A couple of weeks ago I talked about how I felt having a connection to eating food when you feel good can really undo your results, as the only time you are not eating badly is when life is going along normally.
This is because pretty much everyone’s behaviour is much worse when things aren’t going well or they’re stressed. This is part of the process and all very normal so there is no reason to beat yourself up if you find yourself doing these things. However, there are things you can do to improve your behaviours during stressful or emotionally lower states. This includes:
Decide on Alternatives – If you know you are going to grab certain foods that will lead you on a negative spiral, then you can help yourself out by planning better options.
Identify the current worst ‘bad’ foods you eat when stressed & then decide upon some better alternatives.
1- Bad Food: Better Alternative:
2- Bad Food: Better Alternative:
3- Bad Food: Better Alternative:
The alternative option needs to be something you will actually do during difficult times. For example, it’s unlikely you’ll replace chocolate with celery sticks. Be realistic, you should also loosely match the calorie content, e.g. if you’re going to eat 800 calories of chocolate, a 50-calorie serving of grapes won’t cut it.
Understanding Your stress pattern – For many people they need to investigate their own patterns around stress a bit further. These questions may help;
– What are the signs that you are stressed?
– Write down some moments when you did NOT eat badly or stop moving during a stressful time?
– What would you need to think, feel or know to be able to ignore the desire to eat/not move during stressful periods?
Plan For Future Stress Periods – The best way to cope with stress is to eat well, continue exercising and get a lot of sleep. These are, of course, the first three things to go wrong when life gets a bit too much. Spending just a few minutes now to plan ahead can help with improving your stress response
– Food – How can you ensure you eat healthily when stressed?
– Exercise – What simple movement forms can you do when things are tough?
– Sleeping – What strategies can give you adequate sleep when feeling low?
Develop Your Behaviours When Times Are Good – While the way you act when stressed probably represents your worst side, if you have built up solid habits over time, your ‘worst’ could become much better than most people and easily allow for long term results.
To develop your behaviours, you can run neural connection experiments to train your brain or just work on forming good habits through repetition. This should improve your food and exercise patterns. You can also develop your skills such as cooking healthy foods for example. It would also be wise to learn, practice and become accustomed to using stress reduction techniques.
What Does This Mean For You
The goal during stressful or bad times is simply to roughly break even. You don’t need to thrive—just avoid sliding backwards. If you apply a few of the strategies outlined above, you’ll likely hold your ground during life’s tougher patches. That alone will make a massive difference to your overall long-term results.
Video – Me using a stress reduction technique (Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)) on Channel 5 News a good few year ago, see here>>
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