HOW TO FIGHT FOOD ADDICTION?
Introduction
How to fight food addiction? Keeping a daily food diary is the first step towards success. You need to examine your eating activity and make changes accordingly.
The best way to fight food addiction is to pay attention to the location where you often eat. It’s better to dedicate your kitchen as the only area you store food. Develop a change in behavior, set time to sit at the table to eat. Make a daily routine so you get accustomed to eat only in the kitchen.
Don’t Be An Emotional Eater – Manage Your Craving By Seeking Food Addiction Support Group
Most people over eat to fill an emotional void. Always eat at your regular time. You need to question yourself, and see whether you are sad, emotional, stressed, excited, or socializing. A typical emotional eater usually looks for comfort and security through food.
Food and Drug addiction pretty much work the same way. They are both deal in neurotransmitters and the area of the brain according to scientists. If you need help to curb you hanger, have a fruit, a bowl of salad, eat whole grain. If you need more help, contact FAA (Food Addict Anonymous) (Food Addict and Board of Trustee), Member Meetings. Every state has programs available to help people recovery from addiction of any kind.
Pace Your Eating
Most emotional eaters don’t take time to enjoy their meal. They just want to swallow everything very fast, as if their problem is going to go away. Studies have shown that when people take time to chew their food properly, they enjoy it more, and consume less of it.
Eat Less Protein – More Vegetables
Make Meal Plan – Follow A Schedule
Try to keep a consistent meal plan. Eat on time, and don’t skip a meal. Sometimes, people who break their routine tend to over indulge. You do not want to do that. You need to learn to manage your portion size. Replace a portion in your plate with fruits, vegetables or salads. Drink at least 34 to 64 oz of water daily. Every day diet and exercise are the most effective ways to lose weight loss.
It was at the turn of the New Year when I realized I had drastically failed at my weight loss desires. As I wrote my New Year resolutions for 2020. As I debated whether to still include weight loss in my New Year targets, I set out to find out the cause of my weight gain. It was of course food addiction. As the saying goes, the forbidden fruit is always the sweetest.
Today, I am proud to say that I have lost nearly 50 pounds and counting. I target to lose 100 pounds by the end of the year. Below are tips of what has worked for me in the fight against food addiction. Keep track and don’t deviate. Having a strong discipline will help you realized your potential.
Indiscipline is the Enemy Of Progress
Make your plate as colorful as you can. Separate your plate in 4 quadrants. Double on your Salad or fruit and the other quadrant for a small piece of protein, no bigger than your fist. Most Diet programs required you to drink 64 Oz of water daily. It’s a lot of water, but they want you to get hydrated and plenty of sleep.
1. Be Honest with Yourself, Fight the Cravings, and Say No!
How exactly do you view your body, and who do you compare yourself to? Sometimes I would look at Victoria’s secrets models and pump myself with self-motivation clips believing that anything was possible. The enormous pressure I put on myself was a constant source of failure and depression. I would throw in the towel, halfway through the process, and as if to compensate, overindulge in reckless eating habits that were quite pleasurable at the time.
Food was always a source of comfort and happiness. As the experts say, just like cocaine and heroin, sweet foods activate the same neurotransmitters that activate hormones such as dopamine. Therefore, there are certain emotions and pleasures we derive from eating junk food.
Stop Looking For Excuses, Addiction Can Be Avoided, And Corrected!
It is better to replace bad foods with healthier versions such as organic smoothies and fresh fruit juices. This way, you may not drastically change your eating regime, but you will be eating a more healthy meal that is beneficial rather than destructive to your system.
It is also beneficial to self-evaluate and find out what exact emotions lead you to indulge in junk food. Emotions such as lack of self-worth can cause one to turn to junk food. You need to find alternative ways to deal with these emotions. Activities such as exercise, listening to your favorite music, can help you deal with these emotions and steer you away from junk food.
2. Identify Social And Environmental Factors That Influence Eating Habits
Some environmental factors can influence your decisions. Social gatherings and parties where a lot of junk food is served may leave you with little choice. Sometimes social groups can cause anxiety to you and make you nurse yourself with the junk food readily available.
You can avoid these social gatherings in totality, but a less extreme measure would be to eat something healthy beforehand. Getting to the events already full can lessen your appetite to eat. Also, communicating with your friends and family on what you are trying to achieve can make them help you alleviate the burden by agreeing to choose activities that involve less indulging in junk food such as walking in the park.
3. Make a Plan
A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Therefore, now that you have decided to do something about your food addiction, choose one action you will take today to change your eating habits. It does not have to be a big step. You can select baby steps such as including one or two servings of vegetables or fruits a day.
With time you can improve on these steps by adding more to your routine. It is important to make a plan that is realistic and one that can be modified. If your program is too rigid, you may end up getting discouraged. You can include cheat days and modify the plan to fit your schedule.
4. Manage Your Expectations – Watch this Video
Be kind to yourself. Getting rid of a habit and trying to set a new one is not easy. So don’t be too hard on yourself with self-criticism and disappointments. You can always start over. If you fail try again. That is what life is about. Keep trying until you succeed. Avoid recording or checking weight loss numbers every day. It may give you a sense of slow progress or no progress at all. Stick to the routine and only check the numbers after say a week where improvement might be realistic and relevant.
Identify unhelpful people and block their influence over your regime. Involve helpful friends to help you stick to your schedule.
Of importance is that you remember to reward yourself for small victories along the way. Once you complete a week of your regime, treat yourself to a massage or whatever other pleasures you enjoy. This should keep you motivated to stay the course.
Do not forget to invest in other areas of your life, such as studying or relationships. Remember, there is more to you than just an eating disorder. So do not get so consumed by your regime to fight against food addiction that you forget other aspects of your life. These aspects can be a welcome distraction to your routine.
5. Seek Professional Advice To Treat Food Addiction
Food addiction is a common disorder that many scientists believe is a result of depression, mental health, low self-esteem, and poor decision making. Studies have proven that such behaviors can be controlled, managed, redirected in the right direction if treated properly. It is quite beneficial to consult a nutritionist or a Doctor to ensure you get the appropriate treatment.
Consulting an expert can help you do the right things rather than shoot in the dark, following a routine that is probably not beneficial to you. Experts can help you remain accountable for your routine and offer therapy in difficult times.
Emotional Eaters Do Not Care About Portion Control!
Getting experienced is a practical knowledge acquired to achieve greatness. If you learn to change your brain to think and make a better decision, it would help you get a better relationship with yourself and with others.
This is what helps me cope with my food addiction, I started experimenting with meditation, exercise, and Paleo Diet. I discovered a brand new me full of energy, a brand new life full of happiness, and a life of empathy to connect with other people.
Food addiction is comparable to drug addiction. If we treat it as such, then it will lead to a lot more acceptance in our society. Resources will then be directed towards research and development of treatment against this disorder.
As long as we continue to create a stigma around this disorder, then its treatment will remain an illusion, and more people will continue to suffer from it as mental illness. Best advice is to follow a proper and nutritional diet.
Recipe
Ingredients
- Chicken couscous.
- olive oil 1 teaspoon
- onion one chopped
- chicken breast 200 gram
- Ginger a pinch
- how is the spice to tbsp
- dry apricot 10
- chickpeas to 20 gram
- couscous 200 gram
- chicken stacks 200ml
- coriander handful
Instructions
Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan and cook the onion for one to two minutes just until softened. Add the chicken and fry it for 7 to 10 minutes until cooked through and the onions have turned golden. Grate over the ginger, stir through the harissa to coat everything and cook it for one more minute.
Tip in the apricots, chickpeas and couscous, then pour over the stock and stir once. Cover with a lid or tightly cover the pan with foils and leave for about 5 minutes until the couscous has soaked up all the stocks and is soft. Fluff up the couscous with a fork and scatter over the coriander to serve. Serve with extra harissa if you like.
Bad Behavior Can Lead You Into Trouble
If you want to live a longer and better life, you need to take steps to control things that can harm you. Bad eating habits, heavy drinking, and cigarette smoking are hazardous to your wellbeing, a change in behavior can solve the foreseeable problem in the future. Control can help you prevent unnecessary and unwanted results. So think of the consequences before you decide to act on it. Food addiction can be corrected, it is not a one size fits all. As the speaker says in the lecture ” It is not what you choose in life, is what don’t choose”.