Hi everyone. I wanted to ask some advice if anyone on here knows anything on this. I've always struggled with weight. It feels very exhausting because I'm overweight but my main battle is just not putting more on. Any time of stress or difficulty and it starts to go up. I eat very healthily and I'm actually pretty healthy in lots of ways and also exercise a lot. I don't want to get into a diet cycle, I don't want the negativity or overfocus on it to overtake my life as it can. My real desire would be just to lose a bit (maybe a stone) and then (the big one) hold it there with some good habits and not have to be constantly battling not to go up. I'm not a binger and I'm not really bad with cakes or fast food or anything like that. I've done things like eating in a window and building up my plate in particular ways etc and this does work, temporarily. But it requires me to be very over-focussed on it all the time and takes a lot of time and attention. I don't seem to be able to get on with my other goals in life as if I take focus away for a second or add in stress (for these ambitions) I can't maintain it. So, I've been wondering about a different approach.
I've worked out my key problem is unconsciously picking and grazing, particularly when I'm stressed. I kind of know this but it seems like the hardest habit in the world to break. If there is something more appetising I will drift to that but if there isn't I will graze on anything at all when stressed. I don't binge. It's much more gradual and lowkey than that. Even if it's adding in a couple of hundred cals a day, that could make a lot of difference over time if I could reduce this habit. I'm not sure I'm even that conscious of it. I have had big struggles with anxiety and I'm doing well with that, so I wondered if anyone on here who have researched all this stuff has any advice or pointers not on diets so much, but on breaking grazing habits linked to stress. The grazing makes me feel calmer whilst i'm doing it. I don't think it's about hunger or binging or even temptation usually. But it has become linked as a habit to stress. In the past I've focused on calories and meals more which as I say works temporarily, but it is tedious and also makes me over-focused on food in some ways.
I know people might say cut up some carrot sticks to graze on but I would like to break the habit if I can. Because the habit is the problem and it only takes the carrot sticks not to be there to turn to the next thing. The other reason I want to break the habit is that not about food linked to hunger. But food linked to calming me down.
I would like to try eat substantial meals properly and allowing myself what I want (as I'm fairly healthy in those anyway) but to really work hard on cutting out the grazing. Three good meals has worked for people in the past, and I'm not looking to lose tonloads of weight, just to be at a good place for me and not to have to keep battling it going up all the time. For some reason, tackling the grazing feels like a really really difficult thing to do which is why I've not even known where to start tackling it before so have tackled meals instead. Has anyone any advice on ways of tackling this that isn't about calorie counting and diet culture? Is there any useful books or regimes to do with habits or decoupling food from stress that might help? Does anyone else have similar habits they have managed to get on top of?