Eat Right to Reduce Stress

If you’ve heard it once, you’ve likely heard it 1000 times. Eating bad contributes to stress. It stresses your body so that you’re not as healthy as you could be, and lack of health causes stomach issues, health issues, lack of energy and other problems.

• Limit Caffeine & Alcohol – If you need caffeine to get through your day, you’re addicted. The best thing to do is stop using it. Choose a time where you can take off work to go cold turkey or cut down slowly over a 30-day period. If you want to have a glass of wine at night after the kids go to bed, that’s okay, but keep it to a normal 4-ounce serving size. Choose dryer wines to avoid a sugar kick. If you wake up with headaches or feeling dehydrated, you may want to limit your wine intake to one or two nights a week.

• Create a Stress-Free Meal Environment – Eating when everyone is rushed, yelling, and unhappy is not good for your digestion at all. Your home is supposed to be a safe place for every member of your family. Work hard to create that by keeping the TV off, making things easier by getting the whole family involved. Give children their own colored plates and cups that they can easily get out of the dishwasher to bring to the table to eat. Keep flatware in cups right on the table. Let kids load their own dish, plus one other. If everyone works together it makes life a lot easier.

• Plan Your Meals Ahead of Time – Meal planning is essential to success if you are committed to eating right. However, you plan to eat, planning will help. You can plan menus and use that as your shopping list yourself, or you can purchase a meal plan based on your needs. A couple of good meal planning sites are emeals.com, plantoeat.com, andcom.

• Don’t Medicate with Food – Some people use food like other people use drugs. If you find that you’re stress eating at certain times of day instead of trying to fight the urge to eat, just replace your normal snack food with something healthy like fruit. There are rumors that fruit is bad for you, but most people, even diabetics, can find fruit to eat. Choose low sugar fruit like berries if you’re worried about your blood sugar.

• Stay Hydrated – Drinking plenty of water and eating water-rich foods will ensure that you stay hydrated. How much you need to consume depends on factors such as climate, weight, body mass and more. But in general, the common suggestion of 8 glasses of water a day is a good average to go by. But, if you’re thirsty, you should drink.

• Eat Whole Foods, Mostly Plants – Kaiser Permanente recommends a low-fat, plant-based diet for maximum health. Eating this diet will naturally lead you to become the healthiest version of you. You’ll lose weight, or gain weight if needed, lower your cholesterol and other signs of illness simply by following this way of eating. Don’t worry, it’s simple to get enough of every nutrient you need eating a plant based diet.

• Eat Enough Calories – Everyone has a different caloric need which depends on your height, weight, muscle density, and activity level. In addition, health issues may affect your caloric needs. But, in general, women should eat at least 1500 calories a day and men about 2000 calories each day. Eating fewer can cause problems with having enough energy, headaches, and other signs and symptoms of a poor diet.

• Take the Right Supplements – Regardless of diet, today because we wash our food so well, most people need to supplement with vitamin B12. It can take a lot of years for a deficiency to show up, but it can cause permanent neurological damage, so it’s super important. Ask your doctor if you should supplement and get yearly blood tests to be sure what you’re doing is working for you.

Eating right is simple to do and totally in your control. If you have issues with getting meals on the table at night without pulling your hair out, you need a plan to follow. Create a menu that enables you to shop fewer times each month. For example, go shopping every two weeks instead of weekly.

Try to prepare some portions of your meals in advance so that at meal times you only mix a few ingredients together to make a meal. Example: Make a big pot of rice each week that can be combined with different ingredients to make meals such as rice and beans, stir-fry, wraps and other dishes.

If you can afford it, consider joining one of the meal delivery plans where the food comes to your door and you prepare it per the directions. Many of the meal delivery plans are very healthy, easy to prepare and can (for the right family) save money.

Pick up ready-to-warm meals and dishes at one of the healthy kitchens like Snap Kitchen or The Lighthouse in Austin.

With a little planning you can eat healthier AND with less stress. You can DO this!

Comments

comments