Archives

Aging and Food Addictions

Nov3

When you think of a person with a food addiction, what do you see in your mind’s eye? Someone, perhaps a girl or young woman, who eats a lot of chips and other snacks, has a weight problem, and doesn’t fit in?

Do you see someone who is in their teens, twenties or thirties who is fat, friendless, and has emotional problems?

Do you always think of a person with a food addiction as female? An obese person? A young person?

If you  search on YouTube for videos about food addiction and emotional eating, you will see that the majority are young women sharing their stories. There are some men too, but mostly women. And most are under 40 years old.

But food addictions don’t magically disappear when a person reaches a certain age. In fact, as I’ve gotten older, it gets more challenging.

The older we get, the more information is stored in our brains, like a hard drive that is never erased. We can hide some of the data, or forget where it’s filed, but it is still there to slow down the machine and inhibit peak performance.

Not all food addicts are obese, although most are overweight. “Safe” weight keeps you from exposing yourself to the circumstances that led to the emotional trauma that resulted in a food addiction.

Maybe it was isolation, sexual or physical abuse, or emotional abuse. Whatever the case, victimization is lurking in the background, always threatening you with embarrassment, humiliation, and loss.

Who wants to go up against that day after day? It’s too depressing to think about. And as you get older, it doesn’t always get better. But it can get better if you’re willing to keep working on it.

Aging works it magic on the human body, and although it may seem to take much away, it gives something to. You get feistier, more courageous, and most of all, more honest.

And that’s the rescue remedy for today. Don’t sugarcoat it any more. Be honest with yourself. Then you can be honest with others.

You may not be able to lose the weight, or maybe you will. You can move. Dance, work in the garden, take a cruise, go for a walk, be a good neighbor, resolve to be happy.

If you’ve been fighting a food addiction most of your life, then you’ve been missing some really great fun. Make up for lost time.

Aging happens. Big deal. Trying to prove to people who don’t care about you that you can be someone you don’t want to be doing stuff you hate to do gets old when you do.

So start living.  Get honest and get real.  Have some fun. It’s your turn now.

Obesity, Food Addiction and Pills

Oct22

I read today where the FDA is close to approving a new obesity medication. Yet another drug to cure all ills. It’s enough to make you sick.

Why not come up with a new way to decrease stress or to have a work schedule that didn’t force you to eat in your car?

Or–here’s one–take a vacation. Is obesity as big a problem in European countries that give their employees six weeks paid vacation a year?

Is food addiction a problem when people get enough sleep, some fun exercise, and enough time to do what they need to do during the day?

Why isn’t there enough time to go to the bathroom more than once or twice in an eight-hour period? Is the work you do at your office so important that you can’t take time out for a 30-minute lunch.

Is food addiction the problem it is because there is simply no way to combat the stress and the health problems, including obesity, that it causes?

Somewhere down the road, food addicts fat and not-so-fat must decide if they want to be healthy or not, happy and energetic or barely able to get through the day without overdoses of caffeine and diet soda.

If drugs really were meant to heal, the body would heal. People would heal. After the healing occurs, why do you still need to take the drugs for the rest of your life.

Experts can call obesity a disease but it is really an out of control lifestyle so filled with stress that no comfort can be found and no boundaries exist. It causes diseases like diabetes which can be “cured” when the pounds drop off and a healthier lifestyle is maintained.

No more pills, please! Let’s let some relaxation back into life, some enjoyment, some connection with the Universe, so we can see our value. We are not what we eat. We are who we are.

Who do you want to be today?

Food Addicts Need Plenty of Rest

Oct4

Going without sleep can seriously impair your ability to ward off the temptations of seasonal candy and social treats.

I’ve been sick from food poisoning the past few days days and I’m not out of the woods yet. Needless to say, I am not thinking of food addictions at the moment.

Rest seems to be the most attractive thing on the menu for the time being.

It’s easy to forget that a simple necessity like sleep can have such a positive effect on one’s health. Sleep can heal so many things, including the negative effects of overeating associated with food addictions.

Stock up on ZZZZZZZ’s and nap when you can. The brain loves it and those hormones that make you want to eat everything in sight are nowhere to be found.

Emotional eaters need to be pampered with non-food warm fuzzies. Sleep is right up there at the top of the list when it comes to results.

So good night, sleep tight, and don’t let the bedbugs bite.