Weight Loss Information |
Possible Pitfalls
There are as many reasons you've given yourself to eat as there are minutes in a day. Storm clouds do it for me. They trigger a memory from when I lived in Florida and went deep-sea fishing in Key West. When a squall was imminent, we'd pull our boat into a nearby atoll and wait out the storm while eating fresh fish sandwiches and drinking cold beer. Sandwiches are finger foods, which I now steer clear of, and I don't drink beer anymore, but the smell of a rainstorm can be a powerful pitfall for me. I don't act on it, but the memory is a tantalizing trigger, nevertheless. A splash of red wine on white pants may not trigger an overeating episode nor will the car not starting, a flat tire, and your cell phone losing a signal at 4:58 p.m. when you must reach someone before 5:00 p.m. But these things have a cumulative effect, and all the mini-annoyances have the potential of becoming maxi-eating responses by the end of the day. You might stumble because you saw your favorite dessert on a restaurant menu. Or a celebration may convert a tentative no to an emphatic yes as soon as you hear a champagne cork pop from a bottle. "I could resist anything but temptation," said Oscar Wilde. Consider the reasons you're tempted to eat. Highlight or circle the ones to which you respond. There are many and they are varied. Do you eat because you're hungry? Do you even know what hunger is? Or are you eating because you're lonely, tired, angry, or bored? Think of all the reasons you eat that have nothing to do with hunger. Perhaps you eat because you're up: it's your birthday, my birthday, our anniversary, or Groundhog's Day; or because you're down: sad, or grieving. You might eat because it's there, or someone else is eating so why not you? Is food easily available in your office, your home? Do you eat in your car? Are you eating because of good news? Bad news? No news? One man said he eats during the news. You might find yourself eating some foods because they came with a restaurant dinner or others because they came free with your airplane ticket or hotel room. There's bread on the table in a restaurant, peanuts on the plane, chocolates on your pillow, and you think: I'll never pass this way again. To some, food is seen as a reward: I've been so good all day. I didn't have breakfast. I didn't have lunch. I'll just have this side of beef for dinner. Of course, if you're feeling stuffed, bloated, and not so good about yourself, then overeating is not a reward. It is a punishment. When a young woman used the excuse that she overate prior to going to the ballet, I asked, did you dance? Unless she was dancing on that stage, she ate too much for dinner. She ate more than she was able to burn. For many, food has become a socially acceptable drug. It seems to numb the tensions and stresses of your life. Perhaps you use food to stuff down feelings and thoughts you don't want to feel or think or to escape. Do you eat when you're frustrated, disappointed, or angry? One fellow told me he knocked off a box of cookies and a pint of ice cream when the courts awarded his ex-wife a big divorce settlement. I wanted to know if she had returned the alimony check when she realized he was hurting himself. Although eating doesn't change the outcome of anything but your waistline and self-esteem, you might still be eating to cheer yourself up when you're down. Or not to feel so alone when you're without company. Or to socialize: you don't want to be left out. You might continue eating even though your clothes are too tight and you're huffing and puffing when you walk. That is part of addiction: you continue doing what you do even though there are negative consequences. Perhaps you eat because you're bored or have to fill unstructured time, such as evenings and weekends, or because you experience family, business, money, or peer-group pressure: ("Come on. We're all going for pizza and we want you to come.") You don't want to be left out. You might use food to avoid intimacy or sex. Perhaps you use food to avoid nurturing or being nurtured. You are procrastinating: ("I'll have lunch first and then work on that report.") You might eat during food preparation and put-away. Perhaps because once you start you can't stop. You might think, what the hell, I blew it anyway. Maybe food is used as a reward because you did something wonderful, or a punishment because you already overate and figure What the hell, it won't make a difference. When you smell the coffee in your office or the popcorn in a movie, or fresh donuts in a bakery, do you queue up? Do you use food as a meal extender? You're having such a nice time and don't want the evening to end so you order another cup of coffee, a cocktail, a dessert. You're entertaining guests. There is an abundance of extra food and all those leftovers. Going home to family is tricky for some. You may feel guilty that your family and friends have been cooking since last Thursday, and you have to taste (and comment on) everything that is offered. Does the cook get offended if you don't have seconds and thirds? We eat differently when we are in the company of two people, three people, four people, more people. A recent study said that people who eat with six or more other people consume a whopping 78% more than they would if they ate alone. The more people there are, the more food is offered. The longer food remains on the table, the longer you're tempted to eat. Are you too tired to cook so you pick pick pick and convince yourself you didn't eat anything? A point to remember: If it's not water, it's food. And this, too: If you swallowed it, you ate it. It all adds up. Whether you overeat because of genetics, ethnicity, religion, circumstance, or emotion doesn't matter. Perhaps you eat for some of these reasons or all of these reasons. Each person gets into the habit of using food inappropriately by eating for reasons you tell yourself it's okay to eat, even if you're not hungry. Having followed these habits for such a long time - sometimes decades - they've become involuntary conditioned responses. Just as Pavlov's dogs, when a stimulus appears, can a yes, thank you, be far behind? The intelligent you, thinks you shouldn't be doing what you're doing, but you can't stop. That's the sneaky part of the addiction - as if making up your mind will do the trick when it never has before. This might be the moment to make a list of the reasons you eat. Put down the breadstick and get a pencil. After seeing my list, a middle-aged woman said to me, "According to your program, I haven't been hungry since 1963." She was correct. She and you may have misidentified these situations, circumstances, and emotions as hunger for such a long time, you've lost your innate ability to identify this most basic of feelings. If you're trying to satisfy a physical hunger, your body doesn't require a great deal of food. If you're trying to fill an emotional hunger, you could back up a truck full of food to your home or office, and it would never, ever, contain enough food. "Okay guys, put the Mallomars in the cabinet, the Häagen-Dazs in the freezer. The Twinkerdoodles go on the bed." If you become so overwhelmed, confused and paralyzed with not knowing what to do about this multi-faceted, many-layered topic of weight control that you can't stop eating once you start, chances are you do nothing. If hungry, you need to nourish the body. If, along the way, it also tastes good, looks good, and smells good, you've got a bonus. But you shouldn't be eating because it looks, smells, and tastes good. Almost everything fits that criteria. If you're thirsty, drink water. If you're responding to one of the above stimuli, change habits by creating new and constructive responses to replace your old and destructive ones. This is called repatterning. I might have missed one of your Possible Pitfalls, but you get the idea. Add yours if it's not here. Observe how you eat when you're up or down, alone or with friends. We even eat differently with men, differently with women, and another way with children. These pitfalls might be because of emotions, circumstances, or just because it's there or you're there, in the neighborhood where your favorite something is prepared as nowhere else in the world! Pitfalls can be any of these things or all of these things. None of the Pitfalls I've described above are hunger. And if it's not hunger, it's not a reason to eat. What are your Possible Pitfalls? About The Author This article is an excerpt from the book Conquer Your Food Addiction published by Simon and Schuster. Caryl Ehrlich, the author, also teaches The Caryl Ehrlich Program, a one-on-one behavioral approach to weight loss in New York City. Visit her at http://www.ConquerFood.com to know more about weight loss and keep it off without diet, deprivation, props, or pills.
MORE RESOURCES: Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting |
RELATED ARTICLES
Zone Diet Weight Loss Program The Zone Diet as a weight loss program has been discussed in detail by Dr. Barry Sears in his book The Zone: Revolutionary Life Plan to Put Your Body in Total Balance for Permanent Weight Loss. Body Dysmorphia: Mind Games After Gastric Bypass Surgery Maybe you've heard about body dysmorphia - it's a mental image many victims of anorexia nervosa have that tells them they look fat, even when they are emaciated. Bariatric patients can suffer from body dysmorphia as well. Weight Loss Issues - Can You Be Cellulite Free? One thing I really must say at the outset of this article is, that if you were to ask the majority of men to define cellulite they would most probably be completely baffled.Then after you explained it to them in detail and told them that you suffered from it, more likely than not the reaction would be to look at you as if you were slightly mad, shrug their shoulders and say that they had actually never noticed it. America Health Watch America loves fast food. Last year, consumers spent billions of dollars on the hamburger industry alone. Diet and Exercise Evolution: Adaptation (part I) -- Theory Adaptation is the most important concept I teach. The human body adapts to the pressures it is put under with the goal of prolonging life. On-line Weight Watchers Diet Helper for Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and Mobile Phones At the beginning of December, WeightWatchers.com announced the release of an application for Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and PDA mobile phones. Common Sense Exercise: Weight Loss Solutions for the Common Man or Woman Diet and Exercise. They are the inseparable twins that are seen and heard everywhere. Unearth the Weight Loss Values in an Egg At the University of Illinois, a new research found that eating high quality protein such as protein found in eggs can help weight loss. An essential amino acid leucine reduces muscle tissue loss, promotes body fat loss and stabilizes blood glucose levels. Movie Star Weight Loss Secrets - Kathy Smiths Former Personal Trainer Speaks Out! In the early nineties I had the opportunity to work with some of the most famous movie stars in the world. As a manager and personal trainer for Kathy Smith and her health club, I experienced first hand the secrets to the stars. Your Metabolism and Fat Loss If you know someone that has been trying to lose weight and get into shape, you have probably heard words such as, "I just eat one meal a day to lose weight" or "I'm afraid if I eat, I'll gain weight" but sadly, this misnomer is why so many people are in the "battle of the bulge". People all over the world still believe that eating breakfast, or even three meals a day will cause them to gain weight. Are Your Co-Workers Making You Fat? Avoiding Unexpected Treats Taming the See Food Eat Food ResponseWhat happens when you're just minding your business and suddenly someone walks by with a delicious looking cake, muffins, or some other goodie you weren't expecting. You weren't hungry a minute ago but now you are suddenly ravenous. Emotional Eating Yesterday, out of the blue, without any foreboding gossip or rumor, the company I work for was taken over by a competitor. All afternoon we sat stunned and unnaturally quiet, trying to absorb what had happened and what it might mean to our future. Where Diets Go Wrong When we discover that we are heavier than we want to be, we have a natural invlination to eat less food. We may skip lunch or eat only a tiny amount of our dinner in the hope that if we eat less our body will burn off some of its fat. 10 Tips for Dining Out There is no doubt about it; Americans are eating in restaurants more often than ever before. In 1970 Americans spent just 26% of their food dollars on restaurant meals. A Startling Fact About Losing Dangerous Belly Fat -- Without Exercise The story broke in the international press on October 4th, 2004. Scientists in Japan announced that laboratory rats lost large amounts of organ fat, and increased muscle strength, when a portion of their diet was replaced by a new fruit extract. Gene's Diet Plan Hot dang! If a few hundred other folks can peddle a plan to help people lose weight, there's no reason I can't jump on the bandwagon too! So, here's my plan. All you need to do is send me a certified check for $495. A Soda a Day: How is it Affecting Your Weight? Many people limit themselves to one soda a day especially those looking for a quick sugar or caffeine boost. However, new research shows that daily soda may be affecting your weight more than you think. The Lost Road of a Failed Gastric Bypass Surgery In 1994, I had a RNY surgery. At 350 lbs and 26 years of age, I felt like my life was over, I felt like my husband and my child would be better off without me. Fighting Cellulite and Winning Cellulite - a word most women are very familiar with. Cellulite is the formation of tiny dimples on the skin, usually appearing on the thighs and your bottom. Dieting? The Real Secret Your Non-Conscious Mind is 98% of your full power.Your Inner Knowing is about 986,743 times more powerful than your non-conscious mind. |
home | site map | contact us |