5 Steps To Beat Food Addiction
•Weight loss
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But once we know why we keep falling into the food trap, it's a lot easier to escape it.
Here are five steps you can take to beat food addiction.
Be Aware Of Your Triggers
To beat your addiction to food, you need to know what triggers it.
In reality, it's not all foods that you find irresistible. It's likely the foods that are adding to your waistline - the pies, the burgers, the chips, you know the ones. If your vice is KFC and you drive past one every day, take a different way to work! The more you can avoid it, the better.
Triggers aren't just the foods themselves either, they can be situations, times, and people! Once you're aware of what triggers your eating, find ways to lessen their effect.
Avoid Stress
Speaking of triggers... stress.
Stress eating is so common because when people get stressed, they look for comfort. For most people, they find that in food. When the main way you deal with stress becomes eating, it can have a negative impact on your health, happiness, and weight.
Distracting yourself from anxiety, depression, or boredom by eating creates a cycle of dissatisfaction. Something happens that makes you unhappy, you eat to comfort yourself, and then you feel guilty for eating your feelings, thus repeating the cycle.
Studies have proven that when we are stressed, we give in to bad eating habits much easier. To combat this, it's important to be proactive and plan ahead for meals and ensure you get enough sleep. Avoid stress as much as you can, or find ways to deal with it that don't involve binging.
Tell People What You're Doing
Losing weight is such a personal thing, and sometimes you don't feel comfortable sharing with others that you're trying. If you're trying to beat bad food habits, you have to tell the people around you.
Just let them know what you're doing and how much it will help your life, not only will they try to help you out with it, they can then also hold you accountable and keep you on track. Who knows, maybe it will even help them to assess their own eating habits!
Be Organised
If you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail. You're about 100% more likely to pull into Maccas on the way home if there isn't food waiting for you in the fridge.
Our brains are funny things. Even though you know you should not be eating fast food, if you think about it enough your brain can come up with an excuse on why it's a good idea to have it. "Just this once, next week I'll commit to the diet fully", becomes a weekly occurrence if you let it.
Organise your week's meals ahead of time, even meal prep them so all you have to do is get home and heat it up. Have your Man Shake ready to go each day, and don't go shopping on an empty stomach (you're much more likely to buy junk).
Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind
If it's not there, you can't eat it. Now you don't have to go completely cold turkey, but limiting your exposure to the foods that you can't resist is a good way to kick the addiction.
This means not buying it in the first place when you go shopping, and cleaning out your cupboard. If it's not there, you can't grab it late at night.
