Food for Thought

Source for entire article: http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/nutrition_articles.asp?id=55 Coping with Emotional Eating Rather than munching, it's better to develop new skills for dealing with boredom, self-esteem issues and stress. Try to pinpoint the major reasons for your stress or unpleasant emotions, and see how you can turn the tide. Here are a few suggestions to combat your emotions: * Get your trigger foods out of the house, get your crutch foods out of arms' reach * Go for a walk or jog. Physical activity relieves stress. * Do deep breathing and relaxation exercises * Keep a reminder of your goal handy * Talk to a friend * Visit and post on the support message boards * Surround yourself with positive re-enforcers, like pictures and people * Keep a journal that includes your best personal accomplishments * Track your eating patterns, including when and why you pick up food. If you still seem to come back to food when your emotions get the best of you, you can at least be prepared. Eating large amounts of snacks is not a good thing. But if you eat low calorie foods, it's not so bad. So stock the fridge with healthy alternatives, foods that have good nutritious value, are smaller in size, and will not pack on too many calories. Here are a few food suggestions to keep within arms' reach: * Apple or orange slices * Carrot sticks * Banana * Broccoli * Whole wheat toast * Bran muffin * Fruit smoothie * Applesauce Of course, some of the above foods just do not apply to us... My question... what foods do you keep "at hand" to keep the damage at a minimum, when the beast within just gets the upper hand? Towanda