water is best, try using lemon juice or Cystal Light to flavor your water and steer clear of sodas. Diet sodas tend to also cause weight probelms because they contain so much sodium, they cause bloating and extra water weight. Do yourself a favor and find a healthy alternative. 
– Be active. If you’re bored sitting on the couch, you will be way more tempted to grab a cookie than if you were out walking. Call a friend and take the dog for a walk, surf the web for a nutritious dinner recipe and run to the store to grab the ingredients. If you have something to do, you can fight the boredom and the urge to snack on junk food.- Curb the stress. Try yoga or meditation if you are over-eating due to emotional issues. This relates to the previous bullet too, keep busy no matter what makes you splurge on unhealthy snacks. If you are eating due to stress, then give the craving time to pass because you most likely aren’t really hungry.
– Be social—if you talk to friends or family about your eating problems, they will be there for you to help you fight the unnecessary cravings. Also, you are more likely to actually exercise if you are with a partner or friend.
– Get in those 8 hours! If you are sluggish at work or school, you will be more likely to snack to get an energy boost—try napping or going to bed earlier instead.
While it is difficult to shut out comfort foods completely, be aware that if you do experience a lot of stress, then that may be the cause of you over-eating on junk food. Follow the simple tips above and give yourself a reality check
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