Comments on: Eating, Managing Stress & Healthy Coping: Q&A with Lyndsay Elliott

By: Coping Skills to Curb Emotional Eating | Weightless

Coping Skills to Curb Emotional Eating | Weightless — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:12:53 +0000

[...] ago, for me, it used to be all the time. Like I’ve written in other posts, I used to cope with stress, anything negative or life in general with [...]

By: Body Image & Healthy Ways to Cope from "The Pocket Therapist" | Weightless

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:25:58 +0000

[...] Friday, eating disorder expert Lyndsay Elliott, Ph.D, talked all about healthy coping. Today, I want to continue with that theme. When we [...]

By: love2eatinpa

love2eatinpa — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 20:19:03 +0000

great interview! i will follow the link of your post as soon as i’m done typing this.

for me, as a recovering compulsive overeater, the first thing that i do is get myself out of the kitchen. i try to do somethiing to nurture myself like read a book or watch mindless tv until the urge to emotionall eat has passed.

By: The Homebody

The Homebody — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 19:42:31 +0000

Great article. It’s so easy to take your stress out on food. A good way I broke this habit was to replace the ice cream, cookies and cake with fruit and pita chips. Even though I was eating out of stress, I was eating healthy food instead of junk food. This bought me time until I could beat it mentally.

By: PsychCentral

PsychCentral — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:31:20 +0000

Weightless Blog: Eating, Managing Stress & Healthy Coping: Q&A with Lyndsay Elliott http://bit.ly/aUsRMD

By: Margarita Tartakovsky, MS

Margarita Tartakovsky, MS — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:03:42 +0000

@ Katie, so glad you liked it! I know exactly what you mean about knowing about what coping strategies to use but not using them. I think part of the issue is that it’s easy to reach for food. It isn’t time-consuming, and when you’re already stressed out, making time to exercise (which is definitely uplifting) or reading a favorite book can seem like a big effort, when all you want to do is plop down on the couch and veg out.

You might want to think about quick things you can do to make yourself feel better and keep that list with you (by no means a magical fix, but might help sometimes). Some “quick-fixes” might be to call a friend; or like you said, just pause for a few minutes and gather your thoughts and check in with how you’re feeling.

What coping skills work for you most of the time? I’m always curious what works for others.

Thanks for stopping by and commenting!!

By: Katie @ Health for the Whole Self

Katie @ Health for the Whole Self — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 13:21:04 +0000

This is a really great interview! I’m so glad you asked the question about being unaware of how stressed we really are. I really need to work on being more in touch with my emotions because often I don’t realize how stressed I am until I begin reaching for food emotionally. Then I have to stop and think, ok what’s going on here? Why am I doing this?

What you wrote in the introduction about knowing the coping skills but still not using them really struck a chord with me. I have a long list of coping strategies that I know work really well for me, and yet sometimes I just won’t use them for some reason. Perhaps because I’m so stressed by how much effort I’m putting into other areas of my life that the notion of putting effort into dealing with my eating issues just seems exhausting!