So, You think you’re addicted to food? Now what? You have to tame the tiger, ’cause you can’t just walk away from it. As a food addict myself, I can say that trying to eliminate the problem completely, like not eating any sugar or carbs or fat doesn’t work. See the post yesterday. But what does seem to work is:
- Balancing your menu and eating freshly prepared foods, not processed foods. More veggies and fruits. Keep fat to a minimum, but do have some, like olive oil.
- Some people have better luck cutting out sugar and synthetic sugar products (like diet soda) completely from their diet.
- Writing down everything you eat in one journal, and in another journal or in a support group, write or talk about how you are feeling. Track what your trigger emotions are so you can better deal with them. Identifying a problem makes it easier to solve.
- Exercise more, especially when angry or emotional. Exercise helps to re-direct emotions away from food.
- Professional help. There are many emotional issues related to food addiction and therapy is instrumental in breaking through those issues.
As you may know already, I’m losing my weight with Weight Watchers and I find that the plan is the most balanced and realistic in terms of real world interaction with food. Since I had such a disastrous experience with cutting out sugar completely, I am practicing moderation which seems to work. I get cravings, I plan to eat something sweet in a normal portion size and then the craving goes away. I haven’t over-indulged and I am behaving like my thin friends and that is one of my goals. To behave normally around food. Balance is important in life, and I am finding that with WW, I have balance. Therapy is also helpful, more for the emotional issues rather than the actual addiction.
Are you addicted to food? What do you do to handle it?
Losing A Person and Finding Myself - Major Weight-loss Journey 