It’s very common for many women who work from home to develop overeating patterns.

Because it’s never easier or more convenient to overeat than when you work near your own kitchen.

In this case, we’re able to more easily react to stress through food.

If you’re struggling with overeating while working from home, don’t beat yourself up.

Overeating tendencies are common for women who are adjusting to the work from home lifestyle.

Here, I’m going to explain why the overeating is occurring for you.

And the steps to prevent overeating while working from home. 

Why Overeating Occurs

You don’t overeat because you’re addicted to certain foods.

You don’t even overeat because of your emotions. 

The reason you overeat is that you’re trying to escape a negative emotion you’re experiencing.

A common example is when you experience stress.

This is a very common emotion to feel when working from home.

Instead of allowing yourself to feel that stress, which is uncomfortable, you will seek to find something to cover up that negative emotion.

Your brain seeks pleasure and avoids pain.

It will immediately seek comfort when a negative emotion comes up for it.

The easiest form of comfort, especially when working from home, is food.

This is really important to know.

And although your brain does this, it’s not actually a problem.

You simply need to understand how to deal with your negative emotions properly.

So, you don’t engage in overeating to try and comfort your way out of them.

How to Not Overeat While Working From Home

It’s possible for anyone to eliminate overeating when working from home.

To help you do this right now, I’ve created six steps you can follow.

1) Process Urges

As mentioned, you will want to naturally avoid negative emotion when it comes up for you.

Your brain always seeks comfort and avoids pain.

This means, whenever a negative emotion comes up, you will feel an “urge” to escape it.

Most likely through overeating.

This is why you feel an urge to escape whenever you try something new or follow through with a task.

Your brain doesn’t want to deal with the negative emotion associated with change or discipline. 

I like to call this our “toddler brain”. 

This brain likes to engage in emotional childhood.

Where it refuses to experience any negative emotion that comes up.

And tries to escape that emotion by overeating.

To prevent yourself from escaping through overeating, you will need to process those urges.

The way you process urges is by allowing any negative emotion that comes up.

For example, if you start to feel stress, you will commit to experiencing that emotion in its entirety.

You will commit to feeling the emotion instead of reacting to it by overeating.

You’d be surprised how little you overeat when you are willing to feel any emotion that comes your way.

It’s truly amazing.

2) Question Your Thoughts

I want you to practice being the watcher of your own brain.

Observe what thoughts come up regularly for you.

This matters in terms of overeating, because your thoughts produce your emotions.

Every uncomfortable feeling that you try and escape through overeating, was first created by a thought.

Meaning, if you can become aware of your thoughts, you can see where those feelings come from.

For example, if you’re experiencing stress when working from home, you might be thinking:

• “I don’t have enough time for this”

• “I don’t know how to do this”

• “This is too much for me right now”

These are all just thoughts that are playing in your brain.

All of these thoughts will likely produce a feeling of stress.

So, next, I want you to question the thoughts that come up for you.

You can do this by asking your brain two questions:

• Is this thought true?

• Is this thought useful?

If you can learn to manage your mind in this way, you will more easily manage your eating habits.

Overeating isn’t an action-based activity.

You can’t focus on what you’re eating to prevent overeating patterns.

It’s entirely based on your thoughts and feelings.

3) Laugh at Your Brain

This one’s a little different, but hear me out.

I want you to feel comfortable laughing at your brain every now and then.

To be clear, I don’t mean in a self-punishing or accusatory way.

I want you to practice making fun of your brain in a loving and playful way.

Be playfully curious as to why you have thoughts come up for you.

For example, some women will say they don’t care what they eat because “we’re all going to die anyways”.

When you really think about it, why would our brains even choose to think that?

It’s a little ridiculous!

And it’s even a little funny to think about how extreme our thoughts can go.

The reason for this step is to not take everything your brain says seriously.

If you manage to make your thoughts lighter, you allow yourself to address them without as much resistance.

You don’t have to make thoughts super serious and heavy to create massive change.

This most definitely applies to your eating habits.

Keep the conversation with your brain light-hearted.

Doing this will allow you to identify the thoughts that aren’t serving your brain.

It will also allow you to choose better thoughts that don’t result in overeating patterns.

4) Focus on Solutions

When a change in your life occurs, such as working from home, your brain will try and focus on the problems.

Remember, it seeks pleasure and avoids pain.

Therefore, it wants you to self-sabotage and repeat the past.

It doesn’t want you to take the actions to adapt your eating habits.

To do this, your brain loves to repeat thoughts that focus on the problems.

Examples of this are:

• “I don’t have anything healthy at home”

• “I don’t have time to cook healthy meals”

• “I don’t have the energy to prep meals beforehand”

When you focus on the problems with food, you will be more susceptible to feelings of helplessness that cause you to indulge in overeating patterns.

Instead of focusing on the problems, I want you to focus on solutions.

Start asking yourself questions that allow you to go into problem-solving mode.

Examples of this are:

• “How can I prevent myself from overeating the food I have on hand?”

• “How can I create time to prep meals this week?”

• “When will I have the most energy to cook today?”

The truth is, when you ask the right questions, your brain loves coming up with the answers.

And nothing is never a problem until you decide it is.

Everything can have a solution.

5) Stop Thinking About Food

You are much more likely to overeat when you are constantly thinking about food.

This is more common with women who work from home.

Since food from the kitchen is way more accessible at all times. 

The truth is, if you’re constantly feeling like you want to snack, it’s because you’re thinking about food. 

That’s it.

You’re constantly having thoughts about eating on replay in your brain.

You will need to redirect your mind to other thoughts instead.

Direct your focus to the other tasks at hand.

If you’re not thinking about the food, you will not needlessly crave the food throughout the day.

Check-in on the thoughts you’re constantly allowing your brain to think.

6) Ask Yourself This Question

If you find yourself overeating while working from home, there’s a simple question I want you to start asking.

Before eating anything, ask yourself “Why am I choosing to eat this right now?”. 

There doesn’t need to be drama or self-punishment associated with this.

You simply want to be curious about your eating habits.

If you’re overeating, chances are you’re choosing to eat constantly because you’re unwilling to experience a negative emotion.

Make it a habit of asking this question regularly.

My goal for you isn’t to become a perfect eater.

It’s to become a very intentional eater over time.

This is how you naturally stop overeating and begin forming healthy eating habits that feel easy for you.

What to Do Next

Instead of being in a rush to end your overeating patterns, I want you to get really curious as to why you overeat.

This work with our eating habits can tell us so much about ourselves.

Be willing to go deep and observe your overeating patterns from a high level.

Going through the six-step process above will be a great start.

Your overeating patterns magnify the relationship you have with food and your emotions.

There is so much to be learned there.

I can’t wait to see what this work does for you.