The idea that we ‘stress eat’ is a concept but I don’t believe it’s true in the way people think.
People ‘mindlessly eat’. Think, just got home from work or school food brain, bored or out of habit. We all can go to the cupboard grab something and scoffing down whatever looks most appealing first – usually high fat and carb foods (by the way there’s nothing inherently ‘bad’ to eat these it’s usually that we will eat more than we need which is our downfall). 5 minutes later have you sat down and reflected ‘actually, I didn’t even want that’. Has this ever occurred to you?
Boredom and habit are also key players in this. Which I’m sure you can all understand in some way.
- Warm chicken breast, sweet potato and salad
- PB, rice cakes and raspberry jam – there’s nothing ‘bad’ about eating this it’s knowing when you’re satisfied
I’ve come across far too many women recently who are 10/10 stressed, sleep 5 – 6 hours, don’t exercise, skip meals thinking it’ll help them lose weight, binge eat and tell me ‘I just don’t understand what’s going on’ and I’m sick of it.
I can tell you why.
The first thing, SLEEP BETTER. Lack of sleep drives up hunger. How? Well, not sleeping enough causes our hunger hormones to ineffectively work as they should.
NERD OUT: Grehlin (tells you when you are hungry) and Leptin (tells you when you are full) these will have an inverse relationship with poor sleep habits and unfortunately they do the opposite. So, leptin now tells you that you are full even when you just ate a meal.
Lack of sleep impacts stress levels too. Your ability to process information in logical and consequential ways is hindered. Things become ‘too hard’, your performance at work drops – arriving late becomes a thing you do. The stress of not performing well and not being offered a new position / promotion, no-one can see your ‘hard work’, people start to get on your nerves more than usual. Life just isn’t working out like you planned. Now let’s not forget food – you skip food all day long, then eat like a cow craving processed sugars all evening and you cave in. ‘I’ve eaten nothing all day’ mentality creeps in which is your cue to ‘I can eat this’ excuses. ‘I hate cooking’, ‘I have to cook for family and everyone needs to like it’ reasons start appearing.
I call BS. You’ve feed into the idea that your family has to eat something different to you from somewhere. I’m seeing this trend more. Why can’t you eat what you want and make it an enjoyable process for all in the family? Eating ‘healthy’ is not bland veggies and fish. Check out Donna Hay or Jamie Oliver do there recipes look tasteless and boring? Nope, it takes them 20 – 30 minutes to whip up a decent family meal and leftovers are a winner.
It’s not hard.
If you want more information on the impacts of poor sleep – please watch this podcast. It’s a 2 hour podcast and I’ve shared it with everyone I know. You won’t be disappointed in fact I get most of my clients to listen to this.
If you feel like you’re not getting the results you’re after get in touch with me. I can say you won’t be the same human after we speak.
