Food Addiction

Is FOOD your addiction?

This is Stephanie: She lost 135 lbs in 9 months (She is 5' 9") - the last time she was at this weight, she was 11!  She is off of blood thinners for DVT and just feeling absolutely fabulous! (LEFT) at 280 lbs (and completely addicted to food) and (RIGHT) at 180 lbs (fit and fab and feeling great)!

In today’s society, there is much debate about the right way to get healthy, lose weight, exercise and stay fit. I think we would ALL agree that it’s important to get healthy and stay healthy. In my experience, it’s usually the people that have had very little personal experience with “weight” problems saying, “JUST EAT RIGHT AND EXERCISE, THAT’S ALL YOU NEED”!    Well Duh!    That’s a no-brainer! It doesn’t take a degree or a bunch of fancy initials after your name to know that. So….. If it’s just that easy, then why is America getting more and more unhealthy as time goes on? If it’s that easy, why isn’t everyone doing it and having great success? Why can’t people control what they eat? Why do some people yo-yo diet their entire life? Why do people eat unhealthily and then spend HOURS exercising just to keep it off? Why do people sleep eat, binge eat, or not eat? I believe in this case there are many more questions than answers.

Let me throw something out that might surprise you…….. THEY MIGHT BE ADDICTED TO FOOD!

From our mother’s breast forward, eating fulfills a need and brings satisfaction, nurturing and comfort. As we age, we have the opportunity to explore the pleasures our palate can provide, this enhances the pleasure and mood-altering ability of eating, but that doesn't mean we can’t get this process all fouled up.

The problem occurs when we move from self-nurturing…… to self-indulgence…… to compulsion. When eating becomes compulsive, we really begin to have problems. At this point when difficult feelings present themselves, our urge to eat is stronger than our will to say NO. Even if we have decided to "do better," our decision process is now compromised. We will eat, not because we are hungry or NEED to, but simply because we feel compelled to.

It is a battle we will not win without making some changes. The emotional bond between difficult feelings and food overpowers us and must be extinguished if we want freedom from the compulsion. Since the bond was created over time and has possibly been practiced for many years, it's not a simple process.

The long-term solution is learning to make good food decisions and re-conditioning, but that doesn’t happen instantly and usually can't be accomplished without changes and some help, gotta love health coaches.

Reversing the equation is the goal. We look for things that will raise our will and lower our urge so that we can write the equation as this: The will to say NO is greater than our urge to eat.

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