It’s time to announce the winner of the $60 gift basket of award-winning Cabot cheese. Congratulations Luanne from Elizabethton TN! Watch the mail for your gift is on the way.

If food calls your name when you’re emotionally upset and you turn to food for comfort, it’s time to put on the brakes and stop stress-eating.

Try these three stress-less strategies.

1. Recognize emotional eating for what it is. Pay attention to your emotions this week. Every time you eat something, ask yourself if you are hungry or eating because of stress.Even better, keep a journal or notes on your blackberry or iphone for a few days. Why? When you write down what you eat, how much you eat and why you eat, stress-eating patterns become clear very quickly.
2. Decide what actions you can take to help deal with your stress besides turning to food. Find a substitute to replace food … walk around the block, read one chapter in a good book, or chew sugarless gum.Seek professional counseling if you feel it’s needed or confide in friends or family members and come up with some strategies to deal with the stressful situation.
3. Start one new healthy eating strategy. Here are two to choose from:
   1. If you don’t eat breakfast, start. Research shows that people who eat breakfast eat less during the day so it’s easier to control your food intake when you’re stressed and your emotions feel out of control.
   2. Eat more frequently. If you are an emotional eater and go more than four hours without food, you already know that it’s easy to eat and eat a lot. When you eat more frequently, you have less low blood sugar moments and feel less compelled to eat in response to your stress.

Good Morning American interviewed Andrew Shue, co-founder of CafeMom.com. You may remember him as an actor on the Melrose Place series. CafeMom.com connects mothers and mothers-to-be on all aspects of life for conversation and support.

CafeMom polled 2,000 of their moms in the MomIndex and found that a whopping 61% indicate they do not have enough time for themselves. Guess what the biggest source of anxiety is for moms? Money! One in five moms said that their family income has been affected by job loss.

Did the results of this poll sound like you? Do you eat because you are stressed, depressed, sad, lonely, or angry? Are you eating because you’ve lost your job or someone in the family has and you’re concerned about paying bills?

Has food become your new BFF, your best friend? You’re comforter? Really think about your relationship to food. Try these strategies and email me or post comments on the blog. Let me know how you are doing.

Listen to this week’s podcast