Diet & Fitness 

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6 ways to fight stress eating

Congratulations for realising that you need assistance in dealing with your situation and for reaching out for help. These are signs that you?re on your way to managing stress. As you know, stress can raise blood sugar levels and can cause you to change your daily routine. Below I?ve outlined tips for managing stress and finding healthy comfort foods.

1. Learn to relax. Try deep-breathing exercises during which you close your eyes, consciously relax your body and focus on your breathing for 5 to 20 minutes each day. Try to breathe deeply and remove all other thoughts from your mind.

2. Try an audio-tape progressive relaxation exercise. Look in your local bookshop for ideas. These tapes usually have pleasant background music or sounds from nature and they lead you through relaxation exercises.

3. Banish bad thoughts from your mind. Try placing a rubber band loosely on your wrist. Every time you have a negative thought, snap the rubber band. This will remind you to think positively.

4. Exercise. Daily exercise not only helps control blood sugar, it also works to reduce stress. Try a daily 15- to 20-minute walk to clear your head. Focus on positive thoughts during your exercise time. If you can't get out to take a walk, try stretching in your shower or walking stairs. Do what you can, but try to commit to 15 to 20 minutes of some movement per day. You deserve it.

5. As for comfort food, make yourself goodie bags. Regarding the snacking on 'comfort foods', accept that you can't go back on what you have already consumed, but know that you can take it one step at a time, one day at a time. Try to make a commitment to yourself that you will prepare the next day's snacks the night before. That way, you'll have healthy food already prepared which you can carry with you throughout the day. Your goodie bags can include:

a hard-boiled egg, red-pepper strips and four to six whole-grain crackers

one cup lite soy milk or skim milk and one English muffin topped with a smear of peanut butter or all-fruit spread

three graham crackers and an orange half a peanut-butter-and-jam sandwich on whole-wheat bread

apple slices and one small sugar-free yogurt.

6. Most importantly, don't give up! If you try one of these ideas and it doesn't seem to work, don't put the blame on yourself. Try another approach, find a different support group or talk with a different health-care consultant. You're too important to not give yourself every possible chance.

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