What’s normal? If there is some pattern that every food addict can follow to get rid of food addictions forever, I’ve yet to see it– in print, anyway.

Everyone is unique. Food addiction is an affliction that plagues many women, and men as well. Since emotional eating or emotional anything is usually associated with women, it stands to reason that female food addicts are spoken of more often than male food addicts.

Because everyone is unique, their nutritional needs and patterns may not fit or even resemble those of others. Keeping the physical body in balance is a daunting task, and an ongoing one.

Our basic needs may be the same from day to day but the intricacies of each individual person’s needs cannot possibly be categorized and labeled as you would a can of peas.

Eating every couple of hours seems to be best for maintaining blood sugar and keeping the body in balance. However, there are obviously many opinions about what and how much a person should eat to attain and maintain one’s ideal weight.

What is one’s ideal weight? Who thought that up and how many people had to believe it for it to become the standard by which all people, especially those who are “over-weight” are measured?

The number of diets and weight-loss programs available today should be an indication of how well that measurement works. Goals have to be measurable if you are to know when you have reached yours.

Food addiction is not something that is impossible to overcome. It does, however, require a personal plan, one that is tailored to you and your body size and type.

Most important of all, you must have a support system in order to succeed in your endeavor to overcome habits like overeating, emotional eating, and food addictions, which sometimes develop over a lifetime.

Don’t ever underestimate the power of friendship in changing your life for the better. People who love and accept you for who you are now will love and respect you as you evolve into an even greater you.

Are you a food addict, or  are you a person with a food addiction? How do you see yourself?

One day you will learn the reason for your emotional eating. You will identify the source of your food addiction, the feelings you are stuffing down by overeating.

Be prepared for that day. When it comes, you won’t need your food addiction anymore. It will fall away because there will be no emotional pain to draw it to you. And you will be free.

Why don’t food addicts just quit cold turkey? Quit what? Food? I don’t think so. But what is this thing with overeating? Why can’t they just stop when they’re full?

Maybe because they don’t always feel full. Maybe they don’t know that they’re full. Maybe because they’re not full.

Not all food addicts are overweight, obese or just fat–choose whichever  label you apply to yourself. Some aren’t fat at all.

Just because you don’t gain weight when you overeat doesn’t mean that you’re any less vulnerable when it comes to food addictions.

One of my slender friends and I were talking about this the other night. When you think of overeating as stuffing yourself, the picture gets clearer.

Stuffing down your emotions like you would stuff an item deep into a bag filled with other things in an effort to hide it only hides it from others, not yourself.

A part of you always knows it’s there, even if you don’t remember what it is you hid or where you hid it. The things we see on the outside are a reflection of what is within us.

For food addicts, the key is to find out what it is you’re really stuffing down when you are in an overeating frenzy. If you hide a cheater food, you won’t even want it. When you remember where it is, you will crave it.

I used to buy a big bag of cheese curls and eat the entire bag, no matter how full I felt or how uncomfortable it made my stomach feel. I didn’t stop until I had eaten every salty crumb. When the bag was empty, I felt satisfied.

One night I stopped by the store on my way back from a late shift at work. The store was out of the brand I wanted. I used to eat whatever was available when I first confronted my food addiction, but over time, I became more discriminating, or particular at least.

There was only a small bag of the item which, after searching the shelves without success for the larger bag I usually purchased and consumed, I finally bought. It was the same brand, only about 1/5 the size.

I plopped myself down in front of some mindless TV show, ate the bag of cheese curls, got up and turned off the TV, brushed and flossed and got ready for bed.

My job was very stressful, as was the two hour drive there and back every day. At that time of night, I just wanted to forget my day and get ready for the next one.

I knew I was a food addict and sometimes I didn’t want to control it. I just didn’t care. It’s always about the blood sugar, the liver. Balance, hormones, metabolism–the liver is involved is all the processes.

What people without food addictions don’t understand is that stress is like spoon-feeding yourself refined sugar and unless you work it off, and fast, it will do you in physically, mentally, and spiritually.

As for the slender overeaters, you can eat junk food, health food, juice, anything that will pass as a nutrient, something to quell your hunger and fill the emptiness. Less is not more for a food addict. You have to eat it all.

That’s what I learned the night I bought the small bag of cheese curls. I went through the same routine I had many other nights. When the bag was emply, I was okay.

It wasn’t about how much I ate. It was about having it all, not stopping until I had every bite. It wasn’t about the size of the package. It was about not having to share it with anyone, having it all to myself.

I started packaging my food in small packages after that. There are some things I won’t keep at the house, like bread. Maybe some bagels once in a while, but if I have a loaf of bread in the house, it will be gone in less than 24 hours.

Sometimes food addicts use overeating as a strategy for getting all the temptation out of the way so they won’t have to deal with it. Lots of luck on that one.

It’s temptation all right but it has nothing to do with food. Food is just the pacifier while you’re waiting to deal with the real cause of your food addiction.

Removing a food addict’s pacifier may keep her or him from using it but it won’t make the wound go away. Healing the emotional trauma will heal the food addiction.

Find out what the real thing is. Why are you overeating? Eating over and over again the same thing until it’s gone. What is happening over and over again that you are stuffing down with food? What are you trying to replace with food?

A therapist might be able to help you find out. Overeating can be dangerous. Food addiction can be dangerous. But hidden trauma that is a trigger for the food addict can be the most dangerous of all.

Everyone should have something that they don’t have to share with anyone, something special, even if it is only a feeling. Even if it’s only a 3.5 ounce bag of cheese curls.