Is food your new best friend?

Friday 10th April 2020

People will come & go in life, but the person in the mirror will be there forever: so be good to yourself.

You can't eat what you don't buy!

I believe this is the single best way of stopping you eat certain foods, we all get tempted at certain times to overeat and for most of us that's in the evenings but if we've been strong at the shopping stage, then we're limited on the damage we can do.

So it's Easter weekend, I can't overindulge on a chocolate egg because there isn't any in the house but I appreciate it's not always that simple.

We do find ourselves eating late at night, even when we ain't hungry, this causes us to eat more calories than we wanted to or needed for that matter and then we gain weight and become miserable.  So what to do?   Well work out why first, yeah there's boredom and habit but sometimes you can be genuinely hungry because you're not eating enough in the day time, trying to 'pull back' or it could be that you're bored with what you're eating throughout the day and need to mix it up a bit, make it more interesting.

Food is our friend, it's usually why we end up at WW, now whilst we're all stuck in lockdown, when all our other friends have to stay away from our homes it's in danger of becoming our best friend!  We may be using it to try and control certain emotions that we're feeling, anger, sadness or frustration at the situation and our helplessness or maybe it's become you new hobby to pass the time because you have so much more time on your hands and your missing your real friends and so food is your new best friend!

This behaviour isn't helping at all is it?  It needs to stop!

Let's start by thinking about what we can do - we can try to regulate sleep, even if you are having trouble actually sleeping, you can go to bed and lie down.  Make it a rule not to have food in the bedroom, bedrooms are for two things sleeping and sex (if you're lucky!).  Good sleep really helps your weight loss success, good sex well that just puts a really big smile on your face and hopefully distracts you from food!

Plan your meals, do that at night so instead of eating you're thinking about food and planning what you're going to eat the next day, use this time to try out new foods, look for new ideas, plan in some treats, if you want to eat after 8pm, make sure you've saved some points to do so.  Make sure you eat regularly throughout the day, don't go hungry and try to include protein at every meal.

If you're struggling emotionally with everything that's going on, talk about it, don't bottle it up, eat it down, share your concerns.

If like me you're a stress eater, look for other ways to calm yourself down, breathing exercises, a nice hot bath or shower, a bit of yoga maybe, a walk if you haven't do your hour of exercise.  Ooo maybe a punching bag instead of flowers in the garden this year.

Anything that distracts you from thinking about food helps, so get yourself a hobby or two, I've noticed members have been doing jigsaws, crocheting, knitting, colouring, it doesn't matter what it is, just remember eating isn't a hobby.

Oh and drink plenty of water!

And if you're still gonna snack at night, make better choices, order some WW snacks from the website www.weightwatchersshop.co.uk and make sure you use my code to get me my commission and you a little freebie I7IA5I.

Don't feel bad if you get these cravings around 8pm, it's actually normal, it's a built in ned to feed that we've inherited from our ancestors as it may have helped them store fat to survive when food was scarce, now I know we've had a bit of trouble getting certain foods during lockdown but it's not quite the same thing lol.

How about changing your evening routine, if you always do the same thing in the evening because of this lockdown, maybe change it up, or start keeping a journal to identify those thoughts going round in your head, use it to record thoughts, food, and anything else.  Ooo maybe put your plans for the future when we get out of lockdown in there too.

Just remember the next time you hear those voices coming from the kitchen saying I'm here come eat me, you can say NO, DO ONE, I've eaten, I'm not hungry, you're not the cure and I'm not having any of it.

If you still fail, give yourself a break, you're only human and it's all your ancestors fault after all, or blame your mom, we blame our moms for everything don't we ;) Or you could do the clean your teeth or paint your nails trick - that works for some.

Now, let's make it Great Friday, not just Good Friday!