How to stop comfort eating

Many people turn to food when they’re angry, bored, stressed or frustrated. Food can be a form of self-medication, a way of dealing with feelings, problems and stress, or of distracting yourself from getting bored or from facing difficult emotions. It becomes a way of anaesthetising the pain of unmet needs. If your basic needs are not met – whether they’re for love, comfort, approval, security or control – you may turn to food as a replacement. The problem is that comfort eating nearly always involves calorie-laden foods, such as chocolate, crisps, biscuits and chips, instead of healthier options. A bowl of salad just doesn’t cut it when you’ve had a hard day.

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How to break the cycle of comfort eating

Facing up to the reasons for comfort eating isn’t easy. There may be a lot of difficult feelings to overcome. The first step is to identify the triggers that make you reach for those comforting snacks. Do you eat when you’re bored? Or when you’re upset? Or perhaps you take your anger and frustration out on a bar of chocolate? •

Keep a food and mood diary

Write down everything you eat and drink for a week and jot down how you felt before and after you ate. Soon you’ll see a pattern and be able to identify what makes you eat when you’re not hungry. Try to pinpoint what it is you need and aren’t getting. It might be praise, approval, security, love, success or just a hug. •

Make a list of ways to meet those needs without eating

Find outlets for your emotions. For example, if you often eat because you’re bored, write down other ways you could occupy yourself. It could be something as simple as going for a walk or a swim. Keep this list handy and, whenever you feel the urge to bury your emotions in food, read through this list. •

Deal with your emotions

You don’t have to feel angry or upset. If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. The secret is to break out of your comfort zone. Establish new ways of dealing with situations. •

De-stress

Comfort eating doesn’t reduce stress levels. Although you may experience the initial enjoyment of food in your mouth, your negative feelings don’t go away. And if you’re stressed, your digestive system finds it harder to process food, leaving you feeling bloated and uncomfortable. The best way to deal with stress is to exercise, so go for a run or do some yoga. •

Don’t buy it

One of the best things you can do is not buy the foods you binge on. Don’t bring them into your house, because comfort eating nearly always happens in your own kitchen. If high-calorie snacks aren’t available, you’ll automatically find something else to do to change the way you’re feeling. Whether it’s playing with the kids, doing housework or reading a book, and what all these activities have in common is they don’t involve food. •

Plan ahead

If you know you’ve got a stressful time coming up, say you’re having lots of meetings at work or you’re having a difficult time with your partner, plan your food strategy to help you cope better. Organise what healthy meals and snacks you’re going to eat and keep all others out of sight.

Many women feel extra hungry pre-menstrually due to a fall in oestrogen and serotonin. These hormones normally keep a check on your appetite, but a dip in serotonin levels dampens your mood. When you’re feeling low, your perceptions and expectations of certain foods change, so you reach for comfort foods to make you feel better. Low serotonin levels also loosen the restraint you’d normally exercise over foods you know are fattening, such as chocolate. So you may tuck into a whole tub of Häagen-Dazs, or give yourself ‘permission’ to finish a family-sized bar of chocolate. All your usual restraint goes out the window. But once hormone levels rise at the onset of your period, the urge to comfort eat should diminish.