Does anyone else ever catch themselves eating just because they’re feeling bored? 🙋🏽♂️
One of the most useful skills that you can develop is being comfortable sitting with your boredom. When we’re uncomfortable with this feeling we can end up doing things that we’ll later come to regret. For example eating when we know that we really shouldn’t be. If you’ve been really struggling with the goal of fat loss, try focusing on being comfortable with boredom; it will probably do more for you than any complicated diet plan ever could.
This goes beyond just overeating and emotional eating. I’m sure that many of us, myself included, have made some questionable purchases just because we were feeling bored and wanted that quick hit of excitement. Anything to distract us for a few moments from our boredom.
If you’re not sure if this is you, then try keeping a food journal to see how your emotions impact your eating decisions. Keep a log of:
- what times you ate at
- what you ate
- why did you eat that specifically?
- what you were feeling before each meal/snack
- how do you feel after each meal/snack
- what else was going on that day? Any stressful events?
Try this for a week and then sit down and reflect on this activity. Do you see any patterns?
I’ve tried this myself and what I found was that at the end of the day, no matter how much or how well I ate earlier in the day, my appetite would be huge; especially for sugary foods. By keeping this journal, I found that this usually happened on the days where I worked the longest number of hours and I hadn’t planned anything relaxing for the evening. With this awareness I could then make some changes to how I work and what I do after work.
Learn to sit with this and other uncomfortable emotions, the future you will be healthier and more financially stable for it.