Sherbet Lemon

Sherbet Lemon
Photo by Brooke Lark / Unsplash

How many meals do you have in a day?

2, 3, 4?

All of that’s normal. Some people even have 5 meals in a day. As long as you are doing some physical activity and your calorie count doesn’t exceed requisite level, you’ll be healthy.

But what happens when eating becomes a way for a person to deal with their issues?

Something similar happened to me towards the last couple of months in my first job. I was working in a hotel and was surrounded by gourmet delicacies. It was subconscious at first, and I didn’t pay any heed to it. But then, the people around me started noticing and some of them even voiced their concern. I was gaining weight at an alarming rate. Once I noticed that I was indeed getting unhealthy, I tried to stop. But I couldn’t.

The problem wasn’t that I was eating unhealthy stuff, most of the things I ate were actually good for health. I just ate a lot of it. In time, I gravitated towards the unhealthy stuff as well. Within 2 months, I had reached a point where I looked at myself in the mirror and was shocked to see the person looking back at me.

You can call it stress/emotional eating or a binge eating disorder. I am not going to go into the technical details and bore you. While I was stuffing myself with calories, there are cases where people lose their appetite. Hogging food like a hungry hippo didn’t help me. It actually made the problem worse. And when I realized that I was getting worse, I ate some more.

Can you relate to any of this?

Research shows that it is fairly common for stress to affect a person’s appetite in a positive or negative manner. You might want to know whether I was able to control myself and get back on track. Well, eventually yes, but it was not easy to do that. I still stumble into the habit from time to time. When that does happen, I think about how it affected me. That helps me to stop.

“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.”- Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Manah Wellness is an employee engagement and wellbeing brand that provides innovative tools and professional support to businesses of all sizes. Founded by wellbeing experts and seasoned entrepreneurs, the company has an experienced team of psychologists and professionals who support individuals and teams with preventive, proactive, and personalized solutions for emotional and mental health, wellness, and professional growth. Manah empowers employees to track, assess, and understand their wellbeing, and how it changes over time. It also enables leaders to make more informed decisions with aggregated and anonymous data.

Manah has supported employees at more than 50 organizations with high levels of employee engagement, and positive feedback from employees on their improved wellbeing. Whether your goal is to lend wellness support to specific team members or to build a company culture that promotes emotional well-being, Manah Wellness has the virtual tools and expertise to support your journey. Get in touch with our team of qualified mental health professionals to discuss your organizational goals, and be part of a growing workplace wellbeing community with Manah."

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