Archives

Food Addiction Time Zones

Sep7

Unlike other addictions, food addictions have time zones, blocks of time when you are most vulnerable to emotional eating.

My time zone is in the early evening and then the late evening. Mornings are no threat at all, no matter where I am or what I am doing.

Mornings are the best time for me. I have the most energy then.The hours from 5:00 AM to 2:00 PM are my most productive.

I am more organized, more creative, and more on target. I get more accomplished during those nine hours than I do at any other time during the day.

The mornings are when I feel most alive. When I am able to sleep for 5 hours in a row, which is rare, I am in heaven. Nothing can get me down. I am unstoppable.

Until 3:00 o’clock. That’s when my energy is on its way down and my creativity and productivity come to a standstill. The grey clouds of vulnerability start to gather.

I am out of energy, and I haven’t mastered the fine art of napping, so my body  feels stressed. I get agitated and uncomfortable. Stress is a big contributor to emotional eating.

Even if I have just eaten an hour earlier, if I’m in the zone, my food addiction kicks in, and I feel like I am starving.

Food addiction is subtle at the onset. It’s upon you before you even realize it. You are very likely not hungry at all, but you do need comfort and support.

You might sit down and put your feet up, take a bubble bath, get a massage, or visit with a friend, all things that would comfort and calm you.

But you are stressed, and you may not have a lot of options, and your friends in the refrigerator are calling.  When you’re feeling vulnerable your food addiction can take over.

If you are not able to avail yourself of some stress-reducing non-food remedy such as those previously mentioned, you may choose a quick fix.

And why not? It makes perfect sense in the moment. There’s no question that food will reduce  the stress temporarily. However, when “temporarily” wears off, you’re in trouble.

There are signs, but we don’t  always read in time. Sometimes we don’t even see them in time.

Food addictions, and the emotional eating brought on by them, create feelings so powerful that you choose food over everything else. If you are to overcome your food addiction, you have to be prepared for those vulnerable times.

When your hormones are out of balance, your brain gets confused. It doesn’t know how to interpret the signals. Stress signals starvation to the brain, so it instructs the body to seek out food.

One of the best remedies is to know your time zone. Recognizing the signals before you get too far out of balance can ward off emotional eating.

Here are some questions to ask yourself that will help you identify your food addiction time zone:

When do you have the most energy? Morning, afternoon, or evening? When it is daylight or when it is dark?

When do you seem to accomplish the most? Early in the morning? Not before noon? After dark? Be as specific as possible.

When does your mind seem most clear? When is it easy to focus and to get thinks done? What time of day do you seem to waste a lot of time and not accomplish much?

What time of day do you feel the happiest? The most inspired? The most self-motivated?

Some people are morning people like me. Others stay up half the night and sleep until noon. There is no best time of day that is the same for everyone. We are all different.

As adults, we can manage our own lives. In fact, we must. It is far healthier and infinitely less stressful to live our lives in harmony with body, mind, and spirit.

Pay attention and you will be able to identify your food addiction time zone. Then you can plan your trip back to the neutral zone where you rule and your food addiction cannot ensnare you.

Can Food Addiction Shorten Your Life?

Sep6

Since giving in to food addictions is a response to heavy duty stress, the answer to that question has to be “Yes”. Stress is the main cause of death by so-called natural causes, such as heart attack and stroke.

Cardiovascular disease gets the credit but how do we get there? What do you have to do to put so much strain on your body that it cannot ward off diseases? What is so natural about death by stress?

Less than half a century ago, ulcers were thought to be the only thing stress caused.

The original study decades ago of the effect of aspirin on the heart did not include women because it was thought that women had nothing to be stressed about.

There were no food addictions even though there were. Certain things were not talked about, and the doctor was the expert on your body, even though he saw you once a year for twenty minutes and you lived with your body 365 days a year.

Now that obesity has become such a problem and we now know that stress is closely related to the risk of disease and the length of life, it is important that we examine closely our eating habits.

Everything has a label now and an abbreviation. When people talk about diseases they sound like parents spelling out something they don’t want their children to know about.

Food addiction is serious because it is the abuse of food, not out of control eating but eating when we are out of control.

It’s no different than hitting something. We just do it to ourselves rather than someone else. Food should be a servant, not a master. We think it is one thing, but it quickly becomes another.

A food addiction may start out as comforting yourself with food after a breakup with a boyfriend or girlfriend, a disappointment over getting a lower test score than you hoped for, or even good old-fashioned loneliness.

The problem with using food as a response to stress is that it makes you even more stressed when the effects become apparent.

The more you know about why you use food to ease your emotional pain or soothe away tension, the more you can help yourself.

Because stress affects hormone levels, it can cause all kinds of problems. Add to that a food addiction and it becomes  more complicated and more dangerous.

Know thyself. Keep a journal of your feelings. Explore what it is that makes you happy, what makes you distressed, and what makes you eat.

Instead of stuffing down those feelings, write them down. It will take you one step closer to overcoming your food addiction, and it might even add years to your life.

Soul Food for the Food Addict

Sep5

Today I’d like to talk about a very important tool to use when you’re working on overcoming your food addiction. The tool is positive self talk.

It’s not the same thing as positive thinking. It goes deeper than that. Even if your conscious mind does not yet believe it, you can reprogram the way you think about things, including food and your food addiction.

Positive self talk is about those conversations we have with ourselves that talk us into and out of things that may or may not be good for us. Positive self talk is our front line support system.

You can change your perspective using positive self talk. Making positive statements and reciting daily affirmations related to your goals will internalize positive feelings about yourself and what you are doing. Using this technique, you can completely renovate your belief system.

It’s food for the Soul, and if you are an emotional eater or a true food addict, nourishing the spirit is extremely important.

No matter what you do physically to overcome an obstacle in your life, it is what you do for your Spirit that will carry you through the hardest of times. I think a food addiction falls into that category.

Since food addiction is born out of feelings of low self-esteem, shame, and isolation, among other things, inspiration and self-acceptance can play a large part in the recovery process of a food addict.

One of my favorite things is a set of HarMoney Prosperity Cards that I bought more than 20 years ago. These simple affirmation cards look like little $100 bills. Each one has a statement that reminds you that abundance is a choice. They are very inspiring.

Saying these affirmations each day invites prosperity into all areas of your life. You can learn to go from thinking like a victim to thinking like a champion, from feeling helpless to feeling empowered.

They’re simple little sayings that feed and comfort the Spirit and calm the mind. True prosperity and harmony are neighbors in the heart.

Whatever prosperity means to you , if you are letting emotional eating turn you away from your dreams, you will not find it until you can get yourself back on track.

Even though food addiction is a good reason to feel hopeless, depressed and abandoned, it is not a good enough reason to push prosperity away from yourself.

To attract prosperity, you must relax. If you are battling a weight problem because of a food addiction, you need inspiration to motivate you into action.

I recommend HarMoney because of the gentle way each card reminds you that you are somebody. You are special. You deserved to have good things in your life.

Prosperity will not be given to you automatically. You must draw it to you as a magnet attracts steel.

When you  stuff down your feelings with food, the temporary comfort fades when your body reveals the consequences of your emotional eating spree in the mirror.

That’s when you have to be strong and fight back with positive self talk. HarMoney will give you all kinds of ideas about what to say to yourself.

It’s up to you to attract the things you want in your life. Like attracts like. Become the best you that you can be.

When you like yourself, you will attract the people you want and need in your life. Then you will not need emotional eating as a source of comfort.

Don’t let a food addiction deprive you of the kind of life you desire. Use whatever tools you need and build the life you want.

Do yourself a favor and check out HarMoney Prosperity Cards. They’re awesome.

Stuff your Spirit with inspiration and fill your heart with love. Soul food of the best kind with words that remind you that you are already perfect. And you are loved.

Eating Past Your Food Addiction

Sep4

Yesterday I spoke of getting healthy. Instead of focusing on losing weight, make your goal bigger. Look past your food addiction and ask yourself what it will take to get healthy again. Is there a program that will work for you?

You may have to experiment before you find a plan that fits your goals. Remember, not all food addicts are created equal. Your food addiction is unique to you, so your eating plan won’t be a one-size-fits-all.

One of the best places to start when you want to rid your body of fat is your eating plan. When you are putting the right foods in your body, you will feel energized and you will want to be active.

Don’t let confusion stall your start. That’s your food addiction stepping up to sabotage you.  If you find a plan that sounds like it may work for you, give it a try.

Always look for a money-back guarantee of 60 days so you will have enough time to try it out. When we attempt something that will improve our lives, procrastination seems to pop up and try to pull us back to our old ways.

That’s just the food addiction. It may always lurk under the surface, but so what? Do it anyway. The guarantee will give you time to try the product even if you’ve let it sit for a week.

I think that being able to eat well, and eat for energy is the best. If you can go organic, great! Your body will be all the better for it.

The most important thing is that you learn what your body needs to be full of energy and vitality, so you can feel happy again. Being happy makes it all seem possible.

You can learn to eat past your food addiction. Even if emotional eating still plagues you, eat past it. Don’t let it stop you. Don’t let anything stop you from being healthy and happy.

One of the programs I like is Eating for Energy. Raw foods are the most energizing. They taste great and give you lots of energy without pills and caffeine  and other stimulants.

Let someone who’s been there help you get there. Yuri walks you through every step of the way in the Eating for Energy program. You need a mentor who will demonstrate how this new way of eating can work for you. That guidance and support will inspire you and keep advancing  you toward your goal.

You can’t give up food, and if you beat yourself up about emotional eating, your food addiction will only gain more power over you.

Don’t ask yourself how much weight you want to lose. Ask yourself how much you want to weigh. How do you want to feel? What do you want to do?

When you know what foods burn fat, not just make the number on the scales go down, you will find that there’s a lot more to eating past your food addiction than just counting calories.

When you experience firsthand how great you can feel when you are doing the things that your body wants and needs, that food addiction is just one step closer to slipping out of your life for good.

You can do it!!