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Love and Food Addiction

Sep22

There is a reason people are addicts. No one chooses an addiction, especially a food addiction. Why would they?

Obesity runs rampant in the United States because it has become so easy to eat unhealthy foods. The quest for instant gratification flies in the face of honoring these bodies we wear from the time we are born to the time we die.

Fast food is easy, not as cheap as it used to be but still cheap, over-processed, and unprepared to provide the body with nutrition.

Fast, over-processed food is not meant to provide you with nutrients. It is meant to taste good and fill you up and that is what it does.

There is no energy involved. In fact, most people feel like sleeping after they eat at a fast food restaurant.

There is no love in fast food. It is salty, often greasy, full of fats–that’s why it makes you feel full temporarily–and it ruins your health.

Where is the love you used to taste in homemade pot roast with mashed potatoes made from real potatoes and fresh vegetables that we didn’t call veggies and say you had to eat them because they were good for you?

Food is supposed to be good for you. Food was once a way to express love.

But something happened along the way. Instead of enjoying all the tastes, flavors, and sensual feelings a meal once provided, food has become a tool to stuff down feelings and pretend it’s okay to be alone, ignored, and undervalued.

Food doesn’t feel good anymore. And most of the time, it doesn’t make those eating it feel the pleasure or nutritional benefits food is meant to provide.

This is particularly true for people with a food addiction.

Food addicts are missing an important, life-enriching nutrient from their daily lives. It’s not food we hunger for. It is love.

Love is the feast that fills you up but not out. It fills up your senses and tames your wildest hungers.

I am not talking about sex. I am talking about love. Without love, one can not overcome a food addiction.

With love, you can. It’s as simple as that.

It’s Never Too Late to Be Great! ®

No Miracle Diet for Food Addicts

Feb28

There are diets for everything–the bikini-by-summer diet, the lose-all-the weight-you-want-in-thirty-days diet, the just-get-me-into-my-wedding-dress diet, and myriad other weight loss diets discovered daily.

At best, the majority of weight-loss diets are temporary. And why? Because dieters have been programmed to expect temporary results. Most sensational diets over-promise and under-deliver.

Once all the weight magically falls off, if that ever happens, you can go back to your regular life.

As long as the right words are in the advertisement–it’s not your fault, eat normally, or without dieting or exercise–the sales rack up.

It seems that diets, health supplements, weight loss systems and the like have one thing in common. One size definitely does not fit all.

And as far as eating normally, well where does that fit into the lives of food addicts, emotional eaters and the obese population in general? The extreme eating habits of food abusers are a big part of the problem.

Extremes have caused us to view everything in the blackest of blacks and the whitest of whites. There is no flexibility. It’s all or none. No room for moderation and no understanding of it.

Moderation would require self-discipline and the “I want it all! I want it now!” philosophy promotes the illusion of “no consequence” behavior.

The only problem with that is that food doesn’t work that way. And neither does anything long-term. Sooner or later the piper must be paid.

Why does a health supplement or a healthy eating program have to be either a miracle or a scam? If it doesn’t work immediately, it’s no good. If it does, it’s a miracle and everybody should try it.

Again, one size does not fit all. A diet is an over-used name for an eating plan. Plan is the operative word.

Your uniqueness and your willingness to accept yourself as a whole and worthy person will go farther to rid you of the need to stuff down your feelings with food than any miracle pill on the market now or in the future.

And the really good news is that knowing who you are will still be working after every quick fix and miracle diet has failed.

It is up to you to uncover within yourself what it will take in terms of commitment and perseverance to achieve your weight loss goals.

There is no miracle diet for food addicts. You are the miracle.

It’s Never Too Late to Be Great! ®

Gluttony and Food Addiction

Feb20

In all the the articles I’ve read about food addiction and in the numerous references to food addicts, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the word “gluttony” used.

It’s a simple word that means excess in eating or drinking, according to Webster, yet somehow it doesn’t fit with the other words in the food addiction lexicon.

There is an article in the current issue of The Week about Foodies and gluttony. Talk about excess! And I thought I had it bad!

Of course, there are different kinds of foodies just like there are different kinds of food addicts so I’ll keep that in mind and try not to be too judgmental.

Somehow the idea of “spending 36 hours cooking for a single dinner party” or “extolling the virtues of poached bat and roasted guinea pig” makes me feel like a food addiction is not the worst problem I could have.

There is excess and there is excess. Overeating, emotional eating, compulsive eating–they are all examples of excess, and yet they are not vulgar.

That’s an important distinction if you’re thinking about how your food addiction is affecting your life and how you feel about yourself.

I believe that it comes down to who you are spiritually when you do the things you do, and that includes eating.

Somehow, gluttony seems vulgar and food addiction does not.

Go figure.

It’s Never Too Late to Be Great!

Five Ways to Help a Food Addict

Feb19

There are many things you can do to help a food addict. Here are are my top five favorites.

1. Look them in the eye. Food addicts are invisible to those around them. Even if they have grown larger in size and take up more space, to most of society, they are invisible.Being acknowledged is important to everyone.

2. Listen when they speak. When a person speaks to you, don’t mentally plan your monologue so you’ll be ready when it’s your turn to talk. Active listening is a form of respect, and we all want that, don’t we?

3. Be courteous. Hold the door, offer to carry something when the person’s arms are full. Demonstrate kindness. Your actions tell people who you are.

4. Ask questions if you have them. Be honest. Listen to the answers without passing judgment.

5. Send a card or a flower on a special occasion like a birthday or at a sad time. There are cards for everything, physical cards, not e-cards. Physical cards which can be purchased for as little as 99 cents say you care without overstating your intentions and embarrassing you both.

You might think, “Well, how the heck does that help?”. It’s an easy question to answer.

Self-worth, self-esteem–however you want to label it–is so important. No matter how high an opinion we have of ourselves, or how many times we find the hero in ourselves, it is vital to be acknowledged by others.

Not for fame or acceptance, but for validation that we matter, that someone cared enough to be kind, that we are valued. Acts of kindness have become acts of convenience.

Sending a card through snail mail is expensive and a waste of time, right? Wrong, In fact, it is quite the opposite. Those few moments, collected and pieced together in an effort to tell someone they are not alone are precious.

I cannot count the many times I have revisited cards I received decades ago. I remember the time and place and all the wonderful feelings those words ignited in my heart.

Help need not be delivered in the form of advice. Food addicts get plenty of that.

The inspiration that comes from being acknowledged fills your heart so completely that, even if only for a brief time, you don’t feel like you’re starving anymore.

It’s Never Too Late to Be Great!