Tag Archive | Sadness

Sadness and Food Addiction

Apr3

Lately, I’ve met quite a few people who admit that they binge when they get lonely. They aren’t angry. they just don’t want to be alone and so they eat.

But it isn’t just loneliness. It’s sadness. Regardless of what is making you sad–and usually it’s something that’s happened in the past–there is an absent-minded eating pattern going on.

Sadness is depressing. It saps your strength and steals your energy. When your energy is low and you’re a food addict or an  emotional eater,  you probably turn to food.

Yes, food addiction triggers are many and sometimes they surprise you. I wouldn’t have thought of sadness as a trigger, but it is.

One thing I’ve learned is that you have to be in touch with your feelings at all times if you’re going to beat a food addiction.

Stay away from people who make you feel sad, and stay close to those who make you feel good about yourself.

Choose people who accept you as you are so you won’t always be guessing about how to act when you’re around them. The more you can feel comfortable in social situations, the less likely you are to resort to food when sadness sets in.

In other words, don’t worry, be happy.

Food Addiction and Emotions

Dec10

Emotional eating has a number of patterns. The most basic one is a reaction pattern of stuffing down feelings of temporary emotional anguish such as sadness or rejection.

Food addiction adds a wrinkle to the emotional eating pattern. Since every food addict has specific foods that are addictive and specific emotions that trigger the overeating, it is important to understand the underlying causes of the addiction.

The emotional triggers can surface at any time so until the underlying cause is identified and healed, steps must be taken to minimize the risk of overeating at the time of these emotional flareups.

One thing you can do is to make sure these foods are not readily available when the overwhelming hunger strikes. If they are, it may take days to break the overeating cycle.

Emotional eaters tend to eat until the feelings are soothed. A person with a food addiction just keeps eating, beyond discomfort and even to the point of pain. There is no emotion to soothe, just a bottomless pit filled with unidentifiable shame.

Shame is a debilitating emotion, powerfully negative and capable of sending anyone on the verge over the edge. The trigger snaps and we eat until we stop eating.

Of course, the best solution is to work with a therapist as well as participating in self-help programs that help you identify the emotional trauma that “started it all”.

The trouble with shame is that it is both the tormentor and protector. Shame and blame are dark twins who rarely travel alone. Learn how to recognize them.

While sorting it all out, try to keep the “danger foods” out of the house. Make it harder to get to them. No stashes in the pantry or the car, and no eating in the bathroom stall.

Set some ground rules, even if only for one week at a time. If you can follow them for one week, then you can set another time goal.

The important thing is to take some kind of action every day that will move you one step closer to a healthier life for yourself.

Depression and Food Addiction

Nov19

Here we are closing in on the holidays which should be a happy time. Unfortunately, the holiday season can be one of the most depressing times of year, and is for many people.

Why? Loneliness. Isolation. Overindulgence in under-appreciation. Just plain sadness. I know there shouldn’t be periods after these words and phrases. They are not, after all, actual sentences.

And yet they feel like sentences, the kind a judge imposes on you for doing something wrong. Would there be depression without judgment?

For all our technological advances, we are more isolated than ever. And no matter what people say, virtual relationships are virtually impossible. People need to interact, not interface.

No wonder so many people turn to food when they need comforting. Food addicts are born every day out of isolation and neglect. Depression is so common today that many people accept it as a natural part of everyday life.

But depression is the result of long denied feelings, unaddressed emotions, and a chemical imbalance in the body that is often a result of deeply rooted emotional trauma. Once it moves in, depression is hard to evict.

Emotional eating when you are depressed is fuel on the fire. Eating and overeating can become an absent-minded activity. Before you know it, you’re 20, 30, or 40 pounds overweight.

Add panic to emotional eating and you are heading into the food addiction arena. You stuff down the feelings without evening thinking, because depression makes you numb.

What can you do to break the cycle? During the holidays, there are plenty of things to get you out of the house. First, think of someone other than yourself. Doing something for someone else gets your mind off you and your troubles.

As for activities, there’s ice skating, snowboarding, skiing, and football, hiking, visiting friends and family, football, going to Christmas and New Year’s parties, and football.

There are holiday celebrations, church services, Midnight Mass, caroling, winter festivals, and even the beach if you live here in Florida.

Don’t forget all the volunteering positions available, like feeding the homeless, or helping a community service organization deliver meals to people who otherwise would have a Thanksgiving or Christmas Dinner.

Don’t be absent from the joyful activities the holidays have to offer. Just worry about which ones you’re going to take advantage of, and make healthy eating part of the holiday.

It’s a Brand New Day

Oct29

Every day is another opportunity to learn more about yourself. The more we learn about who we are and what makes us tick, the sooner we can escape from the mental anguish that led us into the world of food addiction.

The secret is this: the way in is the way out. Get inside yourself. Notice and take heart with what you learn. Accept and love who you are.

Don’t psychoanalyze yourself. That will only lead to judgments. Judging yourself or trying to justify a problem with emotional or compulsive eating won’t solve it. That only leads to more stress.

Instead, keep a journal. Observe yourself and write it down. Write down your panicky feelings before you eat. It will change the way you respond to the stress that triggers the panic that fuels your food addiction.

Life does not have to be as stressful as most humans tend to make it. We decide how we feel about things. When we feel anger or despair or sadness, we are feeling emotions. Something is making us feel them. What is it? Not why, but what? There is rarely a “why” but always a “what”.

How do you want to respond the next time you feel that way, which you certainly will? If there is a plan in place, you can be prepared the next time you are caught off guard, like a fire drill prepares you for a fire.

Something as simple as writing your feelings down in a journal before acting on them can mean the difference between giving in to your food addiction and walking away. You deserve a chance to choose a brand new day.