Do you work from home and find yourself overeating way too often? Do you snack all afternoon and stand in front of the fridge more often than you would like to admit?
If you want to prevent weight gain and want to stop unnecessary snacking when you work from home, you need to stop for a few seconds before you eat. Ask yourself: Am I hungry?
If yes, go ahead and eat something nutritious so you won´t get hungry again in a few minutes.
No?
Take a deep breath and check in with your feelings/emotions? What do you feel? What do you think?
Check-in with yourself
* Maybe you are bored.
* Maybe you are not used to working from home and having food available as a distraction 24/7.
* Maybe you procrastinate. You eat so you don’t have to start working on something that you find difficult or boring.
* Maybe you are worried about your financial situation.
* Maybe your children coming home from school stress you out.
* Maybe you are lonely.
* Maybe you are an extrovert and you miss social interactions.
* Maybe you have to be home with someone who mistreats you.
* Maybe you can´t work on your own goals because you have to look after everyone else and this makes you frustrated.
Typical reasons for overeating when you work from home
Working from home can present unique emotional challenges that may lead to overeating. Some emotional reasons for overeating in this context include:
- Stress and Anxiety: The demands of remote work, meeting deadlines, and coping with technology-related issues can lead to stress and anxiety. Emotional eating may serve as a coping mechanism to soothe these emotions.
- Boredom: The lack of social interaction and variety in the work environment at home can lead to boredom. Eating can become a way to break the monotony and fill time.
- Loneliness and Isolation: Working from home can be isolating, especially if you crave social interaction. Emotional eating can provide a temporary sense of comfort or connection.
- Procrastination and Distraction: When faced with challenging tasks or procrastination, you may turn to food as a distraction from work-related stress or to delay completing tasks.
- Lack of Structure: The absence of a structured office environment can disrupt routines and lead to impulsive eating. A set schedule often helps regulate eating habits.
- Reward and Comfort: Some people use food as a reward for completing tasks or as a source of comfort during difficult work moments, creating an emotional connection between work and eating.
- Food Availability: The proximity of the kitchen and easy access to food at home can make it tempting to overeat, especially if stress or emotional factors come into play.
- Emotional Eating Habits: Pre-existing emotional eating habits can intensify when working from home, as the home environment may be associated with these behaviours.
- Multitasking: Remote work often involves multitasking, leading to mindless eating if you eat while continuing to work, looking after children and pets, preparing food and cleaning up. The added stress of balancing all the activities can drive you to overeat too.
- Lack of Social Accountability: In a traditional office, social norms and colleagues can influence eating choices. Working from home removes this accountability, potentially leading to less mindful eating.
- Depression: Individuals dealing with depression may use food as a form of self-soothing or self-medication to temporarily alleviate negative emotions.
- Unfulfillment: The feeling of unfulfillment in a home-based work environment can lead to seeking pleasure through food, compensating for a perceived lack of satisfaction in other areas of life.
Your turn – what is your reason for overeating when you work from home
What is your reason for constant snacking? The first step is to become aware of the reason you are doing it. We usually don’t like to have uncomfortable feelings so we suppress them with eating, alcohol, the internet, etc. Now sit with that emotion without acting on it. Just feel it, it can’t hurt you, and after a while, it will go away.
While you are with your feelings, notice your thoughts. What are you avoiding? What do you need comfort from? What are you suppressing with food? Then, you can work on a solution to solve the underlying problem that causes those feelings/emotions.
It’s important to recognize these emotional triggers for overeating and develop healthier coping strategies. Strategies such as creating a structured work routine, taking breaks, engaging in physical activity, seeking social interaction outside of work hours, practising mindfulness, and other solutions to your specific triggers can help manage emotional eating while working from home.
Emotional Eating To Escape Boredom
Support is available
Private coaching
If emotional eating is a significant concern for you, you may want to consider working with me 1 on 1 to overcome your emotional eating habit.
My 12-week coaching program is a unique blend of nutrition, eating psychology, behaviour change, and brain science to support you in reaching your goal.
The program involves finding your hidden triggers causing you to overeat, learning to cope with your emotions without food, understanding how to listen to your body instead of following diets, mastering self-acceptance, upgrading your self-talk and other mindset hacks to finally break free from emotional- and stress-eating.
Feel free to book a free 60-minute discovery call here to discuss your specific issues and needs.
Workbook
You can also start your journey to break free from overeating, emotional, and binge eating on your own by studying the How to stop eating your feelings workbook.
You can read a free chapter of the workbook here.
Free training
This free training will show you the steps I work on with my clients to stop feeling out of control around food and eliminate emotional eating, stress eating, and binge eating.
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