Do you have a Diet Mindset?

The thing that all stress eaters have in common is that they have a diet mindset. That means you categorize foods as good or bad and you are constantly thinking about how to burn calories and lose weight. When you avoid fattening foods you feel virtuous. When you eat them you feel guilty. Those foods become something you either try to avoid and it's generally the food that you used to enjoy eating. Under stress, when you're inhibition is lowered you go to eat these comfort foods that you have denied yourself.

Stress Eating Is an Attempt at Nurturing

Actually, while most people think it's a terrible thing to be an "emotional eater" or a stress eater, you can reframe your attitude and stop blaming yourself. You are using food to nurture yourself because you're stressed. You're trying to do something to help yourself! You're not using alcohol or drugs or another really harmful way to deal with stress.

You may believe from everything you read in the media and from your doctor that putting on weight or being heavy is terrible for your health, and you'd be wrong.

You Can't Stop Stress Eating if you have a Diet Mindset

There are many tools to help you stop stress eating. But they will all fail if you still have a Diet Mindset that convinces you that you must be thin to be attractive. You may not even be heavy right now, but just have a FEAR of getting fat. Our society has a fat phobia! 

Changing the belief that your body is unattractive and that you need to be thin is hardest change to make.  If you are convinced that you have to be thin you will always be dieting, even if you think you are not. You will subconsciously be telling yourself to choose lettuce over fatty foods. You may lie to yourself and claim that you're dieting for their health, but if you are really honest with yourself in most cases it's because of fear of fat- or fat phobia. 

Mindful Eating Fails with a Diet Mindset

Many people are trying Mindful Eating, also known as Intuitive Eating. Many think that this is the newest diet advice for losing weight. But that is definitely NOT the intention of Mindful Eating. Intuitive eating helps you relearn how to trust your body's signals of hunger and satiation. Instead of believing Diet Gurus who tell you what to eat, and what to avoid, Mindful Eaters can eat anything they desire. When you realize that you don't have to restrict foods and you can choose to have them anytime, you don't binge eat. Maybe in the beginning of this practice you overdo it with some foods, but that wear off. 

Mindful eating is NOT eating clean or following anyone else's rules for how to eat, how much to eat, when to eat or anything else. 

Mindful eating will fail if you have not come to positive terms with your weight, you appearance or your size. 

Diet Mindset is Why You Stress Eat

It's been said the 100% of people who get upset and then stress eat have a diet mindset. People who don't have negative feelings about their body's appearance are not concerned about their weight and trying to control it. They don't eat from stress!

"But", you may say, "if I don't control what I'm eating I will never stop eating. I'll be totally out of control and gain an enormous amount of weight!"

And you'd be wrong again! Because in actuality your body is much better at balancing the amount of food you eat against the amount of physical activity you expend to keep your body at a weight set point! As soon as you diet you essentially throw a "monkey wrench" into the calculations your body does naturally. With every diet and restriction your body slows down your metabolism in order to keep you at the highest weight you've reached (except from pregnancy you'll be happy to know).

Your Body's Self Management of Weight is AMAZING!

Read this paragraph from Health At Every Size by Linda Bacon. If this doesn't amaze you, nothing will. And it should teach you that your body will do much better at controlling your weight that you could ever hope to! 

What Do You Do To Manage Your Weight Instead of Dieting?

This is the tough thing. You have to start accepting your body right now. Hating your body causes an internal fear factor that creates stress in your body. That ALONE can have a negative effect on your weight! 

Then you have to figure out what your other stress triggers are and find a better way to manage stress other than eating (or alcohol, etc.). This is something you'll need to do frequently and it will actually become something you look forward to because it will improve you mindset and your health! It will also improve your sleep - which has an enormous effect on your feelings of hunger and satiation. 

Mindful or Intentional Eating

And finally, when you are in control of your stress, practicing mindful eating will get you back in touch with your body's signals of hunger and being full. When you stop multi-tasking and pay attention to your food and your stomach you'll know when you've had enough to eat. But it can take time to learn to trust your body again. It's worth the effort!