[SJKduke]

I was doing SO good--I had lost 10 pounds in 4 weeks, hardly any cravings, drinking tons of water and staying on track. Then last week happened, and I worked full time instead of part time and was incredibly stressed. Obviously I haven't mastered the stress eating problem. The weekend was worse, lots of last minute things popped up (oldest daughter fell and got a concussion while we were out of town), etc. I am back on plan as of yesterday. I say back on plan because I just stopped tracking and that's probably part of the problem.

What do you do to help stress eating? When things pop up unexpectedly, what do you do?

[wickedlady]

That has been the hardest part for me! I think the biggest thing is to just keep trying. It's an ongoing PRACTICE, I still learn things almost 2 years into it.

Get back on plan when you hit a speed bump! Just because you have a bad day, or weekend, doesn't mean you can't turn things around. Even if your mistakes mean you don't lose weight that week, at least you are in control again.

Staying ahead of hunger I think is a huge part of it. Make sure you have plenty of foods on hand that you want to eat, but won't be tempted to overeat when the stress hits. For example, I have figured out that I do a lot better keeping lowfat or nonfat shredded cheese on hand than regular cheese (because I will stress eat it).

Always keep some healthy snacks with you. I bring a lunch bag to school/work with me every day that, in addition to lunch, has fruit/yogurt etc so I don't need to turn to the vending machines or fast food.

And, have a few staple low-points meals that you can count on to help balance out any higher-points meals that you end up eating on the fly.

Are you exercising? That really helps relieve stress. And it doesn't hurt counteracting the weekend indulgences either I tend to exercise the most and eat/drink the most on the weekends. Unless I really go off the deep end they tend to balance each other out.

[SJKduke]

Thanks for the advice! I was walking about 1.5 miles a day, and then work got crazy and I stopped. I realized yesterday that I need to start that again, it made me feel good--not only physically, but mentally too. Definitely going for a walk tonight after dinner!

[Crystal D]

I feel a little hypocritical telling someone else what to do when I struggle with the same thing myself!

When I am having major cravings or stress eating, I try to make myself drink some water, or diet soda, or something like that. It will temporarily occupy my stomach and mouth, and give me a chance to assess what I really want.

That being said...sometimes, I am so stubborn that I know I should stop and think about what I'm eating, but I still choose to make bad choices. Ughhhh.....well, I may still make bad choices sometimes, but my good choices DEFINITELY outweigh the bad!

[Munchy]

I plan so I don't have to worry about it at all. I eat three meals, three snacks and I cook ahead of time. At any given time, I have 5-6 different types of homemade soup in one-cup containers (for lunch) that all range from 100-175 calories in my freezer.

I also have about 4-6 different "dinner" meals in my freezer that range from 300-400 calories each. I cook, portion, freeze. You can even do it with casseroles by freezing for a few hours, cutting into squares, then freezing the squares side by side in containers.

I make all kinds of foods and just split them into 6-8 (recipes usually say) plastic bowls, label with nutritional info, and freeze.

I basically set myself up for success because the easiest thing for me to do is pop an entire nutritious meal in the microwave and have it done in 4 minutes. It would be harder to get fast food!

ETA: when I started journaling, I did it the same way. I would just plan my journal ahead of time and follow it the following day. If it changed, I would change it to reflect that, but it was easy to make the simple swaps to make sure I wasn't under eating or eating too much.

[ILovePink]

I had the same thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago...my son's birthday party, Easter, a couple of other parties and I just didn't keep track of my points! I did feel bad for a couple of days and I felt like I was failing at what I want the most...losing weight!!! So after 4/5 days of "freedom" I just started to keep track of my points again!! I stocked on veggies, watermelon and oranges, i've been trying to plane my dinner ( for me its my main meal because the whole family get to eat together) the day before and work the reast of the day around it! Its been working for me! Also I like to keep in the house ww snacks, like the lemon creme cakes, they are 2 points and very very good!!!

[DrivenByAmbition]

I keep my weeklies as much as I can, then feel free to eat them towards the end of the week if I haven't had a stress eating day. I haven't had one of those since January.