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Addicted to Processed Foods?

Apr6

Many of the foods we reach for when we get stressed out are packed with sugars, fats, preservatives,  salt, and myriad other substances, some of which we cannot even pronounce.

Food addicts rarely crave celery, carrots, or broccoli when the triggers click. We are more likely to go for chips, candy, cookies, ice cream, or other snacks that are high in sugar,  fats, and sodium.

Unfortunately, these foods are highly processed and full of additives that may cause a food addict to crave them even after the emotional stress has eased.

Processed foods are readily available. You can grab a package of lunchables, a bag of chips, a package of wings and a soft drink,  a slice of pizza, or a pint of Ben & Jerry’s at a drugstore, gas station, or supermarket at any time of the day or night.

This presents a few problems. For one, you don’t have a lot of time to consider your decision. Fast food, a fast decision. Then there are the aftereffects like gas, bloating, upset stomach, lack of energy.

Food is supposed to give you energy, not take it away, something to consider when making a food choice. All those additives may contribute to your food addiction by affecting hormones in the body.

Overeating prepared foods with lots of fillers, salt, corn syrup, dyes, and MSG (which has many names and can be found in numerous processed food items) can cause bloating and weight gains of as much as 10 pounds overnight.

The best way to avoid overeating junk foods is to prepare your own food, but since many people have gotten spoiled by convenience foods that you just pop in the microwave for a few minutes, another suggestion might be to just cut back.

If you eat packaged foods every day, cut back to twice a week. Cook a meal three times a week and use the leftovers in creative ways for lunches and healthy snacks.

When you buy chips, buy a small package instead of the economy size so when you eat the whole bag, it will be only one or two servings.

Wean yourself off sodas which are usually very in sodium that can cause you to retain fluid and try flavored water or iced tea, or watered down juice.

If you’ve been eating deli foods and other prepared foods for any length of time, it may be hard to go back to regular foods.

Carrots and broccoli don’t have to be smothered in a fatty ranch dressing to give them flavor. They already taste good–well, the jury’s still out on broccoli.

If you think you’re addicted to processed foods, you may be right. Make a pot roast and take a roast beef sandwich to work for lunch. Add a few strawberries or an apple with some cheese.

Treat yourself to a nutrient rich meal that tastes good. You could get used to it. After all, everyone deserves a healthy body.

Losing Weight Shouldn’t Be a Contest

Mar27

Contests are meant to be motivating. They motivate through competition. Consider the size of the viewing audience of shows like The Biggest Loser.

Contests always have winners–and losers.  Contests can be fun, especially if you win the prize, as long as it’s the prize you wanted. And that’s where trying to lose weight in a contest can trip you up.

If you are a food addict or an emotional eater, you probably have put on some extra pounds. That happened to me, and when I was in my thirties I decided to try a popular weight loss system.

The program worked well for me. The packaged food was palatable, and all I had to do was to follow directions and check in for meetings and blood work every couple of weeks.

What I was learning about my body and metabolism was helping me understand myself more, and my food addictions seemed almost non-existent.  And the pounds were coming off.

When I had lost 22 pounds, had my flat stomach back and was feeling on top of the world, my counselor reminded me of something.

One of the incentives to losing those last few pounds was that a member could win back half of their original investment if they could hit the weight goal by a certain time.

I chose a weight that was too low for me but it was a contest and I was sure that the $150 prize would be enough to make my body obey my will. Yeah………..right.

The contest did work for some, I guess. Maybe they weren’t food addicts who overate because of emotional stress. I don’t know.

What I do know is that I wasn’t able to lose those last two pounds because of the pressure I put on myself trying to win that contest, and so I didn’t get the money.

It left me with a sense of shame, and it took much away from the earlier success I felt from feeling so alive. Why could someone else do it and not me? What difference did it make anyway?

I hadn’t figured it out yet when a big blowout with my ex-husband, who frequently made me feel like a loser, sparked a two-week eating binge and that was the end of that.

I did get to enjoy my slimmer figure for a couple of months first, but that contest spoiled my success with the weight loss program.

Once I transferred my attention to the cash prize, I forgot what my goal had been–to learn how to eat so that I could reach and maintain a healthy weight and thus, enjoy my life more.

Motivation is important but when it comes to losing weight, making it a contest might put unnecessary pressure on you to go after something you don’t even really want.

Contests have time limits. Good health does not. It takes a lifetime, and every day you remain alive is another chance to live a better life in the best of health, or at least on the road to it.

Whether you are an emotional eater, a food addict, or just someone who overate too many times or got lazy and stopped being physically active, if you’ve gotten a little too fluffy lately, you might want to take off a few pounds.

The only thing you need to win is your good health. If you have that, you won’t have to worry about your weight or anything else. You will have it all. It really is true.

No contest in the world can promise–or deliver–more than that.

Food Addictions and Additives

Mar18

They don’t make food like they used to. That’s because “they” didn’t make it. We did. Where were the food addictions when food came from a backyard garden or a local farm or meat locker?

Where did we turn when stress set in? There was a choice, and usually it was a physical activity like shooting hoops or taking a walk around the block.

No one went to their room and watched TV or turned up the music or video game. If that were to have happened, you’d get a different kind of exercise like running to escape a possible “whupping” as it was called in the old days.

No one thought of eating to combat stress.  What possible emotional relief could be gained from shoving a bunch of radishes or a couple of ears of corn in your face? Now, if there was ham in the smoke house, that was a different story.

The thing is, when we ate food when I was growing up, it was real food. And maybe that’s why we didn’t see so many food addictions and so much emotional eating. We had real stress but we also had real food.

Added sugars, fats, salt, corn syrup, and all kinds of dyes and preservatives change the nature of food. Those additives may have something to do with food addictions, just as additives in cigarettes have been proved to have addictive properties.

One of the best things a person can do to get off the treadmill of food addiction and emotional eating is to start cooking. Prepare meals that don’t come from a box, bag, or can. Use natural ingredients to concoct your own creative dinner.

In other words, know what is in the food you are eating. And what better way to know than to cook it yourself?

To some, that may sound drastic, and it does take a little more work, but it is definitely worth it. Make some homemade soup with a few chunks of lean beef, a couple of stalks of celery, a can of whole tomatoes–they tend to do well in soups–a couple of onions, a carrot or two chopped up to sweeten the pot, and one or two potatoes cut into chunks.

All you need to season soup is an herb salt like Herb-a-Mare, some fresh ground pepper, and a little Mrs. Dash seasoning. You can add a small amount of balsamic vinegar or wine to enhance the taste, if you like.

If you eat this healthy, delicious soup alternately with whatever else you eat, you will notice a difference in the way you feel.

So, today’s tip is know what’s in your food. Don’t allow someone else to make every food decision for you. When you eat only processed foods, candy, sweets, chips, and heat-and-eat meals, that’s what you’re doing.

Do what you can to cut down on the additives in your food. It may help you to get rid of your food addictions and it will certainly be better for your health.

The Stress Hormone and Obesity

Mar17

You may have heard about Cortisol, the hormone that is associated with the fight or flight response to stress. There are several weight management products that are specifically designed to deal with belly fat caused by Cortisol.

This video talks about a medical condition that causes obesity in some people, even when they have never had a weight problem in the past.