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Fight Your Food Addiction With Friendship

Jan23

I was talking with a young woman today, younger than me at least, about friendship.  Marisa told me  how she had dreamed about being a nurse, falling in love and having a family.

She laughed about how she and her two best friends had their lives all planned out as she ate a bag of Doritos and drink half of a two liter bottle of Pepsi.

“I was one hot Mama then” she said sadly. “Look at me now”. Tears filled her eyes and her voice trailed off.  Marisa supports herself and her two children by working two jobs.  She hasn’t heard from her friends in four years.

“It seems like all I do is eat. I used to talk to my friends when I was lonely, or sad, or tired. We talked all the time, and now all I do is eat. I feel so ashamed. This is my life.”

Food addiction is often the result of life circumstances we cannot control. Food is the mother of all comforts and can be quite irresistible when it is always available when you need to feel comforted and supported.

In Marisa’s case, her boyfriend left and she had to drop out of college to support her children. With no support system and too ashamed to talk to her friends after she gained the first 25 pounds, she went to work and took care of the kids.

Too tired and discouraged to think about anything but the wolves at her door, Marisa eats. She doesn’t deny it. She says it’s her only comfort now, but she does hope to go to nursing school one day.

Although she is involved in her daughters’ lives, she says she misses her friends most of all. Not necessarily the ones she palled around with in college but just friends in general, those special people around whom you can always be yourself without fear of being judged.

Marisa joined a women’s health club two weeks ago. She said she is looking for something to replace the need to eat when the shame surfaces.

We hear a lot about the necessity of support systems when dealing with emotional overeating, compulsive eating and food addiction, but the word “friendship” doesn’t always turn up in the conversation.

The impersonality of this high-tech world sometimes overshadows the need for and the value of friendship. In a perfect world, every one would have a friend.

Marisa hopes to make new friends at the health club. She wants to be an better role model for her teenage children who are already experiencing the consequences of being overweight. She wants to see her dream of being a nurse come true.

Most of all, she wants to feel like a loved, appreciated and valued human being whether she is fat or slim. In her own words, “I want to be comfortable in my own skin regardless of my size, and I want to have friends again who accept me as I am.”

Friendship trumps overeating in every category. If you can talk to a friend about your feelings instead of stuffing them down with food and hiding behind the shame, chances are you will find a way to overcome your fears and your food addictions.

It’s Not Your Fault That You’re Fat

Jan18

Removing the blame from gaining excess weight due to overeating or emotional eating binges may sound good in the short run, but what do you do when reality sets back in?

If it’s only a few pounds and you’re disciplined enough to stick to an eating plan for a couple of months, you can blame your weight gain on the holidays, or breaking up with your lover, or short-term stress.

You hit the gym a couple of times a week, get back on track and no real harm done. In a few weeks, your weight returns to normal in a seamless transition, and life goes on.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case for millions of people who substitute food for affection, companionship, and love. Eating in order to avoid facing your fears is a symptom of a deeper issue.

Blame is not the concern here. Responsibility is what counts. No matter who or what got you into the mess that caused you to gain thirty pounds, or however much you gained, the only one who can change your situation is you.

If you’re ready to accept responsibility for making the changes in your life, then you should also know that your reality is the only one that matters.

It isn’t your fault because no judgment is necessary. You can assess your situation without judging yourself or blaming yourself for being weak. We are what we are, and that can change at any time.

We change when we experience something that makes us see the world and ourselves differently than we did before we had this new information. We can aid this process with affirmations that help put new ideas into our hearts.

One of the things I use and have used for more than two decades are Prosperity Cards, specifically HarMoney. Of course you can write your own affirmations too, but if you’d like a little help with them, click here.

Whatever happens, whatever you choose, responsibility grows on you. Feeling in charge of your life gives you a greater sense of freedom, which seems to become enhanced as we are willing and able to take on greater responsibility for our being.

Food Addicts: Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

Jan16

I recently made the decision to take a retail job close to home. It was a big change from the corporate and executive positions I have held in the past.

This was a huge decision but I made the choice because I wanted to continue working on establishing an online business. In the big picture of my new life, this entry level position accomplishes what a corporate position cannot even offer.

As a food addict, I didn’t want to think of the stress I was heading into. How could I survive? I could see myself binging and stressing as I dealt with new tasks that require manual dexterity. My life would be very different.

And then something miraculous happened to put things in perspective.  I found myself right in the moment, focusing on what was important at that time, including when I had to eat. I did my work in the moment. I ate when I was supposed to, on time.

Whatever I was doing at the moment had 100% of my attention without the double-edged sword of multi-tasking hanging over my head. And the world didn’t stop.

My managers don’t bully me. My co-workers smile and speak kindly. They help me learn and they respect me. At the end of the day, I have accomplished something by my own standards as well as those of others.

The first night I ate for four hours straight while listening to “poor you’s” from former networking buddies who offered to do whatever they could to help me get back to where I was.

But when I thought about it–no.  I passed that turnoff for a reason, and I’m moving on. I don’t want to go back to a place where I was always hungry, starving for something and substituting food for what I really wanted.

I believe it was Sir Winston Churchill who once said that it is not always enough to do your best, that sometimes one must do what is required. When you step up to the plate, you can also step away from the plate.

Food has a role in my survival but only to provide me with the energy I need to live a productive and healthy life. For the past several days since I started this job, I have only craved food when I went too long without eating.

I find myself adamantly refusing to eat junk food or snack food during that small, off-the-clock lunch window. Out loud I say, “I need real food; I want real food.”

With huge changes occuring in my life, my stress level is lower than it has been in decades. The food addictions bother me less than when I encountered what now seem to be the least little frustrations.

Does that mean I’ll never binge again, that I will banish my food addiction forever? I doubt it, but for the moment, who cares? Forget one day at a time. I’ll take one moment at a time. That I can handle.

Maybe overcoming the emotional eating urges and the food addictions is all about living and in the moment and doing what is required. Can it be possibly that simple?

I don’t know. Don’t sweat the small stuff and let’s find out.