Here are several articles to help you get a handle on your stress related eating! Let me know if these ideas help and post here when you feel that urge, so we can help you out!

Cortisol and Stress Fat
Some ads claim to help you with the cortisol in your system which magically causes all fat to gather up in your tummy. What is this all about?
Cortisol and Stress Fat

Food is Not Love
Many of us fall into the emotional eating trap. We feel lonely and sad, so we turn to food to provide us with "instant love". It is critical that we understand that food is NOT love, that its temporary relief causes long term problems.
Food is Not Love

Handling Comfort Food Cravings
Eating is often an emotional reaction, not one of hunger. Many of us have comfort foods that we turn to when we need some emotional snuggling. Family and friends can fail us - but food rarely does! Here are some ideas for when you get those comfort food cravings.
Handling Comfort Food Cravings

Playing Music Reduces Stress
Numerous studies have shown a clear link between music and lowering of stress and blood pressure. What's interesting is that all types of music seem to work.
Playing Music Reduces Stress

More articles:

Reduce Stress = Reduce Carb Cravings
Often your body craves sugar and carbs when it�s feeling stressed out or worn down. Your body does this even though it knows the post-carb crash will be worse than what you began with!
Reduce Stress = Reduce Carb Cravings

Stress and Weight Loss
Our bodies are genetically trained to hold onto weight when under stress. In order to lose weight, you also have to remove that stress, so your body releases the fat.
Stress and Weight Loss

carbs are my enemy all the time, but especially when i'm stressed...trying this year to get back to my happier, healthier, lower carb eating habits... thanks for the list of articles, lisa!

When you are stressed, literally your body thinks there is a crisis going on and it craves quick-energy sugar so you can run away from those wolves or woolly mammoths. It is the way your body is built. So don't beat yourself up for having a normal biology body.

The key is to gently understand that your body is this way, to take care of it so it does not get stressed, and to have a toolbox of solutions to help cope with stress when it does arise.

It's not just about weight gain - stress causes a *host* of problems with your body including blood pressure, headaches and more. The better we all become at coping with and finding solutions to stress, the healthier we will all be!

I personally have an issue with using food to reward myself. I'm gradually weening myself off of that though. So far it hasn't been all that bad because I do not do the grocery shopping in the house. I just contribute by telling them that all I want are fresh fruits and veggies! Every week I do feel tempted but I am working on my will power. Food will not have control over me this year! ^-^

Dear KC -

It must be challenging if other people are in the house and are bringing in their own foods. In our house it's just me and Bob, so we don't bring any unhealthy foods into the house to begin with. Therefore it can't tempt us. If we're hungry there are only healthy things to choose from, and we choose one of those.

Even so, there is always the issue of comfort food cravings. We do keep cream of wheat in the house for example and if I'm feeling tired and cranky I get Bob to make up a big bowl of it for me. It makes me feel warm and snuggly inside. I admit it. But of course I shouldn't be using food to "fix" a problem which is in essence medical. I.e. I shouldn't be driving myself to work so hard that I get completely exhausted in the first place! At that point the craving is the least of my problems - I've already caused my body a fair amount of harm. I should actually GO TO SLEEP when I'm getting tired

So a part of this all is if you are feeling stressed to figure out how to handle that stress, rather than getting to the point that you need food to undo the problem

Good food you enjoy should be a daily part of your life, and you're exactly right, it shouldn't be a one-time reward. That's a bad mental connection to create. Eat well, drink lots of water, and have that be your "normal". If you get through a rough project and want to celebrate, celebrate with a fun activity - not with food.

At least Cream of Wheat has glutenous fiber in it. It's not like you are chowing down on cookie dough.

I have been able to find that when I feel sad, I can transmute my comfort foods into an area that is less bad for me. So while I might want to whip up some cake batter to eat, I can just go buy a wedge of brie, some cashews and some tasty meat, like pulled pork from the deli counter.

It's not as good as having a salad, but it at least has nutrients and fulls the sadness hole due to yummy tastes and textures.

So true! I am starting to go to my "happy place" in my head when I get stressed now instead of grabbing crunchy foods to work off the tension through my jaws. Meditation is a godsend.

I only wish my knees weren't giving me problems so I could just run, run, run the stress out of my system.

I still love certain comfort foods like chips and spaghetti though!

Certainly there are degrees of unhealthy that you can delve to when you are feeling unhappy So certainly if someone is going to an extremely unhealthy solution, like drinking entire bottles of vodka, then any form of progress up from that is good! So I do understand that cream of wheat is up the scale from other bad solutions. Still, my goal is to find healthy solutions, so I shouldn't be heading to cream of wheat at all - I should 1) not be getting that stressed, because it's very unhealthy for me, and 2) if I get stressed I should be finding an alternative that is better for me. I.e. the more I continue to equate with fixing-sadness with food, the more the problem perpetuates.

Definitely Chi meditation is a great solution, and one I should turn to more! Exercise is also awesome. It's a shame your knees are bothering you! Are there other types of exercise you enjoy that don't involve knees?

I used to eat a TON of chips and I have pretty much completely weaned myself off of them now. The only ones I eat are flax seed chips, with salsa. And those are pretty good for you. If anything I crave the salt sometimes, and I can find other salt-fixes when I do

Think about the chip cravings you have - is it the salt? The crunchiness?