When I feel bad, upset or tired, for some reason I always want to eat. And once I start, I can’t stop. What to do?

Lala, Stavropol

Alisa Shabanova, food psychologist, project expert on healthy eating GrinDin (preparation and delivery of dietary food), Moscow:

– “Eating problems” is a defensive reaction of the psyche in response to stress. When it becomes difficult for the body to cope with life circumstances at the social level, it descends lower - to the level of physiological needs. And tries to find comfort through their satisfaction. Unfortunately, not all problems can be solved by the “wait it out” method, so as a result of “eating” you usually get not only extra pounds, but also an unresolved problem.

First rule: why am I hungry?

The first rule of working with any habit or stereotypical behavior is awareness. You must learn to very clearly identify situations in which you begin to “seize problems.” Every time you get hungry, ask yourself: “Why am I hungry?” Place your hand on your stomach, in the stomach area, and try to understand where your feeling of hunger is located: below (in the stomach) or above (in the head)?

Pay attention to those moments when you begin to crave atypical food or an unusual amount of food. With psychological problems, people tend to choose high-calorie foods with a soft consistency - cakes, sandwiches, ice cream - they bring a quick feeling of satisfaction and do not require much effort when eaten.

Second rule: find a food replacement

If you find yourself wanting to binge on something, simply saying “no” to yourself is not enough. Finding an adequate food replacement is the second part of the work that needs to be done to break free from a bad habit. For the body, food is a resource, and in moments when it feels bad, it uses this resource to raise its tone and mood. Besides food, there are hundreds of resources in life. These include physical activity, sleep, hot bath, friends, books, films, walks, animals, shopping... Your task is to bring as many resources as possible “as an asset” and learn to use them for their intended purpose. Are you having problems in your personal life? Get a dog and go for a walk with it every time you feel the urge to reach the refrigerator. This is good for your figure and for communicating with other animal lovers.

Play a sport that suits you – dancing, yoga, swimming. Are you sad? Shopping is a great way to lift your spirits, especially if you brought a friend with you. If you're not a party person, light some candles, take a fragrant bath and sit on the sofa with a book and a glass of dry wine. If you really want to chew, cut cucumbers and carrots and crunch them, this will allow you to defuse the aggression accumulated over a hard day.
Do not take away the body’s protection, give it a new one. Does he want to eat or sleep? Great! He just can't do anything else. Teach him how to deal with stress different ways, and the problem with “jamming” will gradually lose its relevance.

Love-hate relationship with food

What are anorexia and bulimia?

Svetlana, Rostov region

– Anorexia and bulimia are eating disorders that usually begin in adolescence (although later onset is possible) and can accompany a person throughout life. Both diseases primarily affect women.

Anorexia

This is a conscious restriction of food in order to lose weight. At the same time, the image of “losing weight” is very vague: the patient simply wants to be thinner and does not have a specific clothing size or number on the scale as a goal. Those suffering from anorexia develop a special relationship with food: “love-hate”, in which they severely limit themselves, but can compensate by going grocery stores, buy unnecessary products and hide them at home, or bake cakes and feed them to loved ones and friends.

Anorexia is very dangerous. The mortality rate is 15–20%, not only from exhaustion, but also from depression and suicide. In addition, anorexia leads to serious physiological disorders, ranging from hormonal imbalances (80% of anorexics suffer from amenorrhea - the absence of menstruation - and cannot have children) to problems with the cardiovascular system and gastrointestinal tract.

Anorexia requires treatment from specialists - psychiatrists and clinical psychologists! No amount of persuasion, threats, blackmail or bribery of sick children, sisters, friends will help overcome the disease. Typically, anorexics in the acute stage are placed in a hospital, where they are treated for depression, taught to eat properly and forced to gain weight (the weight of an anorexic can be 30–40 kg). After discharge, they remain on maintenance therapy.

Bulimia

This is a strict self-restraint in food, which leads to breakdowns and overeating. Typically, during an attack, patients absorb 3000–5000 kcal at a time, preferring soft, fatty and sweet foods (choice number 1 - cakes and pastries). After this, under the influence of guilt, patients induce vomiting or drink a laxative in order to get rid of the consequences of the attack.

Unlike anorexics, bulimics are more socially oriented people. They lose weight not “for themselves,” but for a specific goal - success in society. They know very well how much they want to weigh and how they want to look. The weight they usually call is only 5–10% below the age norm.

Another difference is that bulimics rarely lose weight, while anorexics manage to do so very successfully.

Bulimia is usually treated on an outpatient basis with antidepressants and group psychotherapy. In addition, it is very important to teach the patient to eat properly, to develop a nutrition system in which he can achieve his goals without painful hunger strikes and compensatory breakdowns.

What is the reason?

The causes of anorexia and bulimia are not fully understood. Research shows that the family factor plays a significant role - mothers and fathers obsessed with diets and appearance, push children towards eating disorders. Also important are childhood traumas, the general discomfort that the child experiences in the family, especially the lack of attention and coldness of the parents. A competitive environment with a pronounced focus on “modeling” can become dangerous for vulnerable, socially dependent children: cases are described when in expensive private schools 40–50% of girls in the class immediately fell ill with bulimia.

The fact that we eat stress is not news to anyone. However, we still haven’t received any sensible advice on how to learn to cope with stress without food.

With sweets and sandwiches everything is clear - we chose them as comforters because they are available. A minute - and a bar with a cup of tea is on the table, a couple more minutes - and a pile of sandwiches is ready. To combat the habit of stress eating, you need to offer an equally accessible alternative to this harmful way of getting rid of negative emotions. And then you won’t have to go on strict diets and use grueling fitness to lose weight.

List for a bad mood

Take a piece of paper, a pen, and write down as many activities as you can that calm you down as effectively as eating. Be extremely specific, because in states of disappointment, resentment and apathy there is no desire to make additional efforts. So you should have all the tools at your fingertips.

For example, it could be a list like this:

• Watch the movie "The Thomas Crown Affair."
• Read Dan Brown's Inferno.
• Call Anya - she has an endless supply of optimism and funny stories.
• Get a new beautiful notebook for plans and ideas.
• Take a bath with aromatic oils.
• Choose the country where you will go on your next vacation. Make a list of attractions you want to visit.
• Listen to Spanish songs and dance to them.
• Throw away everything unnecessary and make a small rearrangement, etc.

Top activities to relieve stress

Of course, everyone will have their own list.

However, even the above list shows top activities that are great stress relievers and meal replacements. This is a reading that gives you the opportunity to plunge into the world of adventures of heroes. After a couple of pages, you will completely forget about your failures and will be intent on following the bind that Robert Langdon has found himself in. By the way, reading ranks first on the list of activities, the best way relieving stress. The top 3 also includes music (not necessarily Spanish, but upbeat is better) and a walk in the fresh air (the flow of fresh air relieves stress, gives clarity of mind, and improves mood).

Being with positive friends is a great way to reduce stress, so make friends with such people. Communication with them is a real holiday.

Finally, any planning - creative projects, vacation, next week - allows you to leave today's worries and look with optimism into the future, which you can build yourself, arranging the things and activities that are important to you along the lines of the page, planning what can change your life for the better, what inspires you for new victories and achievements.

So, the list of activities to relieve stress is something like this:

• inspiring reading;
• walk in the fresh air;
• inviting, inspiring music;
• project planning;
• travel planning;
• getting rid of unnecessary things that irritate you;
• buying new things that inspire you;
• changes in environment, appearance, etc.

Remember that the list needs to be completed by making it:

• more inviting (hey, girlfriend, let's dance to Juanes!);
• more specific, so that in moments of sadness you don’t have to rack your brains about what to read and who to call.
• accessible (let it hang in a visible place).

Relieve stress without food!

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Each person experiences stressful situations in their own way. Some people need to relax, others need to immerse themselves in work or a favorite activity, but there are also those who start eating. In psychology, this phenomenon is called emotional overeating. This manifests itself in different ways: some people need to eat something right away, while others feel a rush of hunger after a while, but rarely associate it with a stressful situation.

What to do in this case, how to stop eating stress? We will not be able to avoid negative situations. Statistics say that the average person experiences stress about 50 times a day. Therefore, it is very important to learn how to react to it differently, and you can manage your emotions and experiences.

Why does the appetite wake up after stress?

Our body is a complex system that consists of many reactions. Our emotional experiences largely depend on the level of certain hormones. A negative situation provokes the production of the so-called stress hormone in the body, scientific name is cortisone. It is its appearance in the blood that forces a person to look for ways to eliminate a bad mood. For many, this is associated with the process of eating all sorts of goodies. Why does this happen?

Numerous psychological research have proven that the habit of eating stress with food is laid down in the subconscious in infancy.

Everyone knows the situation: the baby cried - a loving mother, who took him in her arms, caressed him and fed him. This leads to the development of a stable reaction: “if you eat, it will become easier.”

In addition, breast milk promotes the formation of the habit of removing stress with the help of sweets, as it has a sweetish taste.

Eating foods under stress triggers this mechanism and makes a person calm down. Sweet foods such as chocolate and candies contribute to the production of the “happiness hormone”. But even a large amount of them in the blood does not always help cope with stress. This is a temporary relief that makes you eat more and more, but does not solve the problem.

Another reason why a person after negative events starts to eat a lot - this is a lack of essential microelements. During stressful conditions, the human body consumes vitamins (B, C) and minerals (magnesium). This is why you crave baked goods, meat, chocolate, nuts and the like. high-calorie foods, which very quickly affect the figure.

It should also be noted that there are purely physiological factors that occur in the body when consuming heavy foods. Once in the stomach, it forces our brain to switch to more important activities - digesting incoming products. Temporarily, a person disconnects from problems and forgets about stress.

A person should consume food only when he feels hungry. The subconscious habit of eating away at troubles will very soon be complemented by another stress - worry about extra pounds. And your condition will turn into a vicious circle, from which it is quite difficult to get out.

How to determine if there is a problem?

Many people, having heard the phrase “stress eating”, will say that this does not concern them, since many of them are not aware of their problem. But statistical research they talk about frightening numbers. For example, 75% of all cases of obesity are associated with a person’s constant emotional stress. It is always easier to predict and get rid of any illness in the initial stages of its manifestation. Observe yourself for a while. Characteristic features The following manifestations are considered problems:

• after an emotional event (it can be positive), a desire arises to eat something sweet and tasty;
• lack of sense of proportion, which often leads to overeating;
• a sudden feeling of hunger can also appear after a hearty lunch, when you really want to eat candy or dessert;
• the diet consists of foods that nutritionists consider “harmful” (sweets, fried foods, fatty foods).

If you notice at least one of the above manifestations, then it is worth studying several effective ways that will help you overcome troubles.

Know how to distinguish between the body's physiological need for food and hunger caused by emotional experiences. Physical hunger causes a feeling of sucking in the stomach, sometimes a person may feel a little dizzy and general weakness, irritability, which is very similar to the sensations when stressful situation.

To understand the difference, simply analyze how long ago you consumed the food and whether you have this moment feelings of anxiety about something. Nutritionists say that usually a feeling of physiological hunger occurs every 4 hours. If, after analyzing, you realize that only an hour has passed and you feel excited about the upcoming meeting, then try to distract yourself.

Psychologists believe that The best way Overcoming emotional eating means keeping yourself busy for a certain period of time. If you can’t switch, then it is recommended to use deeper methods of psychological analysis and work on yourself.

How to overcome stress without food?

Much has been written about how not to eat stress. But not all advice is acceptable for every person. Psychologists say that the habit of eating when in trouble is a rather complex problem that requires an in-depth study of one’s condition. To do this, psychologists together with nutritionists recommend the following steps.

1. Start keeping a food diary. It should include not only what was eaten during the day. Select the box for your emotional condition when you want to eat and after the meal. Another one - on what, in your opinion, prompted your desire to consume this or that product. And make room for the number of calories consumed. At the end of each day, try to analyze what you ate and find foods that helped you overcome difficult situation.
2. Study your diet. The above food diary will help with this. At first, you will be surprised at how much excess you are consuming. In addition, find out the reasons that provoke you to constantly consume products. The more detailed the analysis is, the faster it will be possible to get rid of the problem.
3. Get rid of temptations. Open the refrigerator and throw out everything that tempts you in a stressful situation. Fill it only with healthy foods (fruits, vegetables, kefir, yoghurt, etc.). Avoid high-calorie bars and chips.

These are the basic rules that will help you understand your problem more deeply and make you start fighting its manifestations.

In order to learn how to deal with accumulated problems in a new way, it is necessary to understand whether we want to eat and when the feeling of hunger is caused by stress. To do this, you need to learn to recognize stress. Its characteristic features:

• muscle tension of the whole body or a specific part (face, arms, legs);
• faster heart rate and difficulty taking deep breaths;
• dry mouth;
• shiver.

If you notice such manifestations, then psychologists advise using the “Stop” technique. When stressed, stop and do nothing. Do breathing exercises. Study your condition. What exactly do you want now? The problem needs to be solved, and eating chocolate will not help solve it.

If this doesn't help and the urge to put something tasty in your mouth continues, try to find another way to relieve yourself. Take a walk around the neighborhood, do fitness, yoga, call a friend, drink a glass of water. By doing such procedures, over time, the habit of eating food during troubles will go away on its own.

Psychologists say that it is very important to focus on the problem and understand its essence. Ban yourself from consuming food on the street, in front of the TV, or the computer. This also helps form a habit, and very soon you will feel terribly hungry as soon as you turn on the monitor. Determine the place in the house where you will eat, and do it only there.

Don't wait to be done with bad habit“eating up troubles” will be easy and quick. You will need patience and daily control over your actions. But when the right approach and the desire to get rid of it, you will very soon realize that food consumption has become simply a physiological need, and you have learned to overcome and solve stressful situations.

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Life modern man It’s hard to imagine without stressful situations. Anyone can go through a difficult period. The reasons can be varied - from a banal lack of sleep to troubles at work.

Problem eating is a way to reduce stress; in this way, a person tries to learn to eliminate a situation that depresses him.

This is the so-called psychological dependence on food, that is, a person tries to smooth out a stressful situation in order to feel satisfied and happier. However, he may not feel hungry, and that’s the problem.

Why does appetite appear?

Everyone reacts differently to a stressful situation. Positive methods of solving the problem include playing sports, breathing exercises, and walking in the fresh air. Negative reactions include alcoholism, smoking, and this also applies to eating problems.

1. Thanks to the consumption of food, some internal tension in the body is relieved, and a person develops a feeling of relaxation. All problems are simply eaten away with delicious food, which gives peace and tranquility for a while.
2. Tasty things replace the lack of love and attention when a person experiences loneliness. When the stomach is filled enough, the need for any feelings disappears.
3. It happens that overeating is not at all psychological problem. But it just turned out to be a hard day, there was an emotional outburst, perhaps a banal lack of time, and, as a result, a snack on the go. And when evening comes, the complete eating of foods that only come to hand begins. As a result, there is a load on the stomach, increased cholesterol in the blood and big problems with health.
4. Every second person associates eating food with pleasant sensations. As a result, when a person feels bad, he will constantly try to eat it with delicious food.

What influences the connection between stress and food

Stress often appears in our thoughts in the form of panic, fear or anxiety. The body produces the hormones cortisol (stress hormone) and adrenaline.

Cortisol causes clogged arteries, which in turn can lead to a heart attack or stroke. Adrenaline causes the heart to beat faster, which can increase blood pressure.

The brain sends signals to the intestines that human body experiencing stress. The intestines contain intestinal nervous system, which works together with the brain. These processes can function in two directions.

This is why the foods we eat have such a strong impact on our psychological state.

Signs of jamming

There are key points that relate to signs of eating problems:

1. You eat even when you are not hungry at all.
2. When you are in a stressful situation, you eat more than necessary.
3. You eat food not out of hunger, but simply to make it easier, better.
4. If you eat to capacity.
5. When you realize that you can't control your relationship with food.
6. When you feel that food gives you a feeling of comfort and support.

Why is it dangerous

A person who eats stress does not always use healthy foods, he develops an uncontrollable appetite. His diet includes cakes, carbonated drinks, fast foods, fried and fatty foods. These foods contain excess cholesterol. A large number of this substance in the blood impairs the work of cardio-vascular system, and also increases the likelihood of developing diabetes.

In the most severe cases, disappointing symptoms appear: plaques form that clog blood vessels and lead to stroke and heart attack.

One more important point is that overeating leads to obesity. A person appears excess weight, which affects the entire body. Then new diseases arise, such as fatty liver, arthritis, tooth decay and even infertility.

How to adjust your diet

It is necessary to control what you eat and how much food you consume on a stressful day. Here are some tips:

1. Keep a diary in which you will indicate bouts of overeating. This needs to be done in order to track the cause of the breakdowns, perhaps then you will be able to control yourself more next time.
2. Diets in this case will aggravate the situation. When a person is in a stressful situation and is overeating, then you need to look at the root of the problem and eliminate it. It's better to consult a specialist.
3. If this doesn't help, you can keep yourself busy exercise. There are many advantages to this choice - from losing weight to getting rid of negative emotions and, in turn, avoiding stressful situations.

How to get rid of the temptation to eat

• Find yourself an alternative to this action. And such a replacement that it evokes only positive emotions and a feeling of complete satisfaction.
• If you feel that stress is taking over you, try to switch to another wave. Do something fun thing, for example, dance in front of a mirror, wear your favorite outfit.
• If signs of fatigue appear, then you can treat yourself green tea. This will relieve fatigue and is good for health.
• If you're bored, you can read interesting book, watch a good movie, listen to quality music. Find yourself a hobby, occupy yourself with something that will be truly interesting to you.

I help those who are tired of losing weight. For more than ten years I have been involved in external communications for large telecom and IT companies. Two years ago I left the cozy corporate world and opened my own business - I have a business in the field of fitness. Why such a turn? A lot of what drove me to this point was how I dealt with stress. Now among my clients there are many entrepreneurs and employees, and their mechanisms for dealing with nervous tension and overload are the same. Stress is relieved by eating, which triggers feelings of guilt, which only increases stress - the circle is closed.

This is very familiar to me. When the office ordered pizza, I always took only one slice. "Another one? No, this is too much for me,” she smiled and walked away. workplace. Then I closely watched these boxes and, seizing the moment when there were no colleagues left near them, I ate a couple more pieces. At home, I could eat a whole pizza like this by myself.

I also constantly said that I was losing weight and ignored business lunches so that my colleagues would not see how much I actually ate. Every Sunday I promised myself not to go to the coffee point and not to carry sweets. Usually it lasted me until mid-day. Then some conference call would happen, after which I would go get the ill-fated cookies and polish them with Twix. The more my career developed, the more stress I ate.

This has scientific explanation. The stronger and longer the stress, the more cortisol our body produces. Cortisol is a hormone responsible for appetite; it is also produced when the body does not have enough nutrients. It turns out that when we are stressed, we stop controlling our appetite. This is by no means a question of willpower. Stress eating is also complicated by the habit, and it is formed in early childhood if the mother or grandmother gave candy or cookies to calm the child down.

My first symptoms appeared eight years ago. Then, having found myself in the corporate world, where you need to be successful, cheerful and thin, I wanted to fit into a new dress in size XS for the New Year's party. My original diet included two small packs of cottage cheese per day and liters green tea. I fit into the dress, but from then on the weight swing began. That’s when I started eating secretly from friends and colleagues, devouring eclairs mixed with chips and calming down with French fries. I ate up on missed deadlines, unfulfilled KPIs, multitasking, new marketing strategies, unpleasant rallies and large press conferences. Finally, the fact that I am a girl already put me at risk. Stress eating and any other type of eating disorder are significantly more common in women.

By the way, I didn’t have an eating disorder. Emotional eating is more of a learned behavior. bad habit, which is not easy to refuse. Strict restrictions that perfectionists love (“starting tomorrow I won’t eat sugar and run every morning”) are an absolutely unworkable strategy. It is not possible to stay in the compressed spring mode for a long time, and failure leads to an increased feeling of guilt, which is eliminated in the usual way - by eating.

There are no people among my clients who, before working with me, would not know what to do to lose weight: eat less and move more. If the problem was awareness, everyone would have solved it on their own long ago. We get up at night and eat cake not because we have little information, but because we have “some problems.” So, changes will begin to occur when you first honestly tell any specialist or to a loved one: “I have problems, food for me is more than just food, it is a mood regulator.” From this moment on, everything will begin to change.

1. Accept that you have “some problems”

Everything we have exists because of our habits of doing or thinking in a certain way. Everything that we don’t have is also missing thanks to habits. If you want to break this circle, you need to “get out of the box.”

A lot of cool women and men come to me. Everyone starts with the words: “In principle, everything is fine with me, but I either lose 10 kg, then gain it again, I would like to sharpen my hips here...”. Then I ask: “Can your relationship with food be called calm?” And in response I hear: “Yes, but I can’t imagine my life without a couple of croissants every morning.” This is one of the factors indicating a violation of the emotional component of eating behavior: food is not just fuel, but a source of emotions.

To determine how harmless your problems are, start with two tests: Eating Behavior Assessment EAT-26 And Dutch eating behavior questionnaire DEBQ.

2. Stop blaming yourself

All the way it seemed to me that I was a weak-willed rag. I received awards, became the best employee, and was among the best in fitness competitions. But she couldn’t control her appetite. It seemed to me that everyone around me could control their appetite (in fact, this is not the case), but I could not. After each breakdown, I told myself: “Just stop overeating,” and it was the worst thing I could do for myself at that time.

To get rid of guilt, you need to accept that emotional eating is not a choice. Stop “saving the situation” and believe that the restrictions will make you overeat even more - not everything depends on your consciousness and will.

3. Find a specialist to help

Emotional eating behavior is not the norm. I blamed myself. I regretted it. I was angry. She gathered her will into a fist. I started every Monday. In fact, I spent a lot of energy on keeping my secret, instead of directing this energy to the really important things in life. It seemed to me that I was moving somewhere, but in reality I was wasting time and energy.

The problem needs to be approached comprehensively. For example, you can try to simultaneously work as a fitness trainer, make an appointment with a nutritionist, or go to individual or group therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy works well for eating disorders.

4. Learn to “mind” your food.

I really liked the term “reflection”, which I heard at one of the professional seminars. “This croissant - what does it mean to me? Do I want to eat it because I’m hungry or because I’m tired?” If you're tired, sign up for a massage after work or take a day off.

5. Start to “build shores” out of daily habits.

Take the training balanced diet, normal sleep, drinking regime not as a solution to the problem, but as “building the banks.” It’s much easier, after you’ve eaten too much of spicy wings, not to punish yourself in the morning and promise: I’m done, but to drink a glass of water with the usual gesture. Then prepare your usual breakfast and in the evening go to training along your usual route.

And if you say that routine is not for you, you want to have breakfast with oatmeal, eggs, or something else, I will suggest just watching how you spend your morning every day. Aren't you already stuck in a routine? Surely, instead of the ritual of choosing oatmeal or eggs, you lie in bed, read social networks, and then rush to work and chew a sandwich along the way. And all the variety lies in what kind of sandwich you choose today at Prime: with tuna or with ham.

6. Build your own “rat park”

University of Vancouver psychology professor Bruce Alexander conducted a series of experiments with rats. In the first series of experiments, the rat was locked alone in a cage with two bottles. One of them contained water, the other contained water laced with drugs. In almost every experiment, a rat that tried drugged water returned to it again and again until it killed itself.

In the second episode, a “rat park” was built for the rat with colored balls, beads, tasty food, tunnels and several friends. In the rat park, the rats were not attracted to the drugged water, they rarely drank it, and no one overdosed.

Instead of turning on your willpower, create a rat park - get out of solitary confinement and fill your life with interesting adventures.

Cover photo: Tara Moore/Getty Images

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