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3 Ways for Food Addicts to Avoid Stress

Sep13

It’s common knowledge that stress causes people to behave in ways we otherwise might not if we were feeling calm and comfortable. For people with food addictions, stress can easily lead to emotional eating.

Of course, negative stress can trigger anger, fear, panic, and even physical pain. In any of those states, it’s easy for a food addiction to kick in.

How can you deal with negative stress?

1. You can avoid it sometimes, but not always.

2. You can do something that relieves the stress.

3. You can resolve the problem that is causing the stress, which is the best possible outcome.

Today, I would like to share with you some ways you can avoid stress. We can explore the other two ways of dealing with stress in a future blog.

Do these three things to help you avoid situations that might trigger your food addiction.

1. Only take on projects that are meaningful to you. Of course, you have to do things at work that you may not like and you have responsibilities at home that must be honored.

I am talking about choosing to do things that you don’t really care about just to impress or please someone else who doesn’t really care about you. If your heart’s not in it, don’t do it.

2. Plan and prepare your meals in advance and follow your plan. This will help set you up for success.  Eat when you need to eat. Don’t let others pull you away from your goal. Respect your health. It is more precious than you may realize.

3. Practice self-love and self-acceptance. Pamper yourself once every week. It can be something simple and free, like a bubble bath, a walk in the park, enjoying a sports outing, or spending time with a cherished friend.

You are the most important person in your life. Accepting yourself without putting conditions on that acceptance will cause you to feel loved, safe, and happy.

Food addictions are no match for a happy heart. As Bobby McFerrin’s 1988 Grammy-winning song suggests, “Don’t worry. Be happy”.

5 Eating Habits That Combat Food Addiction

Sep12

There are any number of ways to combat food addiction. Here are five eating habits I have found to be very useful and effective.

1. Don’t keep trigger foods in the house. Just like there are trigger emotions that lead to binging, there are trigger foods that feed a food addiction. You know what yours are. Don’t keep those foods in the house.

2. Eat small meals every 2-3 hours. Make sure to eat 2-3 ounces of lean protein at each and every meal (4-6 oz for men). Combine this with either a piece of fruit or a  small baked potato or 1/2 cup of rice at mid-morning and mid-afternoon meal/snack.

Replace the fruit with 1-2 cups of vegetables at lunch and dinner, eating the rice or potato depending on your preference. Portion size may be higher for men.

3. Do not skip even one of the small meals. When your body gets fed often, the brain will not need to send out a signal that you are starving. You will feel more balanced and less likely to stuff yourself with whatever you can find.

4. Eat when you are hungry. At first, you may not feel hunger so eating on time is very important. Eventually, your body will signal you when it requires more energy and you will know it is time to eat.

5. Stop when you no longer feel hungry. Do not wait until you are full. This is a tough habit to master, so don’t give up.

Learning new habits is part of the recovery process. Food addiction was a process that started with stress that led to emotional eating and eventually the food addiction itself.

It takes approximately 28 days to learn a new habit. Focus on the new behavior and not on what you are doing wrong. You can succeed in overcoming your food addiction. Keep your eyes on the prize.

#1 Fat Loss Secret for Food Addicts

Sep11

There are many weight loss products on the market today. The overweight woman with a food addiction is always looking for the next, newest, and best yet cure to counteract the effects of emotional eating.

There are books you can read–some really good ones–about all the different ideas about food addicts, how they get that way, and tips for weight loss. There are diets you can go on–tons of them, and information about emotional eating from many different sources.

The thing is, food addiction nearly always leads to weight gain. What you used to do to lose weight when you first started overeating, doesn’t work now. The emotional eating has changed your body’s response to food.

The weight gain adds to the stress and the response to the stress leads to overeating. You can’t read fat away and you can’t diet it away. And it’s not the weight that is causing the problem. It’s the fat.

You either kill the fat or it kills you. That narrows your choices, but not your options.

Most food addicts are overweight, and some are obese. Every body is different when it comes to how we absorb nutrients and metabolize fat. But certain conditions are present in every case.

The rate of food consumption and the greasy, salty, sugary, carbohydrate-laden, or dairy-based foods like ice cream and frozen yogurt (my personal favorite) conspire to slime up your intestines and give your body the what for.

These substances, eaten at the rate they eaten, without enzymes to aid digestion, maybe an antacid to quell the upset stomach after the binge, combine to make a putrid, slimy substance that coats the colon and stays there.

You have to get rid of that gunk before you start on your fat loss program. Then after you get rid of it, you can start eating foods that heal your body and restore your health.

This is the #1 fat loss secret that most people don’t even know about. Not weight loss, fat loss.  Click here to find out more. Learn about cleaning out that gunk, and you’ll be amazed and thrilled with your results.

After the #1 Fat Loss Secret comes Step #2. It’s called Eating for Energy. Now that you’re plumbing is cleaned out, you’re ready to take off those pounds and feel great again.

That’s enough for today. Try the #1 Fat Loss Secret for Food Addicts, the top secret information you won’t get from your medical doctor. Knowledge is power. Energize!

Food Addiction Can Limit Your Life Choices

Sep9

Most people put limits on what they can achieve in life. Food addicts are no different. It’s easy to fall prey to emotional eating. But does it have to take over your life and put limits on the things you enjoy?

When emotional eating, eating as a response to stress, becomes an addictive habit, it can severely limit your ability to function as you would if your emotions were in a more balanced state.

It’s true that sometimes we don’t want to be in a balanced state. We don’t want to be happy. It would be good just not to feel “that way”. Why do I have to decide now?

Most people I meet that have food addictions are caught up in the past–well, not the past exactly, more like the memory of the past.

I heard a song a few years ago that talked about never wanting to feel the pain of remembering how it used to be. It was titled, “Never Gonna Fall in Love Again”.

Hearing those lyrics, it struck me that reliving the emotionally traumatic event was indeed worse than the  event itself.

If the trauma was one of sexual abuse, physical or verbal abuse, or the unexpected breakup of a relationship, then remembering it again and again can be devastating. All are stressors that can lead to emotional eating and food addiction.

When the mind is bogged down with all that negativity, it’s pretty hard to get over anything. And there is food beckoning and promising relief. Even a temporary distraction from the mental barrage feels welcome.

Why is it so hard to speak your truth? Maybe because it is hard to find your truth, and you have to find it before you can speak it. For food addicts it is hidden deep so the stress is more threatening.

Food addiction is a exaggerated response to stress that we cannot find another outlet for. Stress locks up the mind and in some strange way, emotional eating unlocks it temporarily.

In that unlocked state, you can triumph over it and reclaim your power to make the life choices that will lead you closer to your goals and dreams.

The more information you have, the more choices there will be, and the more you will feel empowered to make them.

Food addiction can be conquered. That’s a choice too. It can be replaced with other choices, better choices. Only the mind limits; only the mind judges; only the mind justifies and demands.

You are greater than your mind, and you can use that to your best advantage. Whatever the cause of your food addiction, you must be a detective and get to the heart of the matter where the real power is.

Be an observer. Pretend you are helping a friend and map out a plan that can help you take control of your life and the choices you make.

Emotional eating is a choice. Any response to stress is a choice. But food addiction complicates things and makes it almost impossible to remain in control long enough to make that choice.

Why does food relieve the stress? I’ve never heard a good answer. It just does. But sooner or later you will be faced with the reality of how  emotional eating limits your life choices.

And then you will have another choice to make.