Overcoming Food Addictions

TO OVERCOME FOOD ADDICTIONS, BAD HABITS, AND COMPULSIVE EATING

To start getting weight under control, most people must have two tools:  First, a strategy that works for them, and second, accountability.  No one strategy works for everyone.  We and our lives are all too different.  The following strategy has worked for many, many people: 

ONE REALLY GOOD STRATEGY WE RECOMMEND:  Eating 100 calories-per-hour of simple, whole, healthy food throughout the day.  If a person starts at 7:00 A.M. and eats approximately 100 calories-per-hour and stops eating at 6:00 P.M., she/he will have eaten about 1200 calories that day.  This is a good amount of calories for most women to start with.  If they eat a variety of mostly whole vegetables, fruit, whole grains, nuts, and seeds, they will get enough nutrition to thrive.  To lose weight, some women can eat a few more, and some a little less.  Men can usually eat a few more than this, though most men can get adequate nutrition on 1200 calories. 

These recommendations are only a stating place.  Everyone is different.  Early in the process, it’s a good idea to find your break even point.  Your break-even point will be a combination of your weight, age, percent body fat, the amount of exercise you get, and other factors that makeup your metabolism.  A rule of thumb is that your break even calories will be around ten times your weight.  An average person who weighs 200 pounds can eat around 2000 calories-per-day and stay even.  If he is very sedentary or has relatively little muscle mass, it will be less.  If she is active and has a lot of muscle, it will be more.  You can increase your metabolism and the number of calories you can eat by doing regular exercise and building muscle mass. 

Calories in, calories out---one way to lower your metabolism is to eat too few calories causing your body to conserve energy and fight against your efforts to lose weight.  The secret to long term success is to find a good place where your body can get adequate nutrition and still shed pounds.  Find an amount where you lose weight fast enough to stay motivated, but not so fast you have to keep lowering the calories you eat.  Our body will change in the process and you will need to make adjustments.

NOTE:  If you have years of bad habits and are used to eating thousands of unhealthy calories every day, it’s not reasonable to think that you will be able to change without being hungry or uncomfortable for a while.  Withdrawal will be the toughest part as you work on these physical and psychological cravings.  Most people who persist find that after the first period, which can last for a few days or weeks, the intense cravings diminish.  For as long as you continue eating healthy, your tastes will continue to evolve.  You will come to enjoy healthy food more and more and lose your desire to eat the unhealthy stuff.  This period of withdrawal is one important reason why most people can’t do it alone. This gets us to the second important tool you will likely need:

  

ACCOUNTABILITY.  Here are some tips that will help.  Alcoholics are instructed to tell a trusted friend of their resolve.  This is good advice for anyone trying to lose weight, too and provides a starting point for accountability. 

Most of us need more than just this minimal support.  Gathering a group of others trying to make similar changes can provide that support.  Our social media sites and website are intended for this purpose, but your changes will come easier if you can get your spouse, kids, friends, relatives, and others close to you on board.  The more, the merrier (easier).  Many succeed all alone, but it’s much more fun and easier if we have some company.

Food addictions and habits can be tough, and so can the fact that we live in a culture so hostile to healthy life styles and eating.  It is perplexing and a little ironic that we show caring, consideration, and love by preparing and giving food that will make our loved ones fat and sick.  We guarantee those we cook for, even our children, a future of obesity and degenerative diseases by giving meals and snacks that will cause obesity, arthritis, heart disease, immune issues, and a host of other degenerative health problems.  Reality is that we live in such a culture, and these cultural patterns can make it a real challenge to live healthy.  The good news is that we can do it.  And we can succeed gracefully and enjoy the changes if we want to.  Daily, we will give you ample support including tools and information to enable you to succeed.

Most can give themselves the best chance of success by hiring a personal trainer.  We can usually recommend some qualified trainers, who will make a real difference and who can adapt a program to your goals and lifestyle. 

For some of us, unhealthy patterns are so entrenched, or we have other health problems such as diabetes, or deep seeded emotional eating issues that sabotage their success.  Don’t be afraid to seek additional help from professional counsellors, which may be the key to getting over the hump.  And of course, everyone should have his or her personal physician in the loop.

MORE ABOUT EATING HEALTHY

Our bodies need thousands of nutrients: vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, calories, micro nutrients, etc…  Some are not fully understood or possibly even discovered yet.  If we are deficient in any of these over a long period, we will develop health problems and diseases such as osteoporosis, arthritis, cancers, heart disease, eye problems, and so forth.  It is not possible to be healthy unless we eat a wide variety of whole foods.  These include vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts, and seeds. Those who say something like, “I don’t eat vegetables” doom themselves to degenerative diseases.  It is not possible to lose weight, keep it off, AND be healthy without a nutrient-rich diet.  One way to tell if a weight loss strategy can succeed long term is to determine whether or not it includes complete nutrition.  This standard excludes virtually all gimmick and fad diets, along with potions and pills.  

On the other hand, too much of anything is also harmful.  Everything we eat in excess creates a problem for our bodies; it must be stored as fat, or filtered out through the kidneys. (Dialysis is a huge growth industry now in America.)  Fat, all by itself is the leading cause of most health problems today.  Toxins stored in fat cause all kinds of health problems including cancers.

And there are some foods we absolutely shouldn’t eat or that we should cut way back on. 

SOME FOODS TO AVOID: 

1. Fried foods are filled with cancer-causing free radicals, have lots of fat, and almost no nutritional benefit. 

2.  Processed foods, including packaged and fast foods are loaded with chemicals and devoid of nutrition.  With heavily processed foods, you get all the sick, lots of cravings, and no nutrition.  Eat whole foods. 

3. Sugar and finely ground flour pack on the calories and have almost zero nutritional benefit.  They also cause inflammation and are behind arthritis, and heart problems. 

4. Most of us eat way too much dairy for good health.  If we are to get enough calcium from dairy to avoid osteoporosis, we are guaranteed hard arteries, heart problems, obesity, and allergies.  We can get more than enough calcium the same way cows do, from eating leafy greens. 

5.  Most of us need to cut way back on meat consumption, especially fatty and processed meats.  Too much meat is linked to heart problems, allergies and immune issues, obesity, arthritis, digestive issues, and cancer.  Research shows risk of the above-mentioned diseases declines as meat consumption declines to a point.  And that point seems to be about one modest helping per week. 

ONE FINAL TIP

We call this the 75% strategy, because most of us can succeed and see miraculous changes by eating 75% healthy.  In fact, for many of us, an all-or-nothing attitude could cause us to fail in the beginning. Concentrate on eating 100 calories-per-hour, get some serious support and accountability and eat 75% healthy.  String a few days of this together and you will see serious weight loss.  Repeat this as needed and a person can make huge changes persisting over time.

This is a good, broad overview that will suffice to get you started.  Much more specific information will be posted o tis site regularly.