Quiz: What's your eating style?

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4. The Stress Eater
This person overeats in response to the third FATS feeling: Tension. I've found that two life areas trigger Stress Eating: unhappiness with one's work life, and dissatisfaction with one's love life. Both life areas are difficult to change, and usually take time and effort to correct. Because we can't just snap our fingers and "fix" the love or work life, we overeat to ease the tension.

Stress Eaters usually have a wide range of food cravings, all intuitively chosen to ease their tension and frustration. They crave alcohol to manage their ever-taut nerves, coffee and cola to pump up their enthusiasm and energy, chocolate to ease their love-life disappointments, breads and dairy products to calm themselves down, and crunchy snack foods to control their anger.

Food-craving interpretation is one way of accessing the underlying sources of frustration so that they may be dealt with head-on. I also encourage Stress Eaters to add four essential ingredients to their life, which help with tension much more effectively than do foods or beverages:

a) Exercise
Please don't assume that I'm asking you to add one more responsibility to your already-full plate of things to do. I realize that it's a hassle to exercise. Still, exercise is one of the easiest ways to feel better, reduce stress, get more energy, control anger, and reduce the appetite. The best motivational tool I've ever found with respect to exercise is to develop a focused mind-set that "exercise is a nonoptional activity." Put exercise into the same category as your daily shower, and see it as something that you simply need to do. No ifs, ands, or buts!

Read here about developing a flexible and easy exercise program just for you.

b) Fun and Recreation
The number-one source of resentment is the feeling that everybody else gets to relax and have fun, while we're left with all the chores and responsibility. It's a powerful residual emotion left over from childhood. Many people feel that fun is a waste of time or a sign of weakness. Yet, fun -- like exercise -- is a necessity, not a luxury.

Would you like to feel as if you have two extra hours in the day? You'll get that feeling when you incorporate small daily doses of fun into your life. Fun recharges the soul and the spirit, giving you the energy and enthusiasm necessary to meet your responsibilities. Fun doesn't have to cost anything or take more than 10 or 15 minutes. The important thing is for you to give yourself permission to relax and enjoy yourself every day.

c) Time Outdoors
Stress Eaters usually lead whirlwind lifestyles. They're running at a dead heat from the moment they wake up until the time they go to bed at night. This harried pace leaves little time for noticing the simple and beautiful things in everyday life.

Here's an instant stress-buster, kind of a game you can play with yourself on a daily basis: When you are driving home from work or during your lunch hour, notice three things in nature. This could be a cloud, the sound of a bird singing, the reflection on a puddle of water, or the colours in a sunset.

If you really want to ease your tension, take a walk during your lunch hour or eat lunch outside (near grass or trees). Being in close proximity to nature is instantly stress-reducing. It calms our nerves, soothes our soul, and definitely slows us down. I suppose that's where the phrase "Stop and smell the roses" came from.

d) Spirituality
When your heart feels full of love and gratitude, very few things can get on your nerves. People who are spiritual or religious are usually less vulnerable to earthly stressors, because they believe that everything will turn out for the best. Instead of sweating out the picayune details of everyday life, they "let go" and trust. This doesn't mean that they blindly accept the dictates of others. Spiritually guided persons are among some of the world's most successful individuals.

All four stress-reducing elements -- exercise, having fun, spending time outdoors, and spirituality -- can be combined effectively. For example, any type of outdoor activity, blended with meditation or prayer, will create an incredible boost of positive feelings and energy. And when you feel great, you won't crave food as much.

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