Health Fitness

Stop the boredom of eating food!

Eating when you’re bored, rather than when you’re really hungry, is a surefire way to gain weight. But you probably already knew that. After all, it’s really easy to eat more food than you planned if all you’re doing is avoiding boredom.

So what can you do to eliminate, or at least reduce, the boredom of eating?

Recognize your triggers

There will be certain things that will make you bored and then in turn make you eat to alleviate the bored state.

It could be the time of day, it could be times when you are alone. The reason doesn’t matter in particular, just the fact that most of the time it happens.

Whatever the trigger, write it down. Then decide if you can prevent it from happening altogether or if you just need to take steps to reduce its importance by causing you to swallow a lot of (probably unhealthy) food.

Take a hunger test

Ask yourself if you are hungry or not.

This may sound stupid, but remember that we are not dealing with a rational process here. Which means that since your boredom eating habit is irrational, it is very likely that you will react positively to other irrational methods.

If the answer is no, withdraw from the temptations for a while. This will depend on where you are when the hunger of boredom strikes. You may need to go out for a short walk. Maybe you need to do that review or prep work. Feel free to experiment to see what works best to stop thinking about not being hungry, but eating anyway.

Get another hobby

Hobbies are great for distracting us from other things.

Of course, the hobby should be one that doesn’t allow your mind to return to food too often.

An online game may not be the best idea, otherwise you risk surrounding yourself with empty soda cans and pizza boxes as you become someone who must be permanently glued to your computer screen.

But a more “normal” hobby would work well and help you stay away from the fridge or that giant bag of potato chips or whatever else you have around the house for your binge-eating sessions.

Drink more water

The water is filling up. Try to drink at least a glass of water about 30 minutes before a meal as usual. And sip another glass when you feel the boredom of eating haunt you.

Don’t be tempted to drink a diet soda. They are more troublesome than they are worth and trigger all kinds of reactions within our bodies that are not completely in sync with the “it’s good for you” theme of the ads. If you really want to freak out about diet drinks, read about the side effects of aspartame and the other treats that are commonly added to these drinks. But leave them at that stage, don’t let an artificially sweetened diet drink pass your lips! Forever!

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