Tag Archive | Panicky Feelings

Pucker Foods for Food Addicts

Jan31

Are you ready to pucker up and kiss some of that emotional overeating, food addiction fat good-bye? Well, these two foods will definitely help you in that department. And they’re good for you, but you probably don’t want to hear that.

Food addicts and over-eaters of all kinds often don’t care if a food is good for you or not–at least not in the addiction state. We just eat whatever is there, as long as it’s very salty or very sweet or very something to match the intense emotions we feel when we eat helplessly.

But hey, we have our sane moments when our emotions are okay. It is in those moments that we have the opportunity to do things that support our body’s needs. It’s a chance you don’t want to pass up.

Lemons and vinegar are two really effective fat-burners and here’s why. They help you get your body out of its acid state  into alkalinity.  That’s when healing takes place. You can’t heal anything in an acid state. When you’re dealing with too many plumped up fat cells, your body is under duress, and it needs to heal.

I have two lemon trees in my back yard. This year, I’m really making the most of them. Lemons are great. I use half a fresh lemon in a glass of iced tea a few times a day. I drink a lot of iced tea. And I use the pink stuff. I confess.

You can squeeze one or two lemons over chicken or fish before you put it in the oven or on the grill. You can also just use a slice of lemon in water if you’re not nuts about the blank flavor of water. It does make a difference in the taste. And your body will thank you for it.

Another great food is vinegar. My favorite is balsamic vinegar. I put it on fish when I bake it and use it in stews and baked beans, as well. Vinegar also takes the acid out of things.

If you use balsamic vinegar on meat and fish when you’re baking it, or even in a pot roast or chili, you will find that you won’t have gas or get heartburn.

There’s no need to stuff yourself with good food. It  defeats the purpose of eating angry panic foods to stuff down your feelings like we do when we are stressed and uncomfortable.

Good food is a treat. And while you may add one of these two liquids for damage control, you’ll love what it does for your food and your body.

If you like baked fish, like New England Scrod or Alaskan Salmon as I do, squeeze a generous amount of fresh lemon juice and balsamic vinegar over your fish before you put it in to bake. You will be amazed at the incredible sauce the combination makes. Of course, it makes any fish taste fabulous.

The combination also works well on sweet red and orange  peppers. Bake the pepper strips until they look like they’ve been fried.

No fat and so delicious, you can eat them as a snack if you bake them long enough. Pay attention to the aroma so you’ll know when to take them out. Imagine eating something that tastes as good as potato chips and doesn’t give you heartburn or gas.

I hope you’ll give it a try. Sometimes little changes in our daily meals can make all the difference in the world.

Can a Food Addict Cheat in Moderation?

Nov19

Everybody knows about eating in moderation, but have you ever heard of cheating in moderation? (I’m talking only about food now.)

I had never even thought about cheating on eating until today. Last night I decided to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies. I was hungry for something sweet, usually the kiss of death for this food addict.

So I made a batch of Toll House cookies. I wasn’t feeling panicky or anything. I just wanted a couple of cookies. Now, it’s all well and good to say to yourself, “I’ll just eat a couple of cookies”, but someone with an addiction of any kind knows that’s not usually how it goes.

And because that’s not usually how it goes, I had never considered being able to do that, eat just a few cookies and then stop.

I had gotten into the habit of abstaining from occasional sweets in order to avoid the addictive behavior that always seemed to follow.

In the past, the avoidance behavior would work for a while but eventually the cravings would be so bad that the stress alone would cause me to eat everything in sight.

Well, I made the cookies and baked just a few. Then I covered the rest of the batter and put it in the refrigerator. I surprised myself by not getting up in the middle of the night with the desire to stuff down the rest of the batch. I felt content, not stressed.

Today, I baked the rest of the cookies, ate two, then carefully packaged the rest and took them to work with me. I put them in our break room with a little note inviting my coworkers to try them.

My friends at work kept coming over to my counter to tell me how delicious the cookies were and to thank me for bringing them in.

The pleasure I got from that experience far outweighed any satisfaction I would have gotten from stuffing my feelings down with food. I got to enjoy the cookies and the feelings.

I cheated on my food addiction and it felt great!

Boredom Can Lead to Emotional Eating

Mar20

While we may not think of boredom as an emotion, it is definitely a feeling. In our busy techno-lives, the way we communicate has changed dramatically.

There is less interaction and more interfacing. The only problem with that is that we’re not computers. We’re people. People need to talk and to see each other face-to-face now and then.

Interpersonal communication can be very gratifying. Friendships fill in the gaps we feel in our own lives. Being with others allows us to enjoy our alone time. That keeps us from getting bored.

Emotional eaters sometimes start out as bored eaters. There’s nothing to do so they eat. If their life feels dull, they choose spicy foods. If things are a bit rocky, they choose smooth foods like ice cream or pudding. There’s a pattern.

Eating when you’re feeling bored can start a person down a tough road. It’s not like a food addiction, and emotional pain or trauma isn’t gnawing at you.

It’s plain old boredom. It’s like turning on the TV for the company. You may not even have any junk food in the house but you start opening and closing the refrigerator or cabinet doors until you find something to eat.

Emotions change when the extra pounds start to make you feel uncomfortable. There’s a kind of nervousness, then anxiety when your clothes don’t fit the same and your friends start to comment.

Panic is next when it isn’t so easy to take off the pounds. The cycle begins, and behold, an emotional eater is born.

Who knows what the turning point will be? You never know until you get there. If you already are an emotional eater or have struggled with food addiction in the past, then boredom can really be the kiss of death.

Boredom makes you numb. You feel like a lump on a log. It’s the feeling of having no feeling. There is no motivation to eat, just an unconscious act of putting food in your mouth.

I know it’s a brand new world where texting rules and reading is considered outdated. I know that friendships tend to be more shallow, more distant, and more fleeting.

No wonder people get bored. Expectations of being entertained constantly, not being able to look into someone’s eyes when you talk with them, not knowing how to spend time with yourself.

It’s funny how everything seems to come back to food. Food is such a big deal nowadays. Sometimes it’s hard to recognize that what we need is not food, but love.

Nourishment is not just for the body. It is for the spirit too. And when boredom sets in, food just doesn’t cut it.

Emotional Eating and Childhood Obesity

Mar13

I have begun to notice more often now how the habits of parents with food addictions and emotional eating problems pass their eating habits along to their children.

It isn’t just the number of obese children and the diseases like diabetes and other serious illnesses that should concern us.

Life can be so much more interesting, adventurous and just plain fun when we are healthy and fit. Here is a video that has important information about childhood obesity. I will be covering this subject often in upcoming blog posts.