Binge eating during covid-19 crisis is a stress for everyone. Food is neither friend nor enemy, food is fuel. Maintain a routine for food.
Binge eating during covid-19 crisis is a stress for everyone. It may be tempting to ease your anxiety with your favorite comfort foods, but emotional eating can hurt you physically and mentally. Routine is disturbed; people with busy life are stuck at home with less of work and no physical activity. Work from home with no proper physical activity people tend to start storing excess calories which will lead to weight gain, diabetes, high cholesterol and PCOD problem.
Binge eating can be due to various reasons:
1. Stress / anxiety are some reasons for binge eating. If we are feeling stressed, food can distract us from our thoughts and worry. I call it self-medication with food.
2. Few people skip breakfast for weight loss which leads to over eat the next meal.
3. Have project to focus on but at the same time ward off unnecessary pressurre
4. Boredom is an interesting reason we might binge or over eat
5. Starvation is another weight loss technique people use for fast results, so when they reach a peak where no longer they can starve this leads to binge eating.
These tips can help you ward off binge eating:
1. Set a schedule and stick to it: have an outline planned, you are less likely to feel like the day is a big empty space, include time for work, relaxation, exercise, eating and time with loved ones.
2. Eat healthy meals: Planning meals and snacks at the start of the day will lead to eating healthy and not something high in calories or processed foods. Processed foods may be convenient, but these foods make it easier to overeat. Choose healthy options instead
3. Maintain a food dairy so will help you know what, how much, why and where you are over eating through a day and help you find the spot and correct it
4. Never skip any of your meal all three meals are important for healthy you. Maintain meal timings.
5. Stay hydrated and do exercises for at least 30 minutes a day for five days a week. Can do any form of exercise spot jogging, yoga, lunges, squats, cardio at home. Sleep very important 8 hours a day maintain the sleep timings.
6.Meditation, maintaining dairy for writing your thoughts, some stress coping techniques will be helpful to make you feel calm, focused and relaxed.
GOLDEN TIP: maintain a routine. For example get up and go to bed at the same time. Eat meals and snacks at certain times of the day. Finally be compassionate with yourself and others. This is an extreme situation that we have never dealt with before. Set realistic goal.
Jayashree Bafna –Consultant Dietician
Family tree clinic Bengaluru
Mob: 9916393029
