Food Addiction Rescue Remedies

Scripps Research Study Says Junk Food as Addictive as Cocaine and Heroin

According to a report published the end of March by The  Scripps Research Institute in Florida,  junk food contains the same molecular mechanisms that cause drug addiction.

The three-year study confirmed for the first time that junk food contains addictive properties, something that food addicts and compulsive overeaters have been saying for decades. And now we have our proof.

With all the junk food junkies out there and obesity numbers growing daily, it’s almost comforting to know that there is a legitimate reason for compulsive overeating and food addictions.

The research, which was performed on rats, showed a direct link between obesity and a progressively deteriorating chemical balance in the reward center of the brain.

Real answers, at last. Click here to read the entire press release.

Food Addiction and Exercise

Today I joined a gym. I’m tired of being overweight so I signed up for a 16-week program at a gym that is only a couple of miles from my home. Then I went home and binged, but only slightly.

My life has been particularly stressful the last two years and the binge eating isn’t helping anymore. At first there is some feeling of relief, and that may last for some people, but it isn’t working for me anymore.

Being overweight makes part of you fade away. Even though you take up more space, you feel invisible. It’s a very emotional experience that gets more stressful as you gain more weight.

Some people can go on an emotional eating binge now and then, put on a few pounds and then take them off. But for a person with a food addiction, those emotional upsets always seem out of proportion as do the binges that follow.

I walked on my treadmill almost every day for the past three or four years. Recently I was injured and missed almost six months, then it was the flu for two weeks, and now the tread has started slipping.

There are diets, exercises, weight loss programs, and pills that promise a flat tummy or toned backside in some short period of time. Then you see the women in bikinis, sleeveless dresses, all  smiles.

If they can do it, why can’t you, you ask yourself. And so you give it a half-hearted try and lose a few pounds.

Then something unpleasant happens and the food addict will likely give in to a binge because that’s what we do when the stress of imagining oneself in good shape, happy, enjoying ourselves in a social situation is too intimidating, too overwhelming.

So let’s see how the gym experience goes. Perhaps the exercise will prove a good substitute for overeating in times of stress.

We shall see.

Addicted to Processed Foods?

Many of the foods we reach for when we get stressed out are packed with sugars, fats, preservatives,  salt, and myriad other substances, some of which we cannot even pronounce.

Food addicts rarely crave celery, carrots, or broccoli when the triggers click. We are more likely to go for chips, candy, cookies, ice cream, or other snacks that are high in sugar,  fats, and sodium.

Unfortunately, these foods are highly processed and full of additives that may cause a food addict to crave them even after the emotional stress has eased.

Processed foods are readily available. You can grab a package of lunchables, a bag of chips, a package of wings and a soft drink,  a slice of pizza, or a pint of Ben & Jerry’s at a drugstore, gas station, or supermarket at any time of the day or night.

This presents a few problems. For one, you don’t have a lot of time to consider your decision. Fast food, a fast decision. Then there are the aftereffects like gas, bloating, upset stomach, lack of energy.

Food is supposed to give you energy, not take it away, something to consider when making a food choice. All those additives may contribute to your food addiction by affecting hormones in the body.

Overeating prepared foods with lots of fillers, salt, corn syrup, dyes, and MSG (which has many names and can be found in numerous processed food items) can cause bloating and weight gains of as much as 10 pounds overnight.

The best way to avoid overeating junk foods is to prepare your own food, but since many people have gotten spoiled by convenience foods that you just pop in the microwave for a few minutes, another suggestion might be to just cut back.

If you eat packaged foods every day, cut back to twice a week. Cook a meal three times a week and use the leftovers in creative ways for lunches and healthy snacks.

When you buy chips, buy a small package instead of the economy size so when you eat the whole bag, it will be only one or two servings.

Wean yourself off sodas which are usually very in sodium that can cause you to retain fluid and try flavored water or iced tea, or watered down juice.

If you’ve been eating deli foods and other prepared foods for any length of time, it may be hard to go back to regular foods.

Carrots and broccoli don’t have to be smothered in a fatty ranch dressing to give them flavor. They already taste good–well, the jury’s still out on broccoli.

If you think you’re addicted to processed foods, you may be right. Make a pot roast and take a roast beef sandwich to work for lunch. Add a few strawberries or an apple with some cheese.

Treat yourself to a nutrient rich meal that tastes good. You could get used to it. After all, everyone deserves a healthy body.

Sadness and Food Addiction

Lately, I’ve met quite a few people who admit that they binge when they get lonely. They aren’t angry. they just don’t want to be alone and so they eat.

But it isn’t just loneliness. It’s sadness. Regardless of what is making you sad–and usually it’s something that’s happened in the past–there is an absent-minded eating pattern going on.

Sadness is depressing. It saps your strength and steals your energy. When your energy is low and you’re a food addict or an  emotional eater,  you probably turn to food.

Yes, food addiction triggers are many and sometimes they surprise you. I wouldn’t have thought of sadness as a trigger, but it is.

One thing I’ve learned is that you have to be in touch with your feelings at all times if you’re going to beat a food addiction.

Stay away from people who make you feel sad, and stay close to those who make you feel good about yourself.

Choose people who accept you as you are so you won’t always be guessing about how to act when you’re around them. The more you can feel comfortable in social situations, the less likely you are to resort to food when sadness sets in.

In other words, don’t worry, be happy.

Can a Starch-Based Diet be Healthy?

Here is a video I found on YouTube that features a panel of health experts talking about starch-based diets and their effects on health. I found it interesting, and I hope you will too.

Forgiveness is Important for Food Addicts

When food addictions take over your life, you can become very hard on yourself even to the point of self-hate. This only makes the food addiction worse.

We all do things that we regret. We can’t do anything about the past but if food addiction and emotional eating have become patterns in your life, there is something you can do about them now.

Before we can move from one state of being into another, we must be able to forgive ourselves for whatever we have done, or think we have done. Only when we do this can we move forward.

Children live in the moment, so they forgive easily. It’s harder for adults to live in the moment because there is always some past mistake or future possibility that we seem to want to focus on, taking us away from the moments in which we have the most power.

Food addictions and the agonizing emotional trauma that is always lurking underneath can keep us in a place that is sad, shameful, or just plain uncomfortable, for a long time.

When we have these feelings, we don’t like ourselves. When we don’t like ourselves, there is the tendency for the food addict to self-medicate or even self-destruct with food.

Self-hate, anger or even impatience with yourself can keep your heart closed, and if there is any time your heart needs to be open, it’s when you’re feeling bad about yourself.

So today’s tip is simple: Forgive yourself for not being perfect, for making some mistakes. That will allow you to let the past go and experience each moment fully without judgment and without regret.

Forgiveness clears out the negative feelings and lets you begin anew each day. Live each day fully, with your attention in the moment, and without persecuting yourself for something you cannot change.

Keep your heart open so that love can flow freely in both directions. The three most powerful words in the English language are said to be “I forgive you”.

Practice saying them daily in the mirror, and watch your eating patterns and your life change for the better.

Losing Weight Shouldn’t Be a Contest

Contests are meant to be motivating. They motivate through competition. Consider the size of the viewing audience of shows like The Biggest Loser.

Contests always have winners–and losers.  Contests can be fun, especially if you win the prize, as long as it’s the prize you wanted. And that’s where trying to lose weight in a contest can trip you up.

If you are a food addict or an emotional eater, you probably have put on some extra pounds. That happened to me, and when I was in my thirties I decided to try a popular weight loss system.

The program worked well for me. The packaged food was palatable, and all I had to do was to follow directions and check in for meetings and blood work every couple of weeks.

What I was learning about my body and metabolism was helping me understand myself more, and my food addictions seemed almost non-existent.  And the pounds were coming off.

When I had lost 22 pounds, had my flat stomach back and was feeling on top of the world, my counselor reminded me of something.

One of the incentives to losing those last few pounds was that a member could win back half of their original investment if they could hit the weight goal by a certain time.

I chose a weight that was too low for me but it was a contest and I was sure that the $150 prize would be enough to make my body obey my will. Yeah………..right.

The contest did work for some, I guess. Maybe they weren’t food addicts who overate because of emotional stress. I don’t know.

What I do know is that I wasn’t able to lose those last two pounds because of the pressure I put on myself trying to win that contest, and so I didn’t get the money.

It left me with a sense of shame, and it took much away from the earlier success I felt from feeling so alive. Why could someone else do it and not me? What difference did it make anyway?

I hadn’t figured it out yet when a big blowout with my ex-husband, who frequently made me feel like a loser, sparked a two-week eating binge and that was the end of that.

I did get to enjoy my slimmer figure for a couple of months first, but that contest spoiled my success with the weight loss program.

Once I transferred my attention to the cash prize, I forgot what my goal had been–to learn how to eat so that I could reach and maintain a healthy weight and thus, enjoy my life more.

Motivation is important but when it comes to losing weight, making it a contest might put unnecessary pressure on you to go after something you don’t even really want.

Contests have time limits. Good health does not. It takes a lifetime, and every day you remain alive is another chance to live a better life in the best of health, or at least on the road to it.

Whether you are an emotional eater, a food addict, or just someone who overate too many times or got lazy and stopped being physically active, if you’ve gotten a little too fluffy lately, you might want to take off a few pounds.

The only thing you need to win is your good health. If you have that, you won’t have to worry about your weight or anything else. You will have it all. It really is true.

No contest in the world can promise–or deliver–more than that.

Healthy Eating Promotes Weight Loss

Have you ever noticed how often the words “healthy” and “balanced” are used in the same sentence? When it comes to food, these are very important words.

Here is a short YouTube video with some great information about what foods you need to eat in order to have a balanced diet. I hope you enjoy it.

Another Name for Fat People

Today I went with a friend to the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Florida. We went to see an art exhibit titled “The Baroque World of Fernando Botero”.

The docent who led the first part of our tour said that Botero painted “fat people”. I believe she said those were Botero’s words.

In that museum with 100 pictures of gigantic people, animals and musical instruments painted by a world famous, living artist, I was forced to see fat in a different light.

When we look at art, it’s hard not to make judgments since our perceptions are influenced by our preferences, prejudices, and paradigms. When we see art, we tend to see life as we know it.

Think for a moment about fat people, what those words mean to you, how you feel when you hear the term. What would it take to change your perception about fat people?

I thought about that today when the docent said the most extraordinary thing–that the people in Botero’s paintings weren’t really fat people, but people of “heroic proportions”.

When I heard “heroic proportions “the label “fat people” instantly disappeared. A paradigm shift occurred and I will never see large people as fat people again.

Even as I struggle with my own food addictions and emotional eating challenges, I know the power of words when it comes to food and labels.

Today, I got to take a different look, a new picture, and I liked what I saw.