Eating When You Are Stressed

April 26, 2010

Interview with Dr. Rachael Heller, co-author of the book The Stress-Eating Cure: Lose Weight with the No-Willpower Solution to Stress-Hunger and Cravings

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Mike Carruthers:
Would you call yourself a stress eater?

Dr. Rachael Heller:
Stress eating is the recurring craving or intense desire for food (starchy sweets or junk foods) and it is a response to your body’s inability to handle the physical, emotional or psychological demands on it.
 

Dr. Rachael Heller, co-author of the book The Stress-Eating Cure, says one way to know if you’re a stress eater is the “Ah response”.

When you get that first bite do you feel just almost a relief, an “Ah”? Tthat is a change in your body’s hormonal imbalance that says, “I’ve gotten something to bring me comfort.”

There are several different types of stress eating but in general Dr. Heller says…

One of the best things a stress eater can do is eat their comfort foods everyday but confine it to one meal a day. Ideally that meal is breakfast, that’s when the hormones are most out of balance and most able to get back in balance for the rest of the day – so a big breakfast feast.

Research has shown that people who eat this way lose weight and gain control of their eating.

So basically eating little snacks of comfort food throughout the day is the worst thing a stress eater can do. Your body sees it as a situation where it must eat.