Staying With a Plan in Difficult Times

When a person is going through a difficult time, sometimes a weight loss diet can fall by the wayside. Stress eating, poor sleeping habits, lack of time or energy for exercise; any of these reasons can lead to losing sight of your diet goals.

But how can a person stay healthy during times of stress and difficulty?

• Focus – When a person tries to keep the focus on something other than food, that is where that person’s energy will go. Focus on your family, your friends, or those in need. Don’t focus on food.
• Habit – When a person’s meal plan is a habit, cheating is less of an option. Develop strategies to integrate your meal plan into your life so that it is no longer your diet, it is simply the way you eat.
• Relieve Stress – Take a walk, exercise, scream into a pillow. There are many ways to relieve stress and eating is not one of them.

Eating a piece of chocolate cake or diving into a bag of potato will not solve a problem. No one ever found that paying the bills was easier, finding a new job came just in time, or money came from eating junk food. If there is a problem causing a person or their family severe difficulty, they need to find a way to solve that problem.

Focusing on food or trying to use food to relieve stress has never worked before, and it won’t work now. It will only make a person feel worse – and feeling bad makes it more difficult to solve real problems.