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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! ®

Healthy Snacks

Feb21

Is there such a thing? That depends on who you listen to. Healthy doesn’t mean it has to be a vegetable, or taste disgusting.

After all, it’s the combining of foods from the food pyramid that creates the energy we need to get us through the day.

Miniature carrot sticks and broccoli are not healthy when served with a dip that has 13 grams of fat per serving even though it’s better than 35 grams of fat in the most popular after school snacks companies pay millions of dollars to advertise all over the place.

I was talking with a friend of mine this evening about snacks. She runs a program for children at a school in the Midwest. As part of the national effort to combat childhood obesity, some changes are being made.

She told me that in her school, they will not be allowed to give the children certain snacks that were formerly acceptable. Birthday cakes will no longer be allowed. I didn’t even want to ask about ice cream.

Chocolate milk can now be served only one day a week, and the same with juice. Popcorn can be served but with no butter or seasoning of any kind. She says the kids refuse to eat it. Gee, I wonder why.

As a former trainer of child care providers in Family Child Care Homes and Day Care Centers, I was surprised. Why the drastic changes?

And what’s this about serving only skim milk or 1% milk? Milk that has a 1% or 2% fat content should be adequate. And no cereal except shredded wheat and similar cereals?

I forgot to ask her about Cheerios, long recommended for little ones yet very high in sugar as healthy snacks go. Why not include puffed rice? It’s sweet enough without all that added sugar.

It seems like regulations go from one extreme to another. For decades, schools pushed sodas and vending machine snacks, even had contracts with the soft drink companies, and now juices are condemned as if they were in the same category.

Vegetables are healthy when prepared in healthy ways, but they aren’t the only healthy foods. There are fruits like plums and bananas; apples with peanut butter make a great snack–if peanut butter’s still allowed.

And what about mini-smoothies? Mix equal parts of apple juice, pineapple juice, orange juice and water. You can use two juices but apple juice should be in the mix.

A scoop of whey protein powder, add a banana and it’s better than a milk shake. It’s healthier too, even if you leave out the protein powder.

An amazing number of children like yogurt and their digestive systems would certainly benefit from all that friendly bacteria.

Celery sticks are very good with peanut butter or a cheese spread. Frozen peaches are a great snack as are melon cubes. There are all sorts of healthy and delicious crackers on supermarket shelves.

The truth is, with some imagination and initiative, plus a little input from your audience, you can come up with some very delicious, nutritious, and economical snacks.

Recommended for children of all ages.

Subsidizing Processed Food=Subsidizing Food Addiction

Feb10

I read a great article this week by Mark Bittman, author of the Minimalist food column in the New York Times. The article, A Food Manifesto, appeared in my hometown newspaper, The St. Petersburg Times.

Mr. Bittman offered some suggestions that would, as he put it, “make the growing, preparation and consumption of food healthier, saner, more productive, less damaging and more enduring”.

Among the suggestions he offered, all of which I support wholeheartedly, was one to end government subsidies to processed food.

I immediately thought about how these foods contribute to obesity, poor eating habits and poor health in general, and food addictions.

So why does the government subsidize them and instead focusing on real food, one of the other suggestions listed in the article?

In backing the marketers of junk food, is the government not also supporting poor eating habits, food addictions, and obesity? It may  sound sinister, but you can’t have it both ways.

Maybe it’s time to educate ourselves on what goes on behind the scenes of our food supply. It might help connect the dots and make the big picture a whole lot clearer.

Anyone who has ever struggled with a food addiction or emotional eating problem, or is clinically obese, has Type II Diabetes or any of the other myriad ailments that processed foods promote knows just how serious this situation has become.

Even if Americans can’t agree on foreign policy, guns, or abortion, maybe we should unite on this one. Our food supply is one of our most precious resources and we need to speak out about it.