Stress is such a tough opponent and it gets tougher as we get older, especially for those of us who already have a problem with food addiction or emotional eating in general.
Stress can not only make us eat uncontrollably. It can change our metabolism in such a way that it’s even harder to lose the weight.
Here is a video I found on YouTube that has some great information about metabolism and stress. I hope you enjoy it.
Stress is everywhere in our lives today. The digital age has us moving at the speed of light with our bodies trying desperately to keep up.
Growing up, I hardly remember hearing about stress. In fact, women were thought to have it so easy that for decades we were not even considered to be at risk for things like heart attack. What did we have to be stressed about? What, indeed?
The cost of going to a doctor has risen to the point that many will not seek medical help unless they believe they are dying. Fear is a big motivator.
And why should they go to the doctor when they can go to a local drugstore and get pills for just about anything? They take the pills and if the symptoms subside, they’re happy.
Food addicts self-medicate too. When you are lonely or feeling depressed, the stress of that loneliness or depression might send you off frantically in the direction of the refrigerator or a nearby store.
While food addicts sometimes have a stash, it’s not like the person who hides the bottle of Scotch in the clothes hamper.
Sometimes we have only healthy food in the house. When stress strikes, we might have to go out and buy something less healthy.
The stress of the moment and the use of food as a coping mechanism are joined but not in a planned way.
Like other addictions, no one wakes up in the morning and says, “I think I’ll be an addict today”. Stress makes it happen.
Unbridled, uncontrollable stress–even if it’s just for a short time–is the driving force behind self-medicating with food. You self-medicate long enough and you become an addict.
You break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend, you stress, you eat. The experience causes you to recall similar emotional predicaments and you feel like a real loser. You eat some more.
“Why does this always happen to me”? More crying, more stress, more eating. Sometimes you have to eat a lot before the feelings of loss, anger, failure, worthlessness, depression, and so on, disappear. They do eventually disappear and you stop eating.
That’s how it is for the person with a food addiction. It’s better than some things, or so we tell ourselves, but it isn’t really.
Eventually, it would be nice if our hearts would heal and the symptoms would go away.
“Self-medicating” is a label that somehow makes stuffing down our feelings with food okay because it has a name and therefore a legitimacy.
Unfortunately, it’s just a mental stopover on the journey to uncovering the source of the problem that put you on the path to food addiction in the first place.
Once you can identify that starting point, you can embrace self-discovery and learn to let things be what they are.
You will be able to release yourself from the stress of the past and there will be no further reason to self-medicate with food.
One of the real challenges in the fight to overcome an addiction is leaving your old life behind.
Food addiction, drug addiction and alcohol addiction have one thing in common. You have to leave a big part of your former self behind in order to move through your addiction and get on with your life.
I don’t drink except for a sip of Newcastle Brown Ale every now and then, and I have never “done drugs”. Getting drunk or high never appealed to me.
My parents didn’t drink or smoke or do drugs. Maybe that had something to do with it.
When I was growing up, there were lots of jokes about drunks and Jesus, people walking into a bar or driving off the side of the road. Every comedian told jokes about drunks.
No one joked about drugs but they weren’t popular then, and of course, alcohol wasn’t really perceived as a real drug.
I laughed along with everyone else when my brother did an imitation of our banker who we saw inebriated on more than one occasion. The impression was so hilarious and true to life that I would laugh until I cried. Forty years later, it’s not so funny.
I don’t know any jokes about drugs or drug addicts. Lots of things that seem funny when you are under the influence lose their comedic value when you live sober.
Why can’t there be a place where you can go and specific things you can do to end your addiction once and for all? Then you could just leave your addiction behind, walk away and never look back. If only.
I can’t compare my food addiction to the horror of a drug or alcohol addiction, but I can see some parallels. As I move forward spiritually in my life, it becomes more and more necessary to leave people from my past behind. If you want to leave your addiction behind, that’s part of the deal.
When you make the commitment to begin recovering from your addiction, you have to give up the life that went with it.
You can’t go out with your former drinking buddies. When you do, you feel bad because there is nothing to say. You don’t fit in anymore.
I imagine it’s the same with the people you used to get high with. I can’t go out with some of the people whose company I used to enjoy. When I’m around them, I eat things that defeat my efforts to live healthy.
Being around them makes me want to eat. It makes me become that person whom I no longer wish to be. I am becoming someone else now and I like this me better. They don’t.
If I put myself in stressful situations, I know I will respond with food if I seek support from certain people.
Even though I have to leave my food addiction behind every day, it will continue to pop up. Sometimes I will win and other times I may not. Recovery is ongoing. I’ve learned to be okay with that.
If change is to occur, however, I cannot surround myself with people who will not allow me to change, no matter how much they love me or I them.
If your support team makes you want to overeat, get drunk, or get high, you have to leave them behind. That’s the only way you will be able to leave your addiction behind.
Do what you have to do. Make new healthier friends. Move on. Don’t ever give up.
Sometimes you just have to walk away. Easy to say, hard to do. Many if not most food addicts are fat. The problem with that is that we have a hard time walking away from food.
You have a food addiction, you get stressed, you get upset, and you eat. There is no walking away from food when you’re a food addict. If you could do that, food addiction wouldn’t be a problem.
Still, that doesn’t mean you can’t fight the good fight against fat, one of the “side effects” of food addiction. And you can walk away from fat.
In fact, walking is the easiest way to take off those extra pounds. I don’t mean speed walking or pounding the pavement so hard that you fall to the ground grabbing your gut after 30 seconds.
I mean easy, slow at first, constant paced walking while breathing in through your nose for four steps–it makes your stomach stick out when you do it–and out through your mouth for two steps–you’ll feel your stomach tighten. It’s a good feeling.
Don’t worry about how many calories you are burning. Just walk, and focus on your breathing.
Walk every day if you can. If you can’t walk outside, use a treadmill if possible. Most of all, be consistent so walking will become a habit.
Start with five or ten minutes if that’s all you can do. Don’t overdo, especially at first. You want your daily walk to become a habit so you will do it every day.
Start small and work your way up to 45 minutes or an hour. That’s all it takes, but if you want the best results, you have to do it every day.
Not to worry, though, because as your body gets used to this new invigorating activity, you will feel better, sleep better, and have more energy. Pretty soon, you’ll want to walk every day.
Measure your progress in inches, not pounds. You will be amazed at how this simple activity, when done consistently and thoughtfully, will change your life.
Walking is great for coping with stress, and when you breathe properly, walking will be an aerobic activity which burns fat rather than an anaerobic activity which burns sugar.
You want to burn fat. So lace up your most comfortable and supportive athletic shoes and hit the road.