Tag Archive | Food Addiction

When You’re Ready to Leave Your Addiction Behind

Feb15

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.

It’s Never Too Late to Be Great!

Walk Away From Fat

Feb14

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.

It’s Never Too Late to Be Great!

Sleep Deprivation Plays a Role in Food Addiction

Feb12

Why is it so hard for women to lose weight, and so easy to gain “emotional weight”? Well, it has a lot to do with hormones. And sleep.

If you don’t get enough sleep, you will have a problem with two very important hormores: Leptin and Ghrelin.

Leptin makes you feel satisfied. It’s the shutoff valve that tells your brain you’re not hungry anymore. Ghrelin, on the other hand, stimulates hunger.

Our physical bodies live on energy. When the body is hungry, it needs food. Food gives energy. When the body is tired, it needs sleep. Sleep gives energy, too.

Sleep allows the body to recuperate from the stress of the day. When you go for days without sufficient sleep, hormones become imbalanced and brain signals get mixed up.

The body needs energy, plain and simple. Sleep deprivation, the prolonged absence of deep healing sleep, puts an incredible amount of strain on the body.

Energy is in motion all the time, inflow and outflow. If the body can’t get the energy it needs from one source, it will get it from another.

When you have too much Ghrelin in your system due to a consistent lack of sleep, you will feel real hunger and crave food, while not being able to satisfy your appetite, no matter how much you eat.

That’s because the body doesn’t want food. It wants sleep.

There are hormones in your body you probably have never heard of. When our hormones are all in balance, there are no blood sugar problems, no hunger, no stress, no food addictions, and no destructive emotions.

Nothing takes the place of sleep. No anxiety drug will do the trick, and it doesn’t matter if “it’s not your fault”. It’s not anybody’s fault, It’s just how things work.

You need the energy you get from sleep, and lowering your Ghrelin levels will help you lose fat and maintain a healthier lifestyle.

Recently, I have begun to stop evaluating my day at night. Instead, I evaluate it the following morning when I am much clearer and more prepared to take action, rather than allowing the process to disturb my sleep.

I practice recognizing when I am tired. As bedtime nears, the moment I feel tired, I close up whatever I am doing, run a hot bath and prepare for bed.

This small ritual has allowed me to sleep for five and sometimes even six uninterrupted hours on some nights–not every night, but more often than before.

My health is improving and the fat is gradually disappearing. It kind of gives the phrase, “sleeping it off” a whole new meaning.

It’s Never Too Late to Be Great!

Stress is a Food Addict’s Worst Nightmare

Feb11

Stress is what gets a food addict going. Plain and simple. That’s what emotional eating is all about. That’s how you get hooked. That’s how you get fat.

Getting fat makes you more stressed and so you eat as a coping mechanism. The stress gets worse as you lie to yourself about how much better you feel and tell yourself that things will be better now that you are calm.

But they aren’t. And they never will be until you learn to let go. Learn to let things be what they are, no matter what that may be. And learn that you don’t need to control everything to make your life work.

Food addictions aren’t like drug addictions and other types of addictions. You get second chances and third chances. In fact, you get chances all the time to get over your addiction. You can make friends with food. You can never make friends with drugs or alcohol, or sex if you allow it to control your life.

That’s what an addiction does. It controls your life. With a food addiction, you can take back control. You don’t need pills. You may need therapy.

You definitely need love , especially self-love, and support from people who accept you for who you are but allow you to change and are willing to be uncomfortable while you do it.

Food addictions and emotional eating–they are coping mechanisms, that’s all. When you learn to cope in other ways, you won’t need to stuff down your feelings with junk food.

You will respect your body because it is where the Authentic You lives, and you when respect yourself, you take care of You. Only then will others respect you.

What do you want the outcome of your life to be? For today? For this week? For this month? For this year?

Who do you want you to be? That’s all you have to think about. Not what others think you should do. Not what they approve of or don’t. Your life is about you. You are the star of your life.

Stress will always be present in good forms and not so good forms. Change is uncomfortable but it moves us forward.

Whatever you need to reach your goal or achieve the outcome you desire, be it short term or long term, the Universe will give you the resources to get there.

Your best life is one big leap of faith. Sometimes we make it to the other side and sometimes we don’t. But it’s nothing to be afraid of. Things have a way of working out.

Take the leap. Follow your heart. You’ll find that your stress will fall away and joy will creep back into your heart.

And you won’t crave food. You’ll crave life.

It’s never too late to be great.