Combating comfort eating

I have a tendency to comfort eat when I am stressed or tired or both. I have noticed I don't comfort eat when I'm angry or sad. I'm not sure about boredom - I haven't had that luxury in a while.

I've learnt that if there is an open packet of snacks in the house (such as a box of rice crackers), the desire to eat them when I'm stressed and tired is strong. Even if I hide them away in the cupboard, if I happen to open that cupboard for something else, and see them, then I want to eat them (see Jess' related post on fighting cravings).

So this is my plan to combat comfort eating:

Get all the snacks out of the house.
Clearly at this stage for me, I haven't learnt to deal with my stress/tiredness without turning to food and eating more than I should. Until I learn it, the snacks stay out of the house. It may mean that they never return, and I'm fine with that. There are always opportunities to eat those kinds of foods in other situations (church morning tea, parties etc). Give the snacks away or chuck them in the bin. Don't let them hold you back. Would you rather have the food sitting on your stomach as fat, or rotting in the bin? I know what I'd pick.

Go make my bed.
To me, there is something serene and calming about a made bed. Making the bed will distract me from wanting to eat, and I will have ticked one thing off my to do list.

Lie on my made bed and listen to Lifeblood by Manic Street Preachers.
Manics are probably my favourite band. Lifeblood has become one of my favourite albums. I find it very soothing. Or I'll listen to some other music.

The hard bit? It's putting it into action when I'm stressed/tired. I can easily get rid of the snacks. The hard thing is when the stressed/tired emotions hit, you're so used to soothing it with food, it can be difficult to find the strength to make yourself fight it. You really feel at your weakest at that point. But I'm committed to changing, and I will do my best to put my strategy in place.

Having said that, I'm not 100% convinced that comfort eating is entirely bad. Sometimes a little bit of comfort food is so soothing when you're stressed/tired. But we don't tend to stop at a little. We tend to overeat in order to stop these (and other) feelings from surfacing and needing to deal with them (a topic for another day). That's when comfort eating is bad.