1. No category

“I’m Great All Day
and Mess Up At
Night”:
Over 195 pages
of tools, ideas,
suggestions
How to Finally Put
an End to
Emotional Eatingjkd
&
Uncontrollable,
Mindless Night
Snacking
and quick tips
to guide you to
the place of
control
By:
Joshua Wayne
http://www.peertrainer.com
“I’m Great All Day
and Mess Up At
Night”:
This information is intended for the sole purpose of participants
in the PEERtrainer Point Of No Return Program. This is not a
substitute for medical advice. Please seek a physician if you have
any questions or need medical advice or attention when starting a
weight loss program.
How to Finally Put
Introduction
6
Part 1:
Understanding Emotional Eating and
Uncontrollable, Mindless Night Snacking
Chapter 1:
A Broad Exploration Of Why We Overeat:
Outlining The Context Of Our World
26
How To Understand Your Emotional
Connection to Food
39
Are You Experiencing Real Hunger
Or Emotional Hunger?
Fine Tuning Your “Hunger Detector"
49
How To Use Nutrition To Fight Food Cravings:
(Fighting Fire With Fire)
53
Chapter 2:
Chapter 3:
Chapter 4:
Part 2:
Breaking the Patterns - The Way Out of Emotional
Eating and Uncontrollable Night Snacking
Chapter 5:
Becoming A Jedi Master At Habit Identification
57
Chapter 6:
Learning To Unlearn
60
Chapter 7:
Becoming The Director In The Movie Of Your Life –
Learning To Yell "Cut!"
62
Chapter 8:
How to Be An Emotional Martial Artist
73
Chapter 9:
Building The Right Support Network For You
77
Chapter 10: Do I Let Go or Confront Head-On?
80
Chapter 11: The Power Of Cleaning Out The Cabinets and
"Creating An Environment of Thin"
85
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Chapter 12: How To Ride Out The Impulse
88
Chapter 13: Developing The Habit Of Changing Your Scenery:
What To Do After You Yell "Cut!"
90
Chapter 14: Stack the Positives
91
Chapter 15: Learn To Receive As Well As You Give
95
Chapter 16: What Can You Learn From What You Already Do Well?
100
Chapter 17: The Power Of The Warrior Mentality
103
Chapter 18: What Does It Really Mean That "I Am Ok As A Person?
What Are You Going To Tell Me That Mr. Rogers Didn't?"
107
Chapter 19: A Powerful Thought From A Famous Greek Guy
110
Chapter 20: A Checklist on How To Stop Eating In The
Middle of a Binge
114
Chapter 21: Being Less Emotional Is Possible: Changing The
Trigger As Well As The Response
116
Chapter 22: Take a Different Route to Work or School
118
Chapter 23: If You Sleep More, Will You Eat Less?
119
Chapter 24: Why You Don't Want to Let Your Snacking Habits
Transfer to Another Area of Your Life
121
Chapter 25: The Link Between Your Sex Life And Emotional Eating
122
Chapter 26: Why Sometimes You Don't Want To "Just Do It"
124
Chapter 27: The Relationship Between TV and Weight
129
Chapter 28: Six Ways To Prevent Relationships From Interfering
with Your Food Choices
132
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Chapter 29: When You Overdo It: Developing Trigger Points
For Very Positive Action
137
Chapter 30: Creating Non-Food Rewards
138
Chapter 31: Using Hydration To Kill Cravings
140
Chapter 32: Are You Endlessly Chasing Stuff That You Don't Have?
142
Chapter 33: A List Of Suggestions From People Who Are
Successfully Dealing With This
145
Part 3: How to Navigate the Toughest Situations: The Emotional
Eating and Mindless Snacking Troubleshooting Guide
Introduction
150
Chapter 34: How Do I Find The Time To Eat Healthy and Exercise?
151
Chapter 35: How Do I Stop Eating After Dinner ?
155
Chapter 36: How Do I Stop My Afternoon Snacking?
163
Chapter 37: I Just Ate A Meal And Now I Want Something Sweet.
What Should I Do?
160
Chapter 38: How Do I Keep the Weight Off During the Holidays?
164
Chapter 39: What If I’m Not Hungry For Breakfast?
166
Chapter 40: Case Study: How to Avoid Late Night Snacking In College
169
Chapter 41: Anti-Snacking Strategies Involving Your Teeth
172
Chapter 42: Controlling PMS Cravings
173
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Chapter 43: I Am Always Hungry! What Do I Do?
175
Chapter 44: I Can’t Stop Snacking!
183
Chapter 45: Vacation Eating
185
Chapter 46: Discussion: Does Anyone Skip Dinner?
190
Conclusion
195
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Introduction
The most important thing to remember is this: To be ready at any moment
to give up what you are for what you might become.
W.E.B. Du Bois
__________________________
This digital guide is going to offer you a way to get your emotional eating and
uncontrollable, mindless night snacking under control once and for all. If you
adopt the ideas and tools we’re going to share with you in these pages, you
really can break free from these frustrating, limiting habits for good.
We understand his may seem hard to believe if emotional eating and snacking
has been a source of pain and frustration in your life for a long time. Sometimes
we get so used to our disappointment in ourselves that we lose hope that
something different really is possible. If you have these concerns, then please
stop for just a moment and take a deep breath and relax. Maybe even smile if
you can.
You don’t have to feel like a prisoner to these habits any more. Change is
possible.
Even it that seems hard to believe, then we at least ask that you suspend your
disbelief long enough to get into the tools we’re going to share with you in this ebook. We’re very confident that they will make a difference.
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If you give it a little time, this e-book can be like a major spring-cleaning. It will
help you finally clean all of the clothes out of your closet that aren’t really “you”
anymore. It will help you get the junk out of the garage that’s been weighing you
down, and will show you how to finally throw out the old files and “stuff” that
you’ve been holding onto for years “just in case”- but that you know you don’t
need any longer.
So, What Are Emotional Eating and Uncontrollable, Mindless Night
Snacking?
Of course we could come up with many complex - even clinical or "official
sounding" - definitions to describe these behaviors, but we’ve decided to keep in
simple. When we refer to either we mean: those times when you’re eating out
of control; when you don’t have discipline with your own habits and
behaviors.
This of course can show up in many different ways:
•
A “binge” episode you’re home alone at night in front of the fridge or
television and seem to eat everything in sight
•
Or just sitting in front of the TV for hours at a time just mindlessly snacking
on popcorn, ice cream, frozen cookie dough and whatever else you can
find in the pantry or freezer.
•
At a party when you’re nervous and you keep eating to deal with the social
discomfort
•
Getting home at the end of a stressful day at work and “unwinding” with
wine and cheese, which leads to chips, pretzels, cookies and whatever
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else you can get your hands on.
•
Snacking all day at work on the doughnuts and candy in the office kitchen.
•
Finding yourself thinking almost obsessively about food all day long,
planning meals long in advance. In short, feeling that you life revolves
around food.
Maybe you’re continuously drawn to a specific food like the cheesecake that you
know takes you off track yet for whatever reason you can’t quite get yourself to
say no. It also may be pretty hard to stop once you start.
Does this mean that the tiramisu you had on a date last night is emotional
eating? No. Enjoying food and splurging sometimes is a normal and natural
thing. Again, what we’re describing is those times that your eating feels out
of control and your discipline is not intact.
When you do emotionally eat, however, regardless of the specific situation and
what drives you to do it, the end result is the same: you ultimately feel much
worse as a result of what you just put in your mouth. You may feel physically
off or “gross” from eating too much of the wrong foods. And to top it off,
you feel guilty, angry and disappointed in yourself that you did something
again you promised yourself you wouldn’t do - no matter what. You keep
beating yourself up and you become so frustrated that you keep winding up here.
It’s like you get stuck in a maze that you can’t find your way out of. In fact, you
keep finding yourself at the same starting point and wondering “how will I ever
get free of this?”
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©2010 PEERtrainer, Inc
What This Digital Guide Will Do For You
This is a practical guide based on what we have seen work. Through
PEERtrainer.com, we’ve worked with tens of thousands of people starting at
different weights and levels of progress and who are trying many different diets.
These people have included top CEO’s, Hollywood actors, moms, personal
trainers, nurses, insurance adjusters, horse groomers, waitresses on the night
shift, computer programmers, grandfathers and cafeteria worker handing the
lunch trays in middle school. And just about everything in between.
We’ve worked with people who used to be fit athletes that got into a car accident,
had years of pain and couldn’t break through to the other side with their weight
loss. We’ve worked with people who go from the day shift to the night shift with
an hour in between and very few options for healthy eating or exercise.
We’ve found that regardless of one’s background or life-obligations, there is a
remarkable commonality when it comes to emotional eating and how to work
through it: the necessity of learning how to handle difficult emotions and the
stress of life in a healthy and positive way that doesn’t involve turning to
food for comfort, relief or distraction.
This book is here to help guide you to end your emotional eating habits so that
you can finally have the confidence that you are in control throughout your day.
It is designed to help you get to the point where emotional eating no longer has a
stranglehold on you, and food stops being your nemesis. It no longer has to
hold this negative control over you! It is also meant to help you develop a
relationship to food the way it was meant to be: a source of enjoyment and
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energy and daily nourishment. It will teach you how to:
•
Figure out why you emotionally eat and/or snack out of control
•
How to revive your hope that you will change
•
How to handle your stress in a way that does not involve the refrigerator
•
Understand why you’re snacking during certain times and why it feels like
it is out of your control, even when you’ve been “good all day”
•
How to stop using your favorite foods as your only coping mechanism for
getting through life.
•
How to stop judging yourself for all the years you’ve spent overweight
•
Successfully change your emotional eating habits for the rest of your life
How This Digital Guide Works
We’ll be going into “the why” behind your emotional eating so you can
understand the deeper issues that lead to the behavior, but we aren’t going to
stay there. We find that many people almost become addicted to “the why”, as
much as they were addicted to the food. While of course it’s important to help
you figure out personally why this happens, it’s much more important to learn
how to get free of it once and for all. That’s what most of this digital guide will
focus on.
This digital guide is divided into 3 separate parts:
Part 1 will help you understand why you emotionally eat and snack
mindlessly and uncontrollably.
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©2010 PEERtrainer, Inc
Part 2 is all about the tools you need to break these frustrating, limiting
patterns in your life- and more importantly how to create new ones.
Part 3 will talk about the different scenarios where you find yourself out of
control, and will offer specific suggestions on how you can handle them so
you don’t get knocked off track any more.
Throughout the book, you will see quotes and feedback we have collected from
members of PEERtrainer.com who are working hard everyday to improve
themselves. In our writing process we began stumbling across these quotes on
our anonymous community threads, and decided to use them to give real-life
examples to the points we are making. Sometimes we offer our own
commentary as well, and sometimes we just share the member feedback- very
often it speaks loud and clear for itself.
Whether your words can be found in these pages or not, our heartfelt thanks go
out to everybody who has been a part of PEERtrainer. We feel greatly privileged
to have been a part of your journey and success.
Emotional Eating is Not Who You Are
One important theme we will be returning to throughout this book is that
emotional eating is not who you are - it's a problem that you have, and it's a
problem that can be solved. We want you to recognize that you successfully
solve problems in many areas of your life - often on a daily basis. Emotional
eating is no different.
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©2010 PEERtrainer, Inc
Much in the same we have an identity of ourselves as a mother, or a lawyer, or a
Christian, we often make the tragic mistake of thinking that we are an emotional
eater. This is tragic because we allow a behavior- something that we have the
potential to change - to solidify into part of our identity.
Remember high school chemistry class? We learned about the different forms
substances can take: liquids, solids, and gases. Think of your behaviors and
feelings (whether it's jogging, emotional eating, washing the car, or feeling
nervous or sad) as gases. Behaviors and feelings change and fluctuate all the
time, so this is a useful way to think of them. But so often we falsely make them
into solids by saying things like "I am an emotional eater", or "I am anxious".
This becomes a real problem with behaviors like emotional eating (which granted
can be very frustrating and challenging) because we say this to ourselves
repeatedly and we start to adopt it into our identity and self-image. In other
words, we really start to believe it!
But if you really look closely at the situation, what you'll find is that you are not an
emotional eater. Instead, you are a person who sometimes engages in
emotional eating. This is a really important difference, and we wholeheartedly
ask you to start changing the way you think about this problem. You may be a
person who struggles with this behavior - but it is now who you are.
Like we said before, you solve problems all the time. You figure out how to get
your 7 year old son to treat his 4 year old sister better; you figure out how to
handle your co-worker who is very negative and only wants to complain about
her life; you figure out how to adjust your budget so you can get a newer, more
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reliable car, and the list goes on and on.
We want you to start looking at emotional eating in the same light. This is a
problem that you simply haven't figured out how to solve yet. The purpose of this
book is to give you the tools on how to solve it.
The 'faulty thinking' pattern we just described above is what you might refer to as
'generalizing'. In other words, because we emotionally eat sometimes, we
generalize that we are therefore an emotional eater. Before we move on, here is
another not-so-useful thing we often do when it comes to behaviors like
emotional eating that you want to be aware of. This one is called 'deleting',
because you actually delete a lot of important information in your thinking about
the problem.
For instance you may tell yourself, "I always emotionally eat," or "I can't control
my eating." However, if you really look at this closely, you'll realize that this is not
true 100% of the time. You "delete" from your thinking all the times this is not
actually the case. There are times when you don't emotionally eat - say when
you're on vacation and feeling very relaxed and stress-free. Even in the mist of
your regular routine, there are certainly days - or at least parts of days - when
you don't emotionally eat.
This may sound trivial, but it really isn't. It's important to get how important our
"self-talk" about emotional eating really is, because it pervades our thinking all
the time and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We can easily convince
ourselves about something that isn't really true, and then reinforce it day in and
day out.
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©2010 PEERtrainer, Inc
Here is a quick exercise to change your thinking about this problem:
Spend a minute or so identifying how you currently think about your emotional
eating habits. For instance, you might realize that your "self-talk" about
emotional eating sounds like:
•
I am an emotional eater.
•
I can't control my eating.
•
I always emotionally eat.
Now work at reconstructing those sentences in a way that doesn't include the
faulty thinking patterns we just discussed - and let's add some optimism into the
equation for good measure too.
Here are some examples of how we'd rework the thought, "I am an emotional
eater."
•
Sometimes I emotionally eat. It's a behavior I don't particularly like, but I
know I can do something about it. I can change it.
•
Sometimes it's difficult to control my eating. When I get really upset or
stressed, it can be difficult - but I know it's not impossible. In fact,
sometimes I actually do it pretty well. I know I can learn to do better.
•
Sometimes I emotionally eat.
"Decide" To Be Done With Emotional Eating
Here is a very useful question for you to consider: have you truly decided that
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©2010 PEERtrainer, Inc
you're going to stop emotional eating? Have you decided that continuing to use
food for comfort and solace the way that you have in the past is no longer an
option for you?
Many people want to stop emotional eating and lose weight, they talk about it
non-stop and try diet after diet, but they haven’t gotten to the point where they
have truly decided that continuing on in the same way is no longer an option.
It’s interesting to note that the suffix of the word decide is C-I-D-E, which means
“to kill” (think homicide, suicide, genocide, etc). So when you decide to do
something, you are killing, or cutting, off other options.
When you decide that your emotional eating is going to stop with certainty, then
it’s truly just a matter of time because you’re now truly ready to do whatever it
takes to get there.
People often ask, what does ‘whatever it takes’ mean? The answer is simple
(but not always easy): whatever it takes means whatever it takes. There is no
hesitation to do whatever is necessary, because the commitment is fully there. In
a sense you could say that the goal is already achieved, just not yet. It’s only a
matter of time.
Often people want to qualify this notion of doing whatever it takes so it fits within
their comfort zone. They’re willing do whatever it takes as long as they don’t
have to give up their Haagen Daz ice cream, or as long as they don’t have to
give up their pizza night. This doesn’t mean that you absolutely must give those
foods 100% forever, but it does mean you’d have to be willing to. Whatever it
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©2010 PEERtrainer, Inc
takes means whatever it takes to get to your goal - no matter how inconvenient
or counter to your preferences it is.
We recently worked with a client who desperately wanted to get rid of the
nagging 15 pounds of extra fat she was carrying around her midsection. She felt
she just couldn't get rid of it - no matter what she tried. When we explored her
emotional connection to food with her, she swore she had made the decision in
the way we're describing it in this section. She said she was fully committed.
The more we questioned her, however, the more it became clear that when she
had a bad day at work or a fight with her husband she came home and went right
for her chocolate, wine and cheese. She actually had her food choices under
control during many other times of her day, but stress (which she experienced
frequently) automatically meant chocolate, wine and cheese - often in large
quantities.
When we pressed her on the choice she kept making to turn to these foods for
comfort, she almost defensively said, "Well what else am I supposed to do when
it gets difficult? It gets really hard sometimes, and there's nobody I can talk to, so
of course I go for my chocolate, wine and cheese!"
This actually led to a great breakthrough moment for her, because we were able
to help her see that she hadn't yet fully made that decision. What we pointed out
to her was that the comfort she continues to draw from her chocolate, wine and
cheese was directly responsible for that nagging belly fat she thinks she can't get
rid of. As much as she thought she was committed, she really hadn't decided
that the extra fat on her belly was no longer an option. She hadn't "killed off" that
possibility yet.
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©2010 PEERtrainer, Inc
Think of it almost like a math equation:
Comfort in certain foods = Fat in places you don't want it.
Another way of thinking about this is that for this client, the chocolate, wine and
cheese was actually more important to her than getting rid of that 15 pounds
around her waist. This doesn't mean she can never enjoy some chocolate, wine
or cheese again in her life. But what it does mean is that she has to really look at
her relationship to these foods, and recognize how keeping them handy to
provide comfort when things get tough has been more of a priority to her than
actually losing the weight.
Think about that for a second, because it's actually very common. So often we
think our weight loss is a priority, but when you "do the math" it becomes evident
that it often isn't quite so. We inadvertently kid ourselves into believing our
priorities are in order, but when you really look at the choices you make, the
evidence might be a bit different. You might want to take a moment here and
really do an analysis of your priorities up until now.
"Deciding" means having the willingness to look at what's really going on, doing a
genuine analysis of our priorities, and learning better ways to deal with the rough
patches in our daily lives. We will give you many tools for doing this throughout
the book.
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©2010 PEERtrainer, Inc
You’re In Control
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting
to improve the world.
Anne Frank
________________________
Perhaps more than anything else, this book is designed to be an empowerment
tool: to help you feel more in control and realize that you are 100% in
charge of your health, future and life. To an extent, this means you are going
to have to work with the various tools in this book to find what works best for you.
If you try a couple of the tools we share and they work for awhile, but then seem
to lose their effect, please don’t give up! It just means you may have reached a
certain plateau in your learning how to make changes in this area of your life, and
you need to keep working at it. The worst thing you can do is become
discouraged and give up.
Have you ever seen a baby learn how to walk? They usually take a first step,
and then attempt another one before they come crashing to the floor. Then they
try again. Sometimes they take a smaller step and fall. Sometimes they are
successful for a few steps and then fall again. They might look for a table or
outstretched hand to help them along.
Regardless of the pathway to get there, the important thing to understand is
that the baby is committed to the process of learning how to walk. Nothing
deters this commitment. There is no back and forth. No matter what, the baby
will use all the tools and resources available to learn how to walk. And that’s just
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the beginning. Eventually she will run, and climb and keep on going. Could you
imagine if a baby took a few steps, became discouraged and then just sat down
and decided, “walking is just not for me”?
This is same spirit of determination we have to draw on for ourselves.
Regardless of the ups and downs we may experience on our journey, we have to
maintain this level of commitment. It doesn’t matter if you slip up sometimes.
We all do. But what does matter is how you respond to the slip up. Do you
become discouraged and think “what’s the use in trying to change, I can’t do it
anyhow?” Or do you look at your slip-ups as “feedback” in terms of where you
need to work on improvement? This decision- to look at your slip-ups as
feedback vs. failure - is a crucial one.
Remember, often when you feel frustrated it is because you are stuck in the
current patterns, thinking and behaviors that have gotten you to where you are
right now. But consider that in the midst of this there is also a great
opportunity for new learning. By using the tools in this book and opening
yourself to new information, you can transform this frustration into growth to
make a positive change in your life. So start looking your frustration as a good
thing. It is not a sign of failure, it is merely feedback about what hasn’t been
working.
We want you to begin using every tool available, not just in this book, but
in every book, magazine, or inspirational quote or idea you come across as
an outstretched hand available to get you to where you want to go. When
you take on this attitude, you will get there and it’s only a matter of time before
you do.
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The only way you fail is if you give up. This is such an important statement, that
we’re going to say it again: the only way you fail is if you give up. Remain
committed to the process. Your ultimate success will follow this commitment.
Beware of The “Magic Bullet”
So many people are looking for a ‘magic bullet’ solution. What is this magic
bullet? It’s the belief that there must be one single solution out there that is going
to finally make the critical difference for them. They might imagine this ‘magic
bullet is the perfect diet, the perfect exercise regimen, the right pill, the ultimate
motivational insight, and that once they find it all their challenges and frustration
will be resolved.
Do you find yourself doing this? You can usually identify “magic bullet thinking”
because it comes in the form of “If/Then” statements. For example:
•
If I could just afford a personal trainer, then I would have to show up the
gym and I would lose all the weight.
•
If I just had more time, then I would make my breakfast in the morning and
not stop by Starbucks and not eat that apple fritter.
•
If I just had a boyfriend, then I would feel the motivation to lose the weight.
The problem with this magic bullet thinking is this: it’s usually not true. If we
reflect genuinely and look honestly at our past, we typically find that this thinking
just becomes a convenient way to delay our commitment to ourselves and
making the necessary changes.
Also, it’s important that we recognize there is no guarantee that our
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©2010 PEERtrainer, Inc
circumstances will change anytime soon. So, in essence, you need to find a way
to make the changes you want in the current context of your life, or else you
could wind up in the same place 5-10 or even 20 year down the road- still looking
for that magic bullet, and still frustration that it hasn’t shown up yet.
We are going to show you that you can conquer emotional eating and night
snacking within the current situation of your life. You won’t need more money, or
more time, or radically different circumstances. Please understand: there is no
magic bullet outside of yourself. You are the magic bullet. It’s important to
realize that your success is going to come from a collection of tools that you build
and customize for your life over time.
You Know Your Body And Yourself Better Than Anyone
Often we see people devotedly follow a single diet guru, an expert fitness trainer,
their family physician or even their own mother. Of course we would never tell
you not to follow someone’s advice- especially if it really makes sense to you and
is helpful. But we do want to caution you away from buying into a single idea,
philosophy or approach (there’s that darn magic bullet again!) because if it
doesn’t get you to your goal, it can inadvertently lead to discouragement.
For instance, if a fitness trainer tells you that the only way you can get fit is to
workout 5 times a week for 30 minutes at a time, and you are set on the fact that
this person and approach is the magic bullet, you could be setting yourself up for
failure. What if you can only get it in 2 or 3 times per week? Does this mean you
can never lose the weight? Of course not.
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You know your body better than anyone. You know what you get energy from
and what depletes your energy. You also know what’s realistic for your lifestyle.
Take the information that is given to you, test it out and figure out what works
best for you. Maybe it’s easier for you to get in 10 minute walks a few times a
day. Our experience is that the knowledge that will lead to your ultimate success
has to be adapted and customized to fit for you.
Where Is This Digital Guide Designed To Take You: The Point of No Return
One very powerful thing that we have seen happen for people when they are
very consistent with a diet/exercise program, and really do the work necessary
(psychologically as well as consistency with diet/exercise), is that they arrive at
what we describe as “The Point of No Return”. If you’re conjuring up images of a
Disney type movie of pirates making you walk the plank, or being on an amazon
adventure and being ‘past the point of no return’- that’s not what we’re talking
about here.
While this may sound like a rather funny way to describe a stage of the weight
loss journey, it’s actually quite powerful. Simply put, in our terms, ‘The Point of
No Return’ is a place where there’s no more frustrating, painful struggle with your
weight.
The exact same thing can happen in your relationship to food. You can get to a
“Point of No Return” where that frustrating, embarrassing struggle with food just
doesn’t dominate your day or emotional life any longer. You relax into yourself
and your relationship to yourself. This really is a possibility, and it’s where this ebook is designed to take you.
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Take a moment, and imagine what that would be like. Literally imagine it.
Imagine being in a place in your life where you are relaxed and at ease in your
relationship to food. A place where you’re no longer frustrated by losing control
over what you put in your mouth…or when…or how much. Imagine being in a
place where you no longer fear another cycle of yo-yo dieting; where you could
have a bad day (or even a string of days) but you know exactly what you need to
do go get back on track. And more importantly, you know you that you CAN and
you WILL do it. Imagine being in the place where that painful struggle is literally
gone.
That’s the Point of No Return. It really is possible, and you will get there.
Tools of the Trade
We want to recommend that you have some sort of journal or an online log like
PEERtrainer where you can write it while you’re going through this e-book- or at
least somewhere you can jot down some notes. At times we’re going to ask you
to reflect on your life, your habits and the choices you make. Having a quick and
easy place to do so will be helpful to you. If you’re printing this e-book out, then
you might even start writing on the back of the pages. It really doesn’t matter
where you do it, as long you have a consistent place you can write down your
thoughts and insights. This is only for you, so you can write in a raw fashion and
that you can jot down your real thoughts.
________________________
Before we move on, we want you to take a moment to pause and reflect. Take a
deep breath. Regardless of what your history has been up until this moment in
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time, it DOES NOT have to be the same moving forward. You can make a
choice to make a change right now. This doesn’t mean you have to know exactly
how to get to your destination; it just means you have to be willing to take the
single next step in that direction.
________________________
{Disclaimer: Before we go any further, it’s important that we take a quick
moment to say that none of the advice in this book is designed to be a substitute
for medical advice or the consultation of a trained mental health professional. It
is designed to be strictly educational in nature, and to help you remove any
barriers that may stand in the way of your weight loss, success and personal
fulfillment. If for any reason you think you may have an eating disorder of any
sort, then please seek out the proper medical or psychological assistance}.
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Part 1:
Understanding Emotional Eating
and Uncontrollable Mindless
Night Snacking
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Chapter 1: A Broad Exploration Of Why We Overeat:
Outlining The Context Of Our World
The following are real quotes from real people from PEERtrainer.com
community forums. Do any of them sound like you?
“Most days I tend to overeat in the evenings after work. I do well at work by
sticking to my goals of fresh fruit and reasonable quantities of carbohydrates/
vegetables/protein. I travel several miles to my home from work. I seem to get really
hungry on the way and then overeat when I get home.”
__________________________
“There is a vending machine at work with snacks for sale. I have to walk past it to get a
coffee, tea or glass of water. Most days I will stop and look at what is available. More
often that not I will buy something and this can be twice daily.”
__________________________
“I reward myself with food....if I'm feeling down, or need an energy boost....grab a
cookie....if I'm feeling happy or free for a day....grab an iced latte to keep the buzz
going.....If I'm tired, wind down on some chips.”
__________________________
“This has been my cycle for years. I think that I can break from my diet for one day and go
right back the next. Then months go by and I have gained all the weight I lost back plus
some. When your watching everyone around you enjoying their cocktails and eating
whatever they want it gets frustrating. You say to yourself, "why can't I enjoy myself too?"
I have been battling this yo-yo thing for 8 years now. I'm so sick of it? I want to see the
sexy girl under all this fat that used to turn heads?”
__________________________
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“Yesterday evening was a disaster for me, a real opportunity to look at some emotional
eating and drinking. First a glass of wine to unwind from a stressful afternoon filled with
some old memories and prepare for an evening visit with a friend (I was not looking
forward to it). The friend had forgotten our plan, which was fine, but meant that "dinner"
was basically processed junk and a couple of beers instead of ordering sushi like we had
planned. My friend's kids were all over us and she wanted to talk about her affair. Frankly
the whole thing stressed me out so much that I was already thinking about what I would
stop and eat on the way home...dinner wasn't satisfying and I was on edge. The pizza I
bought was so bad that I couldn't even finish the two slices, I threw most of one away and
didn't really know why I got it in the first place.
I woke up this morning feeling awful. Not just about my friend's situation, but because I
drank too much the night before with not enough quality food and water and was totally
dehydrated. It sucked. I would have been better off taking a few moments to remind
myself that eating well, as I was having a stressful moment, would have been what my
body really needed to calm down. Instead I feel like I made things worse, and knew even
in the moment that I would regret eating these things.”
__________________________
“I understand why I eat: because I am bored, sad, lonely, anxious, for pleasure etc. It's just
that I don't know how to control this. I feel frustrated and sad because I really want to
lose this weight (roughly 20-25 pounds in total). I have several events coming up in the
next few months and I want to look my best. I'll lose some weight and then I fall into a
hole, and the cycle continues. I've used food to comfort me my entire life. How have you
been able to resolve your own emotional eating? And by the way, yes, I do exercise so
using it to control my emotions probably won't work. I work out a ton: 4-5 days per week,
lifting weights, and walking around town a lot. That's another frustrating thing-- I feel
like I'm pretty toned but I have fat covering my muscles.”
__________________________
“I'm a good person and I'm constantly giving to people...doing favors, being there
emotionally and physically, giving advice, doing what I can to help people out. It's
basically the type of person I am. I'm even that way to people who don't even deserve it...I
mean to people who treat me poorly. BUT, it frustrates me that often times, I don't even
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get back close to what I give. Like not even a thank you...or "How are things going with
you" (to those people I give advice to)....or whatever. To make things worse, I treat myself
horribly compared to the way I do with others. I've been using food for much of my life to
give me comfort...sort of like a replacement for a friend (because unfortunately, pretty
much all of the "friends" I've made over the years have hurt or betrayed me)…and well, in
high school that's when the side effects of overeating have shown. I just can't seem to get
out of this rut. I'm graduating in college in June and I'd like to be able to look at my
college grad pics and not be disgusted. I don't even have a lot to lose- 20 pounds (I'm
short so it shows). Don't think I don't exercise, I do at least 4 times per week...I feel like
I've become a bit of an athlete the past few years. And don't think I don't eat healthy,
because I understand nutrition very well. I just can't get past this emotional eating. I
don't know what it is. I just have these constant urges to overeat/binge...and of course I
give in. Anyway, I feel like my issues with food and what I just described tie in. I hate have
this extra weight on me...it makes me so uncomfortable both physically and mentally. And
I don't know...maybe secretly I don't believe I deserve that I should have a good life and
take care of myself. I just feel lost.”
__________________________
“I think about food all day. I even think about what I’m going to eat sometimes days in
advance. I obsess about food 24/7 it seems. I’ll be sitting in a meeting at work and I’m
thinking about dinner and what I’m going to snack on at night. I hate it, but my life
revolves around food. I feel stuck and I don’t know how to get out of this cycle. I hide it
from others because I don’t want them to know how truly obsessed I am. I’m so
embarrassed! I take food home and I eat it all by myself so nobody knows. But how
could they not know…just look at my body. Who do I think I’m kidding?”
__________________________
Regardless of which one hits closest to home, emotional eating and
uncontrollable, mindless night snacking are very frustrating habits that without a
doubt that keep you stuck, unhappy, and far from reaching your weight loss
goals.
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Once Upon a Time…
To understand some of the roots of our current challenging relationship to food,
it’s worth taking a quick journey back in time to look at the history of our species’
relationship to it. Human beings (homo sapiens) are roughly 200,000 years old.
Until about 10,000 years ago, we lived as hunters and gatherers. What this
means is that the overwhelming amount of our time and energy went into
assuring there was enough food for everybody in the tribe. This was a genuine
challenge, and in most parts of the world starvation was an ever-present
possibility. Obesity was virtually impossible because there was no such thing as
a food surplus.
Then about 10,000 years ago something extraordinary happened. We figured
out how to grow crops as well as herd animals for food. We learned how to store
grains (as well as brew beer and make wine which could also be stored, and
were seen as nutritional staples as well), and made the astounding shift from
almost constant scarcity to the potential for “plenty”. This had incredible
implications for humanity. We could direct our attention towards other things
than just hunting, food collection and protecting ourselves from the elements.
Our technology began rapidly increasing and we developed various types of
industry, agriculture, and the ability to work with metal to create advanced tools
and weapons. We were also now available to live over much larger swaths of
land because we could assure we’d have a guaranteed food supply as we
traveled.
But there was another side effect that sets the precedent for the conversation
we’re having in this e-book: for the first time we could become overweight and
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food could take on a meaning greater than just mere survival.
Now granted, knowing this is of course not enough to completely turn around our
eating and snacking for emotional reasons. But we have found that it’s useful to
have this broader perspective on what food is (and has been) to us as a species.
It’s so easy for each of to get stuck in our own little world and the tunnel vision of
our own frustrating, unwanted habits. We can so easily get bogged down in our
personal battle with food that we lose site of this bigger picture: that the
possibility to even overeat or eat mindlessly is a very recent phenomena.
Love It Or Hate It, You Can’t Avoid Food
Food is a funny thing. Of all the possible substances we can put in our body,
food presents some very unique challenges. Even if a person has a genetic
predisposition towards substance abuse, for instance, they still have the choice
of whether or not to pick up the drug or the bottle in the first place. Under normal
circumstances at least, nobody becomes addicted to drugs or alcohol through
being nurtured and weaned as a child.
But food is very different. We can’t go without food. We would not have even
survived our first days without it. From almost the moment we come into the
world we are fed, and hardly a day has passed since that you haven’t eaten at
least something. Love it or hate it, as a human being you simply get around
having a relationship with food.
But it only gets more complicated from there. As babies, we cry when we’re
unhappy. It’s pretty much the only we way we have of communicating that.
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Sometimes we’re unhappy because we’re hungry, sometimes we’re unhappy
because we’re wet, and sometimes we’re unhappy because- well, because we’re
unhappy. Life can be that way.
Regardless, our parents’ first instinct, assuming we’re not wet, is generally to
feed us. At first this means we are given the opportunity to nurse or be held with
a bottle, and later we’re given crackers, cookies or whatever else does the job to
help us be quiet and remain calm. Of course to a large extent this is normal, but
what is important to understand is that very early on, we learn to make an
incredibly strong connection between our emotional responses and food.
Of course every family is different, but in many cases if we came home from
school and had a bad day, we sat at the table with a plate of cookies to calm us
down. If we’re sad that we were picked last for a sports team, we might get a trip
to the “drive thru” of our favorite fast food restaurant to cheer us up. If we’re
happy and we bug our parents to go to the ice cream place, we’ll usually get it if
we work at it long enough.
The thing is, this association of food with emotional/social experiences and
interactions doesn’t just end in childhood- it lasts throughout our lives. We soon
learn that when family or friends come to visit- whether it’s a holiday, a sporting
event or just Sunday after church- food and drink are at the core of the event.
We meet up with an old friend from college and we grab dinner and drinks. If we
have a bridge group, we almost certainly snack our way through the game. If we
play golf, we almost certainly finish with a couple beers and something to eat.
The point is this: food becomes a big part of our sense of emotional well-
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being and connection with others. It also gets highly associated with having
fun.
On the one hand this is all fine and dandy and the normal stuff of life. But for
many people, it can also be very problematic. While we are growing up, there
are so many opportunities for our relationship with food to become distorted, and
it can very easily take on a different meaning and come to fulfill a different role in
our lives.
Maybe you got teased at school by other kids, and learned to go home and
“soothe” yourself with chips and Hostess cupcakes.
Maybe your parents were so busy with their careers that they parked you in front
of the television with Twizzlers and Cherry Coke.
Maybe your parents (and grandparents) were overweight, and food was the
official “pastime” of the house.
Regardless of your particular experience with food growing up, the point we want
you to understand that somewhere along the way, you probably learned to use
for comfort or as an emotional outlet. Giving you the tools to better understand
this- and more importantly how to correct it- is what we will be doing throughout
this e-book.
Mom and Dad May Have Had Their Own Issues
We just indicated above that the habits of your family members may have played
a role in the development of your emotional eating and snacking habits. Before
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we move on, it’s a good idea to take a brief detour here and spend a bit more
time discussing this.
As an adult you’ve probably heard yourself say something to your children or
husband, and all of a sudden you realize you sounded just like your own mother!
How does this happen?
It really can’t be overestimated how significant a factor your parents’ relationship
to food most likely played in the development of your own. As children we are
like intuitive sponges observing and “absorbing” the habits, behaviors - and
probably to an extent the emotional experiences as well - of our parents.
They are your primary role models in life. They teach you what’s right and
wrong, they teach you manners, and they teach you how to deal with emotions
and life’s challenges. They teach you all of this in a couple of very significant
ways.
First they teach you directly by saying things like:
“Eat your vegetables. You can’t have dessert unless you eat your
vegetables.”
“Can’t you see I’m busy? Why don’t you go have a snack or something?”
“You’ve been such a good girl- you can pick whatever you want at the
grocery store this week.”
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Second they teach you indirectly by simply being themselves. As a child you
watched and interacted with them daily, and they modeled for you how an adult
behaves.
They modeled how to communicate with others- for instance, to be emotionally
defensive and reactive, or calm, patient and willing to listen.
They modeled how to deal with strong emotions like sadness- for instance going
for ice cream to ‘cheer up’, or reaching out to a friend for support.
They modeled for you how to handle stress- for instance by turning to chocolate
cake or vodka or shopping for relief, or taking a “time-out” to get collected and
back on track.
You get the idea. Just by the way they lived their lives, they taught you an
enormous amount. To a very significant degree, your habits and patterns are
learned from your family of origin. Please understand: we do not mention any of
this to foster a ‘victim mentality’. We are not at all suggesting that you should
respond to this by becoming angry at your parents for some possible poor
modeling they may have done at certain times or in certain areas of your life. It’s
important to understand that they did the absolute best they knew how to
do at the time and given the circumstances. Think about that. Given their
level of awareness and emotional development at the time, they did the best they
knew how to do.
On the contrary, we are actually sharing these ideas about your family eating
history to empower you forward in a positive direction. Regardless of what you
may have learned growing up, it is only you who can find your way out of
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your current situation. You are 100% responsible for your current behavior
and what you do with it moving forward. We are simply including the
information in this section because we find it’s useful to know where some of
these behaviors and habits come from.
At this point, we might have sparked something deep inside of you and there is a
chance you could be feeling a bit overwhelmed. Digging through your emotions
and past experiences can be hard and can burn you out when you try to do too
much at once. Feeling overwhelmed is a reason many people give up.
The antidote to overwhelm is learning how to pace yourself. Have you ever seen
a sprinter? They go as hard as they can and as fast as they can to get the best
time possible, but it often zaps all their energy. You’ll never see a marathoner go
all out as hard as they can in the first mile. They have to pace themselves to the
finish line. If they don’t pace themselves, their body goes into overwhelm and
they quit.
Conquering emotional eating cannot be pursued like the sprinter. Think of it like
a master runner. Stu Mittleman, a world record holding ultramarathoner ran 54
miles each day for 56 days (no, that wasn’t a typo). He has a wonderful way to
look at this: don’t think of a marathon as running 26 miles. Think of it as running
1 mile 26 times.
If you can’t even relate to the one mile, maybe you’re a mom and you have to be
on to take care of the children for the next 12 hours. Maybe just the thought of
this makes you want to drink a glass of wine. Try thinking of it as 1 hour 12
times. Suddenly you’re thinking, “okay, what can we do for the next hour?”, and
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your mind is full of possibilities instead of feeling overwhelmed.
A project at work or starting a business is the same way. If you have to get a
proposal done and out the door by 10pm this evening, you have to summon
every bit of energy you have to get it done right. And you usually do it well. But
what happens to you afterwards? You’re spent and exhausted, but you probably
have to wake up the next morning to get the next important proposal out the
door. Soon, this frenetic pace starts to take a toll on your work, your body and
your mind. The enjoyment is non-existent.
Remember to find your pace. And the secret of pacing is that once you learn this
skill, it actually makes everything fun again. You’re no longer in overwhelm and
anxiety. You’re no longer just thinking, “I’ve just got to get this taken care of and
I will just charge through it.” When you pace yourself, you maintain good
reserves of energy- and because you’re not burning yourself out, you’ll likely find
that you have even more of it. Even more importantly, you will probably get back
to enjoying the things you are doing.
Use this book as your first experience in pacing. Take a break whenever you
need it. Read some, put it down, and then read some more. Notice your energy
level and remember: this is just like the baby who learns how to walk. When
they’ve taken some steps and they become tired, they stop and rest. So become
aware of when you need to stop, rest and take care of yourself. Then jump back
in and keep on learning!
__________________________
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They say that time changes things, but you actually have to
change them yourself.
Andy Warhol
__________________________
The Entertainment Culture
Another thing to look at when we’re trying to understand why we emotionally eat
and snack uncontrollably as a society is that we’re a culture that is constantly
seeking entertainment. Food- and snacking in particular- fits brilliantly into that
picture.
The truth is, the intersection of entertainment and food gets patterned into us
from the time we’re very young, and it’s usually associated with positive emotions
and experiences. Mom and dad take us to the movie theater (an exhilarating
experience to begin with) and we get to pig out on jumbo size portions of
popcorn, candy and soft drinks. Or maybe we wake up on Saturday morning to
watch our favorite cartoons and eat bowl after bowl of Fruit Loops or Captain
Crunch. Or maybe dinnertime was also TV time in your house and you got to eat
your favorite dinner while you watched Seinfeld, Jeopardy or All in the Family
reruns.
Regardless, for a lot of people the experience of being entertained and being fed
are deeply entwined. These habits follow us into adulthood. In a culture that
seeks a lot of entertainment, this translates to a lot of opportunities to snack.
Whether you come home at the end of an exhausting day and watch Grey’s
Anatomy with your popcorn and Lindt Chocolate, play Bridge every week and
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snack on “Bridge Mix” and Lay’s Potato Chips, or stop every day at the gas
station for pretzels and an Oreo snack pack for your drive home while you listen
to afternoon talk radio, it’s very easy to fall into a habit of mindless eating while
you are being entertained in some form or fashion.
If you carry this a step further, it’s really no wonder that we have whole television
networks now dedicated to nothing but food. Food has become it’s own
subculture and form of entertainment. It used to be that food went very well with
entertainment- now food is entertainment!
The simple point we are trying to make here is that we live in a very
entertainment/distraction oriented society and food is very often “married” to
those activities. This is useful to be aware of when we start talking about ways to
break your frustrating emotional eating and snacking patterns.
Reflection Questions
Here are some questions to reflect on. You may want to spend some time
thinking or writing in your journal about them.
1. What are your earliest memories of seeking comfort in food?
2. How does emotional eating or mindless snacking show up in your
life now?
3. How was food treated in your household? Were you rewarded with
food? Pacified with food?
4. What was (or is) your parents’ relationship to food? What did they
“teach” you about food and it’s role in your life?
5. How was food connected to entertainment in your home?
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Chapter 2: How To Understand Your Emotional
Connection to Food
There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more
painful than the risk it took to blossom.
Anais Nin
__________________________
In early 2009, there was a series of episodes on “Oprah” detailing the struggles
of overweight and obese teenagers. The show followed them around at home
and at school, and also created a therapeutic opportunity for them to
communicate their feelings about their situation to their families. They were
completely honest about the shame, humiliation, embarrassment and anger they
genuinely felt. It was very emotional and powerful for both them and their
parents (and anybody watching for that matter). Later in the series, all the teens
were in Oprah’s studio and she asked them this all-important question: “What
are you really hungry for?”
We have found that this question really goes to the core of most people’s issues
with emotional eating and mindless snacking. So often, our emotional eating and
mindless snacking covers up a deeper emotional experience that we’re really
hungry for.
While this behavior of course shows up in everybody differently, we have found
that if you really look deeply at what is going on, this deeper hunger is ultimately
related to one of two things: Replacing or Avoiding.
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Replacing
Many people who emotionally or mindlessly eat and snack do so because they
are trying desperately to replace something that is missing in their life. They
hope it will bring them the happiness they’re yearning for. They are not finding
this happiness in some other significant way in their life, and so whether they’re
aware of it or not, they hope that food will do the trick.
We’ve seen a woman on track and doing well for weeks and feeling really excited
about it. One day she started getting down and eating foods completely off the
new positive trajectory she’s been on. All of a sudden she feels she “must” have
two grilled cheese sandwiches. Then she has tomato cream soup with a large
baguette. Then she starts making lasagna. In the midst of all this, she kept
logging her poor food choices and writing about her misery in her PEERtrainer
logs. Then Jackie started probing to as why she was eating like this and why
these specific foods. It took her a couple of days to respond but finally she
replied, “you know, I thought about your question and I used to have grilled
cheese with my mom. We used to have lasagna together. My mom died 10
years ago and I just want to be with her. I feel like she is sitting across from me
when I’m eating.”
Replacement in this cases seems very obvious. She wanted to replace a very
tangible loss with food. But sometimes it’s not so tangible. Some people use
food as a substitute for a relationship they don’t currently have. They want a
partner so badly they can taste it. They don’t want to be alone in the evening.
They want to share a life with someone and they want to be cared for, and they
want to feel needed. However, that need isn’t always so upfront and easily
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understood. Often it’s surrounded by statements like:
•
“All the good girls are taken”
•
“I’m not rich enough to get a great girl”
•
“I’m not pretty enough to get the man I want”
When you cling to these ideas they become your reality and keep you even
further from the possibility of getting into a relationship. Maybe you’re scared to
get hurt or rejected, or maybe your self-esteem is very low and you can’t imagine
anybody truly liking you so you don’t let anyone close.
In these cases, food very easily becomes the replacement, or substitute, for a
significant and meaningful relationship. We hope the food will somehow give us
the sense of love we are looking for. That may sound a little strange, but if you
really look closely at it, this is what is happening. Without another person to
receive that unconditional love from, we try to find a replacement by trying to
nurture ourselves with a pint of ice cream. Maybe it’s the sense of ‘excitement’
we get from planning out elaborate meals; maybe it’s the sheer act of balling up
in front of the television and eating with abandon. Regardless, this is an attempt
replace love and nurturance through food.
It’s important to acknowledge that this could be true whether you’re married or
not. Many people unfortunately do have a husband, wife or partner and yet still
very much feel alone. They don’t get support and nurturing in their relationship
and they fill that gap with food.
Maybe you come home at the end of stressful day and you fight with your
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husband. Maybe he isn’t supportive in taking care of the kids or housework, in
spite of the fact that you work full-time as well. Once you finally get the kids to
bed and get the housework done, you may spend the rest of the evening sitting
in front of different televisions in different rooms of the house and the closeness
and nurturing you’re longing for just isn’t there. Here too, you may turn to food
for this nurturing and comfort.
Staying In Control
Love is not necessarily the only thing people replace with food. A lot of people
use food to feel a sense of self-control. When your life seems out of control, food
is often the one thing you can control. If your wife is preoccupied with the
children and you’re left without support, food can become that source of support.
Perhaps you’ve undergone significant life changes like losing a job, having to
relocate, or your best friend moving away. All of these things can contribute to
feeling insecure. You may feel out of control in so many ways, yet you can feel
at least temporarily in control by deciding what they put in their mouth. This does
not establish long-term stability or happiness, but it can certainly create a
momentary sense of having control.
Stress
Another very common thing people will use food to cope with is stress. Using
food to cope with stress also figures into our sense of hope because we hope
that food will help us feel more calm, relaxed and in control. We easily fall into
the faulty logic that somehow food will ease the frustration.
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A lot of people will also use food because they hope it will bring them overall
satisfaction in life. If they don’t have it in other areas (career, hobbies,
spirituality) then they’re going to try to fill these gaps with something else. Food
is sometimes the only thing that seems satisfying. For all of us, if we don’t have
a healthy way to find this satisfaction, we will find it in an unhealthy way. Some
people do it with drugs or alcohol, sex, shopping or gambling. Other people do it
with food. Food becomes the hobby and pastime that they hope will somehow
give them that deeper happiness they desire.
Regardless of the exact manifestation, the thing to get here is that the first
reason people seek emotional satisfaction in food is because they hope it will
replace something that is missing and somehow bring them closer to the
happiness they want.
Avoid
The other main reason that people emotionally eat and mindlessly snack is to
avoid things in their life they fear or find very uncomfortable to deal with.
This could be strong emotions that they are afraid will overwhelm them. Maybe
it’s anger they carry from being told they were not good enough while growing
up. Maybe it’s a deep sadness they never fully got to process from a loss they
suffered as a child. It could be a chronic sense of low self-esteem that they just
don’t want to fully admit to or face.
For example, Jackie worked with a woman who could pinpoint the exact moment
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of her night “binges”. Right after dinner her husband would go upstairs to check
his email. She would head straight to the refrigerator. It didn’t even matter what
was in there, she would start loading up her plate. And she wasn’t even hungry –
she had just finished dinner but she found herself doing this every evening.
When Jackie explained that people often do this when they’re alone at night for
the first time- alone with their thoughts or alone with their fears- she thought
about it and said, “yes, it’s when my husband goes upstairs. I even told him the
other night, please stay with me for a little longer before you check your email. I
didn’t want to be alone. I start thinking about my brother who recently passed
away. I miss him so much.” And she started to gasp for air, and then began to
cry. In this case she was using food to avoid dealing with the loss of her brother.
In these situations, we often fear the negative emotions we are experiencing and
we want to avoid them. We’re afraid that if we really let ourselves feel what is
going on, we’ll be overwhelmed or overrun by the emotional experience.
This may sound a bit extreme, but many times people are afraid that they’ll
completely lose control if they allow themselves to fully feel their emotions.
They’re afraid that if they let their mom know how truly angry they feel for her
constant criticism they’ll go completely out of control and maybe even become
violent. This could be true in any relationship in their lives.
Maybe they’re afraid that if they really let themselves feel they sadness they’ve
been carrying from their father’s death when they were young, they’ll be
completely swallowed by the grief and won’t be able to function in their lives for
years to come.
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Maybe they’re just really afraid of being alone with the voices in their head that
pipe up when there aren’t any distractions around. They may do “great all day”,
but as soon as they get in the car to head home from work, the anxiety creeps in.
All of a sudden things are quiet, and they have to deal with themselves and their
anxieties about life- about the stresses in their day, or being alone, or even about
the value or meaning of their life. Maybe it’s just then that they start to think
about the lousy way their boss asked them to send an email, or how upsetting a
phone call from their friend was that day. Or maybe it’s then that they ask
themselves things like “is this all there is?” or “this isn’t how things were
supposed to be for me.”
You may find that it’s relatively easy to display self-control with your choices
throughout the day while you are doing things and keeping busy. But in the
evening when the thoughts begin to surface, you may have a hard time dealing
with it and you just head to the kitchen cabinet because you feel overwhelmed by
the need for a bag of chocolate Milano cookies and “need” them RIGHT NOW.
Regardless of the situation, food becomes an easy and obvious way to avoid
these negative emotions. It can provide another distraction to keep our feelings
and thoughts hidden, or we may just stuff ourselves so much that we just
become numb and shut down. Food becomes like a security blanket or buffer
between us and the challenges in our lives. It’s almost like a non-judgmental
“best friend” that helps us deal with these difficult and uncomfortable feelings.
We’ll be addressing in detail later how to work with these situations, but what we
simply want you to understand at this point is that the hope to replace something
that is missing and/or the desire to avoid something we fear or dislike usually
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drives your emotional eating and mindless snacking.
If this section brought up some deep emotions, it’s time to pace yourself. Maybe
put the book down, go for a walk, or take a deep breath. Remember this is just 1
mile, 26 times. Another thing to bear in mind is that when marathoners run an
entire 26-mile marathon, they are not running the entire time. They usually run
for most of a mile, then walk through the each mile station and get a drink of
water. In other words, they slow down between each mile. Sometimes they may
even walk for a few miles until they have the energy to run again. You’re doing
great. You’re confronting this challenge head on and you will move through it.
This WILL become a problem of the past.
What Are You Feeling?
A lot of people aren't actually aware of what they're feeling in a given moment.
They may be so used to just coping and getting by in the midst of their busy life
that they just keep pushing through no matter what comes up. They aren't aware
of whatever emotions might be going on beneath the surface of their daily
routine. This doesn't mean they don't exist or go away - it just means they stay
out of awareness. But their impact is still felt when there are moments of quiet
after the kids go to sleep, and you go right to the television with a big bag of
potato chips to avoid the lull in activity.
Most of us usually have at least some kind of emotional experience going on. If
we asked you to step outside in a tank top - regardless of the season - and
describe what the air temperature feels like on your skin, you'd be able to give us
an answer. In fact, with a little time and practice, you'd probably be able to
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provide a very detailed, specific answer. If it's winter you might say the air feels
cold, biting, numbing and unpleasant. If it's summer you might say it feels soft,
warm, moist, and comforting. The point is, regardless of the temperature, you'd
be able to come up with some answer.
Your emotions are similar, and if you're not accustomed to being aware of them
and feeling them, then it might take some practice as well. In Emotional
Intelligence by Daniel Goleman discusses how emotional self-awareness is the
first key step that leads to emotional self-control. The easiest way increase
emotional self-awareness is to check in with yourself frequently to "take your
emotional temperature."
You can do this randomly throughout the day if it's easy enough to remember, or
you can set your cell phone alarm to ring at 10 am and 2pm as a reminder to
check in with yourself.
Here is a way to make it simple for yourself to evaluate. Your feelings will be
variations of 5 core, basic universal emotions: Sad, Mad, Glad, Scared and
Ashamed. Of course there can be a lot of different variations for each of these 5
emotions, but this is a quick and easy way to remember the basics. Here are
some common variations to help you "accurately take your temperature":
Sad: Depressed, Bummed, Feeling Down, Low Energy, Sullen
Mad: Angry, Pissed, Livid, Irate
Glad: Happy, At-ease, Feeling Good, Up, Great, Energetic, In the Zone
Scared: Nervous, Timid, Worried, Frightened, Terrified
Ashamed: Embarrassed, Shy, Regretful, Low self-esteem, Low confidence
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Remember, the point of this exercise is just to start increasing your awareness of
your emotions. Shortly we'll start to discuss how to work them constructively so
you feel greater self-control in terms of your emotions and how you respond to
them - and in particular how they affect your food choices.
Chapter Reflection Questions:
A good thing to do here is to see if there is a specific moment or time during the
day that you feel overwhelmed and have the desire to consume a specific food.
Take an honest look and ask yourself:
1. What am I really hungry for?
2. Is there something I don’t want to deal with that feels overwhelming
and I don’t know how to deal with it?
3. Is there something missing in my life that I need to look at?
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Chapter 3: Are You Experiencing Real Hunger Or
Emotional Hunger? Fine Tuning Your "Hunger Detector"
Before we move on to giving you specific tools to change your emotional eating
and mindless snacking habits, we want to take a few minutes to distinguish
between real, physical hunger and emotionally driven eating habits. Some
people know it is happening, but sometimes people legitimately confuse it with
real hunger.
It’s very important to be able to quickly and easily distinguish between the two.
This doesn’t mean you will therefore have all the tools you need to change your
behavior, but all personal change work begins with self-awareness. The
following chart distinguishes some of the major differences between the two so
you can more easily recognize emotional eating patterns when they come up.
Real, Physical Hunger
Gradual Onset- Usually builds over
time.
Emotionally Driven “Hunger”
Immediate Onset- It seems to come
out of nowhere and you feel like you
absolutely have to satisfy it.
Can Wait to Satisfy- You may be
Can’t Wait to Satisfy- This hunger
hungry, but it’s not a big deal to wait
wants to be satisfied and it wants to be
awhile before you actually eat.
satisfied now. You don’t feel like you
can wait.
Not Focused on a Specific FoodFixated on a Specific Food- Your
Sure we all have our food preferences, hunger is often fixated on a specific
but real hunger can be satisfied in a
food, and you feel that only these
number of ways. When you’re really
cookies or lasagna will satisfy the
hungry, any number of types of food
hunger. You must have that particular
will satisfy you.
thing.
Eat Until You’re Satisfied- Usually
Eat Until You’re Uncomfortably Fulleven just a little bit can take the edge
You tend to keep eating past the point
off. Once you get the calories you
of any physical satisfaction and you eat
need, you’re satisfied and don’t need to to much- maybe until you’re completely
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keep eating.
You Feel Good After You Eat- You
feel physically satisfied, and you can
now get on with the rest of your day or
evening.
Can Happen Anytime of DayWhen you’re hungry, you’re hungry.
stuffed. You need a lot of a specific
kind of food to satisfy this hunger.
You Feel Guilty or Angry After You
Eat- You most likely feel emotionally
worse after you actually eat. You may
feel guilty for your lack of discipline or
angry at yourself because you’ve said
countless times that you wouldn’t keep
doing this, but here you are again.
Might Happen At Roughly The Same
Certain Time Each Day- Not always,
but you may have a pattern where your
emotional eating or snacking creeps up
at the same time each day: when you
get home from work, after you get the
kids to bed, etc.
Find Your Hunger Detector
One thing that we see often is that many people don't actually know when they
are actually physically hungry. We were working with a client recently and asked
him, "How do you know when you're hungry?" He opened his mouth to give us
an answer and then he had to pause. As he actually thought about the question,
he realized he didn't have a good answer.
The more he thought about it, he realized that he actually had no idea when he
was physically hungry. He ate because he loved to eat and was in the habit of
eating often. He ate because there was always food around. He ate because it
was time for breakfast or lunch, and he ate because when he got home at the
end of the day his wife had dinner waiting.
If this sounds at all similar to your own experience, then it's really worth spending
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the time and energy to find your hunger.
Think of it like looking for metal on a beach with a metal detector, only instead of
scanning over the sand looking for pieces of jewelry or coins, you're scanning
your body looking for actual physical hunger with your "hunger detector". This
may require some experimentation and practice, but if you're accustomed to
eating because food shows up or because "it was just time to eat", then finding
your "hunger detector" will be a good investment of time and energy.
Here are a couple tools for doing that:
1) Skip a meal, or even two. Don't eat until you're sure you've found your
hunger. Resist the temptation to eat "just because". Once you've found your
hunger, spend a few minutes getting familiar with what it feels like. Notice where
you feel it? In your stomach? In your throat? Does your energy level drop and
how so? This is also a great opportunity to check in with yourself and ask what
kind of food your body really wants? What would make it feel great, healthy and
light?
2) For 3 days, commit to stopping before you put any food in your mouth and
ask yourself "On a scale of 1-10 (one being not hungry at all, ten being famished)
where is my hunger right now?" If you're a 3 or below, then consider waiting.
Break the habit of eating "just because" and use this 1-10 scale as a way to rate
your hunger and guide your food choices.
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Conclusion
Unlike substance abuse and other addictive processes, we cannot avoid food
altogether and so we need a healthy, sane and balanced way to deal with it. We
want to be in charge of our relationship to food, rather than our relationship to
food being in charge of us. So now that we’ve discussed the various reasons you
overeat and mindlessly snack, we’re going to turn our attention to what to do
about it.
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Chapter 4: How To Use Nutrition To Fight Food
Cravings: (Fighting Fire With Fire)
While most of this digital guide focuses on the emotional aspects of this problem,
it is essential to look at the nutritional side of the equation as well.
In Eat For Health, Dr. Joel Fuhrman talks about the crucial importance of
micronutrients in our diet. Micronutrients come primarily from the vegetable
kingdom, have few calories and provide the crucial substances necessary for
health and vitality: vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals. His work, which is
backed by over 1500 scientific studies, points out that the typical diet in the
industrialized world consists of mostly macronutrients - proteins, carbohydrates
and fats.
His primary suggestion is to flip that basic equation so that the majority of the
foods we eat contain high levels of micronutrients and smaller levels of
macronutrients. He calls this style of eating being a "Nutritarian" - focusing on
high nutrient density foods as the primary point of attention in our food choices.
His research shows that shifting to a higher micronutrient based diet prevents
and even reverses many degenerative diseases, and can also lead to
extraordinary weight loss results. Fuhrman has also observed that most people
eating a typical diet in the industrialized world routinely experience what he calls
'Toxic Hunger'. Toxic Hunger results from a diet filled with low nutrient foods
such as high levels of macronutrients, sugar, salt, processed fats and other
processed foods. In essence, he suggests we are literally addicted to these
foods, and what most of us experience as hunger in a typical day is more
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accurately described as withdrawal from these low-nutrient, often toxic
substances. Fuhrman says this withdrawal is the main reason people eat too
much and are overweight.
A simple example of this is coffee consumption. When a regular coffee drinker
stops drinking coffee, she usually experiences symptoms like shakiness,
weakness, headaches and maybe nausea. These are withdrawal symptoms and
if she has a cup of coffee the symptoms will subside. This doesn't mean her
body's unhealthy relationship with coffee has gone away, it just means it has
been temporarily suppressed because she has gotten her level of coffee back up
to it's normal level.
If you think about some of your typical food choices, it's likely you can think of
examples of this toxic hunger. For instance, how many times have you eaten a
breakfast like pancakes with lots of fruit and sugar-sweetened syrup, or a lunch
of deli meats on white bread with potato chips only to find yourself feeling hungry
and craving sweets or other snacks just an hour or two later.
The solution to this toxic hunger is to begin gradually shifting your diet from a
preponderance of low-nutrient foods that lead to food addiction, to high-nutrient
foods that lead to health, vitality and disease-prevention. The purpose of this
chapter is not to provide a manual on high-nutrient eating, but to simply
encourage you to simultaneously look at the nutritional side of the equation as
you're solving this emotional eating problem.
Increasing the amount of nutrients you're consuming can help minimize your
cravings (withdrawal) symptoms from certain foods, and make it even easier to
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change your emotional habits to food. You could say it's a way of "stacking the
deck in your favor" to assure maximum success.
In addition to Dr. Fuhrman's work, we have also found Stu Mittelman's "Slow
Burn" to be a very useful resource. Much of his book is about exercise, but the
last section of the book also has great information on achieving a balanced highnutrient state that is most conducive to weight loss and minimizing food cravings.
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Part 2:
Breaking the Patterns-The Way
Out of Emotional Eating and
Uncontrollable, Mindless Night
Snacking
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Chapter 5: Becoming A Jedi Master At Habit
Identification
The first thing we want you to understand is that your emotional eating and
snacking are just habits in your life. This is not a way of minimizing the
frustration they cause, but it’s really important to understand this because all
habits can be changed. Sometimes we forget this and we think we’re going to
be stuck with our habits for life.
This is definitely not the case! You can change your habits, but of course it is
going to take some effort, patience and persistence. It will also require some
new knowledge about how to successfully do this. Before we show you the nuts
and bolts of how to do this, let’s first take a look at some of the basic things you
need to know about changing your habits.
Change Your Patterns, Change Your Life
What are habits? Habits are patterns of thought, emotion and behavior that
we learn or create. They are how we do most things in our life, and often we
accept them as a given. Think for a second: how do you tie your shoes?
The truth is, you could dissect it step by step if you wanted to, but there is no
need to. You don’t even have to consciously think about it because the pattern is
already so deeply established in your life. It’s a given that you know how to
do it- in fact, you do it automatically! That’s what makes it a habit! Our
emotional patterns are often very similar. They are so well established in our life
that we are hardly aware we do them.
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Here is a quick experiment that will demonstrate how ingrained many of the
patterns in our life are. As a quick experiment, we want you to cross your arms.
Notice which arm is on top and which is on the bottom. Do it now before you
read any further.
Now reverse the order. If your left arm was on top, make sure it is now on the
bottom. Feels strange, doesn’t it?
Now try the same experiment by interlocking your hands so your palms are
touching and your fingers are interlaced. Which thumb is on top- your right or
your left? Again, now switch everything around so your fingers are still
interlaced, but the other thumb is on top.
It just doesn’t feel right, does it?
These are patterns in your life. They are physical patterns, but they are also
metaphors for the emotional and psychological patterns in your life. These
patterns show up in how we think about ourselves (“I am good” vs. “I am bad”; “I
am okay” vs. “I am not okay”), how we think of others (“I like people like him” vs.
“I don’t like people like him”) and what we expect to be true in our lives (“I can be
thin and happy” vs. “I will be overweight my whole life”). Of course these are
simple examples, but they communicate the basic point.
They also show up in our behaviors. For example, “automatically” reaching for a
handful of M & M’s when we are stressed; acting with rage towards others when
we are upset or scared (or bottling it up completely, by contrast); looking towards
others for reassurance that we are “okay”.
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Here is the important thing to understand: our current patterns have gotten us
to EXACTLY where we are in our lives right now. They have gotten us no
more and no less. Therefore, if we stick to the same patterns, we are not going
to change, and the circumstances of our lives (for instance your emotional eating
and weight issues) are not very likely to change either.
The most important thing is that we begin finding ways to break these patterns in
our lives. Just like you experienced when you crossed your arms and hands in
the opposite way, you can create new patterns in terms of how you handle your
emotions and your food choices. It may feel strange or unnatural at first, but
through repetition these new patterns gradually solidify into healthy habits. When
they do, emotional eating and mindless snacking become a thing of the past, and
you may even begin to wonder how they had such a grip on your for so long.
So, let’s start creating those new habits!
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Chapter 6: Learning To Unlearn
The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn,
but to unlearn.
Gloria Steinem
_______________________
Like we mentioned before, all personal change work begins with self-awareness.
If you aren’t aware of the things that trigger you to emotionally eat and mindlessly
snack, it’s going to be very hard to interrupt those negative patterns and start
creating new ones.
We want you to spend some time reflecting and writing in your journal for a few
moments so you can learn with some precision exactly what your triggers are.
Spend some time answering the following questions:
•
When do you tend to emotionally eat or mindlessly snack? All day?
Just at night? On the weekends?
•
What usually triggers the behavior? Being alone after a busy day at
work? A fight with your husband or wife? When you’re stressed and tired?
Sitting in front of the television? When you’ve had a couple drinks?
Driving by Starbucks (or Taco Bell, or…) and thinking “oh, what the hell?”
•
Do you associate any particular emotions with your eating and
snacking? Does anger at your husband set you off? Is it sadness about
a lost loved one? Frustration and embarrassment if you come home from
the mall and you couldn’t find anything to wear for an event?
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•
What do you eat when you emotionally eat and snack? Big comfort
food dinners? Cookies and ice cream?
•
Do you just snack and nibble the night away, or do you full-out binge
until the idea of eating more almost makes you sick?
•
Do you do great when you’re at home preparing your own meals, but
then it’s like a ‘switch’ goes off when you’re not at home, and you eat
everything in site?
•
If you’re not married, do you tend to emotionally eat and snack only
when you’re not dating someone, or does it not matter?
•
Does it matter if you keep the foods in the house or not? In other
words, if it’s not around the house when you get a craving or want to
binge, will you just pass on it, or does nothing stop you and you’ll drive to
a mini-mart at 1AM if that’s what it takes?
Again, please spend some time taking an inventory of your habits and patterns.
Get to know them as intimately as you can. This will help you be more effective
with all of the tools you are about to learn.
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Chapter 7: Becoming The Director In The Movie Of Your
Life- Learning To Yell "Cut!"
“I think just noticing what happened is a big change. I used to just do this, get upset and
then "rinse and repeat". I know today I've already started off really well, really strong and
I'm going to the gym tonight as well. It makes me remember a quote....you'll always have
weeds in your garden. You can't just say, that's it. there will be no more weeds. But when
you come upon them, you pull them out and then go on with your day. And that's what
I'm doing.”
_______________________
“Thank you everybody, for your advice. I thought that I had worked my way through this
before but I guess it is a constant battle. I know that it certainly helps to get outside & get
some fresh air or go jump on the treadmill at the gym. The vicious circle of emotionality
& depression can be that it makes me feel so physically tired. I guess if I remind myself
that exercise can bring more energy & positive feelings, I can make a change. I'm telling
you, as a former weight loss counselor, I feel like I've heard it all before & given out
simular advice, but sometimes it helps to listen to the wisdom of your peers. Yeah,
peertrainer! Thanks again!”
_______________________
The single most important habit you can learn to 'undo' your emotional eating
and snacking behavior is creating some distance between the triggers that
cause you to want to eat and how you respond to them. In traditional
psychology this would be referred to as creating distance between stimulus (the
emotion or trigger) and response (how you respond to it - in this case eating).
Imagine for a moment that you’re an actor on a movie set. You’re deep into your
role, and have the experience of truly being the character you are portraying.
Now imagine you’re in an emotionally charged scene. You’re having a fight with
your husband, and you feel the rush of the full range of emotions- anger about
what’s going on, frustration that this keeps happening, afraid for what the future
may hold. Then the man playing your husband walks out of the room, and
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suddenly you hear the director yell “CUT!”. You start to come back to your
senses and realize it’s make-believe, and you begin to disengage from the
emotional experience you were just having.
Well, of course your real day-to-day life scenarios are not make-believe, but
nevertheless it’s really important that you learn how to be the director that yells
“CUT!” after you’ve had an intense emotional experience- or any emotional
experience for that matter.
This is what we mean by creating the distance between the stimulus and the
response. There are a number of ways you can go about creating this distance
and of course you have to find what will work best for you. We’re going to share
one simple approach here that we find to be the most helpful, and it’s using your
breath as a tool. You will probably want to use this in conjunction with the other
tools we will share with you in this e-book, but we have found that it is without
question the most powerful starting point for creating this crucial distance
between your triggers and how you respond to them.
Maybe you’ve thought of using your breath in the past. Perhaps you’ve taken
some yoga or meditation classes where they emphasize using the breath. Or
maybe you were involved in athletics earlier in your life, and were taught how to
use your breath before a competition or race to still your nerves and focus your
attention. Regardless, it’s no wonder that so many disciplines- from sports, to
holistic health approaches to spiritual practices- focus on the breath as a key
component in getting successful results. It’s truly that powerful. This is why it’s
at the top of our list of powerful tools for getting the wheel spinning in the other
direction with your emotional eating and mindless snacking.
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We want to teach you to “take a breath instead of a bite”.
Before we explain how to go about doing this, we want to offer you some of the
“scientific” reasons why breathing is so beneficial. Most people don’t breathe
very well. We don’t mean that they cannot breathe well- it’s just that they have
poor breathing habits. They breathe very shallowly, and consequently have
“stale” air in their lungs.
Obvious as this will sound, most people don’t pay attention to the fact that there
are two equally important aspects to healthy breathing- fully exhaling and fully
inhaling. When you take deliberate, deep breaths (as we’re going to show you
how to do shortly), a couple of things initially happen. First, when you breathe
properly, you ‘flush’ all that stale oxygen out of your lungs (exhalation). Second,
you increase the amount of fresh oxygen in you’re your lungs and therefore into
your blood stream (inhalation). Assuming you have normal, healthy circulation,
this then delivers fresh oxygen to your entire body.
There are a number of great health benefits to proper breathing- and even some
that can potentially aid in weight loss. These include eliminating toxins from the
system, improving digestion and internal organ functioning, increasing nervous
system functioning, improving skin tone and increasing metabolic rate (thus
potentially aiding in weight loss). For anybody interested, there is a lot of
information available to research and understand this further. But our intention
here is not to give you a bunch of academic information on the benefits of good
breathing; instead we want to focus on how healthy breathing can help you
create the distance between your eating triggers and actually putting food
into your mouth.
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When you take a slow, deep, healthy breath you stimulate the parasympathetic
nervous system (the part of the nervous system responsible for rest and
relaxation, and among other things healthy digestion). This slows down your
heart rate, and helps to relax the
muscles and reduce anxiety and
tension. Sounds pretty good, huh?
What makes it even better is that it’s
always free and always available to
you. So let’s start working on
how you can integrate this
simple, quick tool into your
everyday life when you need it
most to create a little bit more distance between stimulus and response.
We want you to think about your lungs as having three parts: the bottom (just
above your diaphragm and abdomen, the middle (around your heart) and the
upper (around your upper chest).
So, we’d like you to begin by just taking a few moments to start noticing how you
currently breathe. You might want to just close your eyes and relax for a few
moments and experience the air coming in and out of your lungs- however it
naturally does so. Just notice what’s happening for 4-5 cycles of the breath
(inhalation/exhalation) and then come back.
What did you notice? You may want to just jot down a few thoughts in your
journal to record where your ‘breathing baseline’ is. Due to stress and bad
habits, most people only breathe into their upper lungs- perhaps venturing a bit
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into the middle section- and therefore get only a fraction of the benefits possible
from their breathing.
Now here are the steps we’d like you to begin practicing:
1. First, fully exhale all of the air from your lungs. Using your abdominal
muscles (as opposed to simply blowing out) imagine just ‘squeezing’ them
like a sponge and wringing out all the stale air.
2. Begin inhaling through your nostrils, and envision filling your lower lungs
first. You do this by “breathing from your navel”. What this means is that
you begin the inhalation by expanding your abdomen first and as fully as
you can- again, imagine as if you’re breathing from your navel.
3. Next fill your middle lungs by focusing on expanding your rib cage.
4. Then finally fill your upper lungs. You will know you’re doing this because
your chest- and even your shoulders to an extent- will expand and rise.
Fill your lungs fully, but don’t strain yourself as there is no reason to push
it.
5. Finally, to the best of your ability exhale in reverse order. This means you
should first exhale from your upper lungs, then your middle and finally
your lower lungs. Without straining, empty your lower longs with the same
abdominal ‘squeezing’ method we described in Step 1.
We want to emphasize once again not to strain yourself. There is no perfect or
exact right way to do this. The value here, above all else, is in using your
breath to slow your emotional process down and create even a bit of
distance between stimulus and response.
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It's important to understand that doing this breathing exercise isn't necessarily
going to make your difficult emotions disappear altogether. It might happen
some of time, but it's not a panacea for everything that doesn't go well in your
life. But what it will do consistently is make your emotions more manageable and
under your control. Sometimes just reducing the intensity of your emotions even
a little bit - say bringing it down from an emotional intensity level '10' to a '7' or '8'
- can be enough to help you avert an emotional eating episode.
If the steps outlined here feel a bit foreign to you, that’s okay. Remember, don’t
worry about doing this perfect. Just focus on how you can use this tool to ‘catch’
yourself before you make an automatic, unconscious food choice. Remember,
you are the director on the set yelling “CUT!” after an emotional scene. This is
your way of stopping the show, and creating that all-important distance. You
have an entire lifetime to practice this, so be patient and enjoy the learning
process!
Initially, when you notice anxiety or another strong emotional experience,
commit to taking just one good deep breath! That is really all it takes. Over
time, as you become more skilled at catching yourself and creating this breathing
room (pun intended), try and expand it to three breaths; then maybe eventually
five. But just realize that one breath is all it takes to get oxygen flowing
through your blood stream and to make the shift from an anxious, nervous
or scared state of mind to a calmer, more positive one where you can make
better decisions.
We recently spoke with a client who turned to food almost every time she got
emotionally rattled. She shared an interesting experience about how this tool
had just worked very well to help her steer clear of an emotional eating episode.
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She is an avid gardener, and even though she lives in the suburbs, she has a
full herb garden in the back of her yard with some other plants like tomatoes,
peppers and so forth. Her garden is in the back of her yard along the wooden
fence that separates her property from her neighbor's.
Her neighbor was spraying some heavy duty weed and pest killers around his
property, and wasn't cognizant of the fact that her plants were right on the other
side of the fence where he was spraying heavily. She happened to walk out the
door and saw him dousing that area with his chemicals.
She rushed over there and yelled at him to stop but it was too late. Her plants
were already covered in with the toxic chemicals. The neighbor minimized what
he had done, but she was livid. She was very into organic gardening and this
was completely unacceptable to her. She felt that not only were the plants
destroyed, but the soil wouldn't be able to be used for several years.
She stormed back into her house irate. Normally this would have been
EXACTLY the kind of incident that would have driven her to eat. She found
herself thinking about going to the pantry for the bag of chocolate chip cookies
she knew was there, but then she remembered this tool and just stopped. She
started taking deep breaths and repeating to herself "it's just stuff" (the theme of
an article she had just read on PEERtrainer) to remind herself that as uncool as
this situation was, it wasn't the end of the world.
As she kept breathing, the intense edge of her anger softened. It didn't go away,
but she went from feeling out of control and like she "has to eat", to realizing that
she had a choice. She recognized she has a choice about what to do. Since it
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was already working for her she kept breathing deeply, and started to feel more
and more calm and in control. She was actually thrilled because it was the first
time in a long time she hadn't used food to cope with such an upset. Instead of
eating, she called her daughter - a great support person in her life - to talk about
it.
A quick word of caution: as you practice this, you might find yourself getting a bit
lightheaded or you may feel a slight tingling in your hands or feet. If this
happens, simply take a break from the exercise or slow down your breathing
process. You don’t want to get yourself to the point of hyperventilation- only to
use your breath to create the space between stimulus and response as we
described before. Sometimes in yoga or meditation classes- under the
supervision of a trained instructor- you might ‘push the envelope’ a bit further in
this respect. But that is not our intention here- just a few simple cycles of this
exercise will be enough to achieve our objective.
The Choice Is Yours
So what happens next? What do we do now that we have created some space
between having an emotional experience and actually reacting to it? The first
thing we want you to do is just relax a bit deeper. Now that you have “caught
yourself”, take a moment to just relax some other key muscle groups in your
body. Relaxing certain muscle groups will trigger a deeper relaxation response
elsewhere in your body. Focus on these for starters:
•
Relax your shoulders.
•
Relax the muscles in your face (your jaw and tongue in particular will have
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a calming effect)
•
Relax your abdomen
•
Relax the muscles in your groin and pelvis.
Even just relaxing some of these muscle groups a little bit can really help you
significantly. You will find that it’s very difficult to go on ‘anxious auto-pilot’ when
you’re consciously relaxing them.
Above all else, what we want you to realize is that you have a choice, right now,
about what you do next. You do not have to go on auto-pilot. You do not
have to do what you have usually done in the past. You don’t have to deal with
your fears and feelings by eating. We’re going to share a bunch of specific tools
with you in the pages to come, but they all begin with this fundamental realization
that you have a choice right now. You can create a break right now between
the way you have handled things in the past and how your going to handle them
from this moment forward. The choice is yours. The single most effective way
we know of to exercise this choice is by using your breath as a tool to keep you
calm, focused and on track. Without question, the more you practice this, the
better and better you will become at making that choice skillfully.
It’s Okay To Feel Your Feelings
The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are
feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such
moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our
ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.
M. Scott Peck
_________________________
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“I've been dealing with anxiety for half of my life. I was thin for most of my life, but within
5-6 years I gradually put on about 5 pounds per year, due to eating to ease the stress and
depression that comes with it. I still struggle with emotional eating and staying focused.
I worry so much that something bad will happen to me, so I'm like "what's the
point...what if once I reach my fitness goal, I find out I'm dying." I'm scared to be happy I
guess and scared of life's uncertainty. I know it sounds silly to most people, but perhaps
people who suffer from anxiety, depression, etc. who have been able to lose weight or
even if you have trouble reaching your goals, could give me some insights, their own
stories and advice for me. It would be nice to know that I am not alone in this because I
always forget.”
_________________________
“Sometimes I think instead of eating I should just let myself feel what I have to feel- not
look to numb it.”
_________________________
Before we start sharing other solutions to help you change your habits, there is
one other thing we want to emphasize: it’s okay to feel your feelings. As we’ve
discussed, much of the time we turn to food for comfort we do so to avoid our
feelings. Instead we default into snacking and binging. If it’s not comfortable for
you to already do so, feeling your feelings and confronting your fears is an
important part of the process to changing your emotional eating habits for good.
While this doesn’t necessarily become easy overnight, you want to work with
your emotions in a way that doesn’t involve turning to food.
The first step is realizing that your difficult feelings are not going to kill you. You
are going to be okay. You are ultimately in control- and you’re not going to lose
this control if you start to face the fears. You are not going to lose everything and
wind up living alone in a van down by the river.
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Your breath- and using it as we have discussed in this chapter- is your single
greatest ally to help you do this. Consider trying this:
As your feelings come up, try to find a quiet place where you can just go ‘inside’
for a few moments. Turn off the television or radio, and start to focus on your
breathing. Allow your feelings to just be present. You don’t have to fight them or
rationalize them away.
If you’re angry, be angry. If you’re sad, it’s okay to be sad. If you realize that
there is some sort of fear going on, then honor it and accept it. Regardless of the
specific emotional process going on, keep breathing through it. Keep breathing
through it and realize that you can feel all your feelings and still be in control.
You may not exactly like the feelings that are lingering beneath the surface, and
that’s okay. You don’t have to like it- just accept that this is what is going on and
that it’s okay. Accept it, and accept yourself. Don’t beat yourself up for
responding to things the way you are.
There are still likely some other pro-active things you can do to work with your
feelings, and we’ll discuss them in greater detail as we proceed. For now, the
point is to recognize that this won’t kill you and you’re not going to lose controland perhaps even more importantly, that you do not have to use food as your
outlet to deal with the discomfort they bring up for you. Your breath is the best
entry point you have to understand this. Nothing else is so readily available and
can effectively help you create this space between your feelings and how you
respond to them.
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Chapter 8: How to Become An Emotional Martial Artist
“This may sound bizzare, but when you feel compelled to consume for emotional reasons,
try doing yoga or going for a walk, or something physical. Both can release stress or
endorphins, that can make you feel better than the tub of ice cream will, and then there's
no guilt after.”
_________________________
“I couldn't agree more! My own preference is to get outside for exercise, weather and
other conditions permitting. Nothing quite like a walk or a jog or a bike ride on a bright,
sunny day to lift the spirits, even if it is cold.”
_________________________
“Vigorous exercise is my anti-depressant. I stop functioning when I don't get enough. It is
really amazing.”
I run. That is keeping me more emotionally stable than anything else. So it's not so much
that I substitute the emotional eating, but I rarely even get that emotional where i want to
do something to make me feel better.
If Running isn't for you, I'd try something that really really pushes your cardio respiratory
system HARD. I mean, I get my heart rate near my max for a while, and it feels SO good
when I'm done. If however, you find that you feel drained, and not invigorated, then
maybe try yoga.”
_________________________
“Start doing some jumping jacks, take a walk around the block, try some push-ups, brush
your teeth, take a bath, do the "hundred" (pilates move),”
_________________________
“I can be the same way. For me it was helpful to prepare my tempting snacks into
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individual servings so at least if I grabbed something it wouldn't be a terrible amount.
Another thing is to try and get yourself up and so something else with that time, call a
friend, go for a walk, do some stretches, journal, do anything that will help lift your spirits.
Even with all of that I feel there will still be emotional times in which we make mistakes.
We need to except that it's just that, a mistake, forgive ourselves and move on and focus
on the positive!”
It’s pretty obvious where these quotes are pointing you to, but let us briefly give
you our simple version of it: Move Your Body! Feeling the feelings is an
important first step, but next we really want to encourage you to begin moving
that emotional energy through your body in a different way. Remember our
previous conversation about emotional patterns? Well, this is a very powerful
tool for really busting up those old negative patterns where you turn to food for
comfort in one way or another.
You old habit was to get anxious or scared or whatever- and then reach for food.
Your new habit is to start breathing through it, and then “channel” or move that
energy in a new and positive way. Maybe just breathing is enough to break the
old pattern. Sometimes you may need something more, however. Doing some
kind of movement or exercise (even for just a few minutes) can help you like
nothing else. It doesn’t have to be the only tool you use, but it really should be a
key one in your arsenal. Doing just a few minutes of exercise can really help you
entirely get through a food craving and get back to a calm, balanced state of
mind.
Here are some simple things you can do right away (of course consult with your
physician before trying any of these):
•
Go take a walk. It’s free! Put on some shoes, walk out the door and
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move your body. Even just 5 minutes can help you completely overcome
the urge to eat.
•
Dance! It’s also free. Who cares if you feel funny doing it? Go into a
room by yourself, put on headphones, blast some music you love (find
something that really pumps you up) and work the emotions and food
cravings out of your system that way. Dance for just a couple songs and
let go of the obstacles.
•
Try yoga. Yoga combines breathing and movement. It may be the purest
form of mind/body exercise. Even doing a few minutes at a time can have
very positive benefits.
•
Do a “Mini-Workout”- Go do some simple exercises for 3-5 minutes to
get your heart moving. Try these:
o Do a wall sit for 60 seconds or some basic leg squats:
http://www.ehow.com/video_2359349_how-do-wall-sitexercises.html
o Do a couple sets of push-ups: http://www.videojug.com/film/how-todo-push-ups (if that’s too hard, simply put your knees on the ground
and work it from there)
o Of course, if you already have a good workout habit in place, go do
a full exercise session. Whether you run, do resistance training or
practice yoga, use your workouts as a chance to move that
emotional energy through your body in a positive and healthy way.
Whatever you decide to do, we encourage you not to think about it too much and
just start moving. Especially when you’re stressed or feeling emotionally
overwhelmed, it’s very easy to get “lost in your head” by over-thinking things. If
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this is the case, then get out of your head and into your body!
If your boss was on your nerves all day, instead of coming home and plopping
yourself down on the couch with a bag of chips in front of the TV, put on some
comfortable walking shoes and go walk for 10-15 minutes (or even 5). Just start
moving. Keep focusing on your breathing while you do, and get your emotional,
energetic wheel spinning in the other direction.
Bear in mind, we’re not saying that every time you get stressed out you need to
suit up and head for the gym. That’s not realistic and going to that extreme may
be too much anyhow. That said, combining your new breathing exercises with
some kind of movement will do a couple very powerful things for you. In the
short term, it will literally help you “weather the storm” of a possible emotional
eating episode or night snacking binge. You’ll create the space you need to
realize you have a choice and that there are much better things you can be doing
than turning to food for comfort or to ‘treat your boredom’. Second, doing this
consistently over time will help you completely overhaul your habitual patterns
with emotional eating and snacking. Like any new habit, repetition is the
mother of skill. Keep doing this until it becomes your automatic response. It
doesn’t have to take as long as you think it might. You can have a new habit
starting to form with confidence within a week- or maybe even just a matter of
days.
Another variation is to take a long, hot shower or bath. It’s not a form of exercise,
but it’s another very positive, healthy thing to do with your body that is nurturing
and doesn’t involve food. Light a candle, put on some soothing music, and just
relax the stress away.
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Chapter 9: Building The Right Support Network For You
“I have a couple of people I call now when l am feeling pulled under. And just knowing
that they know helps me turn the tides. They are hand picked for their perfect responses.
I've had to learn to do this. Admitting emotional eating during really rough periods is the
first step...sometimes the hardest.”
_______________________
“I find having good structure to my day really helps me deal with the curves life throws
me. Music is another one - I can really lose myself in putting together a good playlist to
exercise to. I like to walk when I have something that needs working out, or clean my
house or garden (something about imposing order on chaos). If I can find an available
friend to walk with that helps. We can both vent and get some fresh air at the same time. I
highly recommend avoiding the TV at these times since that can really lead to mindless
munching and even though you're distracted you're not really channeling your negative
emotions into something positive - just putting them off for a bit longer. That's just my
personal experience, but finding something positive to put yourself into uses up the
energy and makes you feel better for it. Best wishes!”
_______________________
The benefits of having a good, reliable, trustworthy support system in place
cannot be overstated. In fact, it’s one of the fundamental principles PEERtrainer
has built it’s success on. Here are some of the things we have found most useful
in terms of turning to others for support and feedback to prevent succumbing to
emotional eating and snacking urges.
•
Figure out what kind of relationships work best for you for support.
The one’s we have most useful are online relationships like a PEERtrainer
team or group and people you can call on the phone. In our experience
having some of both works best so you never have to feel completely
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alone. At 2 a.m. you might find somebody on the other side of the world
who is online and has exactly the feedback you need.
•
Be conscientious about who you talk to. Ironically, we have found that
you may often be better off turning to people who are not in your
immediate family social circle. Maybe you have a friend from long ago
who lives far away, or someone who is in your PEERtrainer team who you
have also connected with over the phone. The reason we have found this
often valuable is because then you don’t have to worry about something
you say to a close friend or family member coming back to haunt you at a
later time. This doesn’t mean they will necessarily use it maliciously
against you (though unfortunately this can happen too), but we’ve just
seen too many times that it may not always be in your best interest to
share certain things with people you interact with on a daily basis. Then
again, you may have best friend who you share everything with regardless
and that may work great for you. Figure out what works best for you, but
be a bit cautious who you share certain things with.
•
Keep calling until you find somebody. If you’re having a really difficult
night and keep feeling drawn to the pantry to snack on whatever you can
find, then it might take awhile before you can get anybody on the phone to
speak with. For this reason, if you have a growing list of people you can
call (or email/chat online with for a quick response) the better off you may
be. If you don’t get the first one or two people you want to speak with,
then keep dialing until you get somebody who can help. Don’t give up.
There is nothing wrong with needing the support.
•
Become a source of support for others. There will be times when you
are having a great day and the people who normally pull you up are
having a rough day. Make sure you’re reciprocating and making yourself
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available to help others. Sure, it’s great to give as well as receive, but
there is another important reason to make this a priority: sometimes you
learn best when you teach others. That may sound strange, but it’s
true. We’re sure you’ve had the experience of giving feedback to a friend
and all of sudden realizing that the words coming out of your mouth are
exactly the kind of advice you could have used a few days before yourself.
This is a good thing, because it will remind you that you already have a
great deal of innate wisdom inside you, and this will help you
troubleshoot your own rough patches down the road. In fact, when
you hear yourself give some particularly brilliant advice, write it down in
your journal to come back to in a time of need!
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Chapter 10: Do I Let Go or Confront Head-On?
“Oooh, also, consider diarizing. Write about why you're feeling emotional and take some
time to examine your feelings. I've found diarizing to help my stress level and keep me
much more balanced.”
______________________
As you get deeper into the emotional process that drives your unwanted eating
behavior, of course you’re going to be confronted with some challenging issues.
Some of these may be how to handle situations or communication with your
husband or wife that fuels a lot of your stress and contributes to your eating
behavior. Other times as you start to work with your emotions in a new way, you
may find yourself confronted with deep-seeded fears about intimacy or your selfworth.
All of this is normal and okay, but it’s important that you have a strategy to deal
with it. In this chapter we’re going to offer you a simple “formula” for figuring out
how to tackle these emotional challenges in the most effective way. Consider
that all of the emotional issues you’re going to face will fall into one of two
categories:
1. The things you need to let go of
2. The things you need to confront directly
So, how do you know the difference? Here’s the formula:
1. Do you best to let go of all your negative emotional experiences.
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2. If you can’t let them go, confront them head-on.
In other words, do your best to let go of your negative emotions; if you can’t let
them go for whatever reason- meaning that in spite of your best efforts to let
them go and move on the issues continue to surface, suck your emotional energy
and occupy space in your head- then you need to confront them directly.
Getting good at understanding the difference between these two categories takes
some time and practice, but it’s a very good skill to have. Letting go does not
mean ignoring your feelings or pretending they don’t exist. It simply
means recognizing when we’re putting your attention on things that hold
you back and are not useful.
For instance, very often we continue to carry old, false beliefs that hold us back
from the happiness and success we desire. Often these false beliefs are about
our degree of worthiness or desirability to others. More often than not we
adopted them when we were young- either because unconscious people around
us put them in our heads or we invented them ourselves because we were
stressed and scared and didn’t know any better.
Or perhaps you are carrying anger at an old boyfriend who cheated on you. It
may have happened years ago, but you’re still holding on to it and are steadfastly
avoiding relationships (and as we discussed earlier, you may be filling that void
with food).
Little by little we need to let go of these false beliefs and old resentments
we keep alive because they do nothing but limit our potential for
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happiness. It’s like we’re on a hike, and somebody put rocks in our backpack
and we’re just carrying this dead weight around with us through life for no good
reason. We didn’t realize that we could take the rocks out of our backpack and
lighten our load. If they’ve been there for long enough, we may have forgotten
they’re there in the first place. Regardless, we need to let them go and step into
the life we want to be living.
Other times there is just no alternative but to address your issues directly.
Sometimes the only way through is through. Maybe you have challenges in
your relationships that need to be confronted directly; maybe your self-esteem is
very low and you need the help and support of a therapist to help you work
through it; perhaps you lost a loved one recently, and you are really struggling to
work your way through the grieving process; maybe you’re are unhappy in your
career or job and need to get disciplined about making some changes.
Regardless of the situation, sometimes we just can’t let these things go and we
have to confront and work through them. Sometimes we can do this by
ourselves (perhaps through journaling, meditating or getting out of town for a few
days alone, if possible, to clear our head and reflect) and sometimes we need the
help, insight or guidance of others to sort it out. This other person could be a
close friend, someone in your support network, or a trained professional.
Express Yourself
“I was were you are about a year and a half ago. I would binge on food to get through the
day (I used to binge several times per day). I'm not sure when it changed, but I just kept
telling myself to stop eating, realize what's really bothering me (husband not cleaning,
work taking advantage of me, etc.), and decided how I was going to handle life without
my crutch (food). I seemed to become a big bitch, at first. Getting things off my chest.
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Telling people how I really feel about a given situation. It felt so good. Then I realized, I
wasn't being a bitch, I was just being a person. A real person who is allowed to have real
feelings and opinions about what goes on in her life.
Don't get me wrong, I still love food. I just don't use it to hurt myself anymore. I have
been able to lose 21 lbs. and still working on losing a little bit more (5-10 lbs.).”
Don’t Be Shy About Working With A Therapist Or Coach
It’s interesting that in a society where having a therapist or coach has become
quite commonplace, many people are still hesitant about seeking this kind of
help. They may foolishly think it’s a sign of weakness, or they may be mortified
by what their friends would think.
If you go this route, nobody needs to know you’re working with a professional to
sort through your issues. It’s strictly between you and that professional. If you
feel you could benefit from the outside input and support but you’re holding back
for one of the reasons just mentioned, then with complete care and compassion
we offer this: Get Over It!
It doesn’t have to feel comfortable to make the appointment or walk in the door
and share what’s really going on in your life. In fact, if it doesn’t, it’s probably a
sign that you’re on the right track. Regardless, if you need the support, get
over whatever limiting beliefs you have that prevent you from taking action.
If You Do Work With A Therapist, Make Sure You Find One That Wants To
Get You Out Of Therapy
That said, as someone who was originally trained as a psychotherapist (Joshua)
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let me identify what is often the pink elephant in the middle of the room in the
therapy profession: the point of therapy is to get out of therapy. A lot of
people overlook this point- including many therapists.
Being in therapy should not become a second career where you linger for 10-15
years. We know people who have been in therapy for 30-40 years or more.
They become ‘married’ to their issues and that is not a good thing.
The point of therapy is to get out of therapy. The point is to learn the skills and
tools you need to take action in your life in new ways; to develop the courage to
face your challenges and break through barriers; to forgive yourself for your
imperfections and love yourself unconditionally; and most of all to learn to walk
through the world stronger and more confident.
We’re not saying all this should happen in 6 weeks or 6 months, but just be
conscientious of therapists and therapy models that want to just commiserate in
your problems rather than pushing you to change and holding you accountable to
do so. With all due respect to the therapy profession, therapists are people too
with mortgages and kids to put through college and sometimes this
unconsciously lends itself to encouraging (or at least allowing) client
dependency.
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Chapter 11: The Power Of Cleaning Out The Cabinets
and "Creating An Environment of Thin"
I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is
they must change if they are to get better.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
_______________________
“Have healthy snacks prepared. Clean out your cupboards. Avoid the junk food aisles. If
its not in the house you can't reach for it. I live in the UK and when those late night urges
hit all the stores are closed. Those sound like simple things, but its baby steps that help
us make it to where we want to be. You can do this for you. Also a quote a friend gave
me: nothing tastes as good as thin feels. And its true that fix is just temporary. The
emotional problem will still be there.”
_______________________
“You said you’re married. Turn to your husband. Talk to him. Share a movie, eat some
air popped popcorn and cuddle. Small things that mean more than that bag of crisps ever
could. Enjoy life.”
_______________________
“Brushing your teeth is a good one. Buy yourself a giant teddy bear to snuggle with on the
couch. And don't stock "munchie" junk food - only food that you actually have to make,
and that takes awhile - you won't eat emotionally as much b/c you won't feel like making
it! I took up chewing gum for awhile and drink lots more water.
_______________________
A couple of other thoughts to help control the damage from impulse eating:
1. To better resist the temptation, do not keep unhealthy foods around the house.
2. Do keep cut vegetables and fresh fruit around.
_______________________
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There is an old saying "Change Your Space, Change Your Mind". It is impossible
to have the same thoughts if you change your space. Creating an environment
of thin means wherever you are, you make the changes to support your new
habits. You need to make it easy to make changes and adopt new habits. Maybe
you have a roommate who is always smoking, drinking, eating. What if you
instead had a roommate that ran every day and got a good night’s sleep? You
need to avoid the trap of thinking that you are a victim of your environment,
because you can always make some changes.
Your current environment is not serving your future thin self. The cookies stored
in the cupboard that are "just in case I need them" and the coffee cake in the
freezer "for surprise company" is not going help on your road to weight loss and
health. Get rid of it. Get rid of all of it. If your husband insists on having a bag of
potato chips, tell him to hide them. Sure, it sounds silly, and one day maybe you'll
have the willpower to pass them by but for right now you need all the help you
can get.
If you can't throw it away, give it away. We don't care how you get rid of it, as
long as you get rid of it. Make a new rule: only have foods that it will take at least
5 minutes to make (obviously, the exception are fruits and vegetables.) That
extra 5 minutes will make you stop and think, "am I really hungry"? It's hard to eat
mindlessly when you have to prepare it.
That might work at home, but how about when you're out of your house? Don't
go to your favorite restaurant where you have to have your piece of cheese cake
to celebrate how well you're doing; don't hang out with your friends who will
pressure you and make you feel bad about your diet because you're ruining all of
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their fun of stuffing their faces and crying in the mirror. Change your routes from
work to home if it involves the routine stop at McDonalds. If a birthday party
means cake and cookies, bring fruit, take an apple, and watch the other people
look sheepishly at their plate and then saunter over to the fruit table.
If your office insists on having donuts in the conference room, pick up that box of
donuts, walk around the office and offer every single person in your office a
donut until they are gone and all that is left is for you to throw away and empty
box. If most of your colleagues refuse the sugar, mention to your HR department
that while you appreciate the gesture, people just aren't fond of the donuts
anymore. Offer a healthy suggestion from your favorite place for next time.
Create an environment of thin, everywhere you go, everywhere you walk, visit,
play, no matter what. No exception!
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Chapter 12: How To Ride Out The Impulse
I have a suggestion. I used to do the same. What stops me now is saying to myself - this
bag of chips (or crisps as you would say in Great Britan) will not make me feel better. The
only good feeling lasts while you are eating them then you are numb. Do something that
WILL make you feel better. Write on PEERTrainer or whatever. Get over the first
impulse and it will be easier. Then think about how GOOD it felt not to have given in to
that bag of chips. This feeling last longer and can help you in weak moments. Good luck.
once you get past 21 days of not giving in, it will be easy as pie!
________________________
This may sound silly, but I go to www.cuteoverload.com when I'm feeling blue. I can
usually find something on there that cheers me up. If that doesn't work I try to do
something for myself...a face mask or an extra long shower... I also try to wait 20 minutes
to see if my craving passes. If it doesn't I allow myself a very small portion of whatever it
was I was craving followed by lots of water. Hope this was of some help!
________________________
When i feel an "emotional eating" episode coming on, i write down the things i would like
to eat-listing things that i may not even be able to eat, like wheat products. Sometimes I
put together, on paper, an ideal menu for whatever occasion. Thinking about and writing
about the foods i want to eat, and then reading the lists over again and deciding what the
nutritional benefits of each item are takes away the urge to actually indulge (most of the
time). Other times, I read a cook book or go to the market with no money. This also
seems to help. Good luck!!
________________________
Another thing to bear in mind is that the impulse to actually eat is often
short lived. In fact, the actual definition of the word implies this. The suffix
“pulse” means something that is transient, something that comes and goes. We
often get so absorbed in our urges and mental activity that we entirely forget this.
Sometimes you simply have to weather a quick storm to get to the other side of
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the impulse. This is where the breathing exercise we showed you, as well as
some of the quick attention diverting activities like exercising in short spurts or
taking a hot bath really come in handy. Granted, sometimes a particular food is
on your mind all day (we all hate it but it can happen!) but we want you to start to
notice how quickly the impulse to eat can pass by.
Next time you find yourself with a strong craving or urge to eat, try this simple
three-step combination:
1. Take 3 deep breaths as we described in Chapter 6.
2. Drink a couple of large glasses of water with lemon- this will fill your
stomach and satisfy the urge to actually consume something.
3. Move around the house or yard for a few minutes. If you want to do some
simple exercise, go ahead. But even just moving around and “changing
the subject” can help. Keep breathing while you do this, and notice how
the impulse to eat can quickly and easily dissipate.
4. If you still feel a strong urge to eat, repeat steps 1-3, and/or reach out and
get some support from a friend.
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Chapter 13: Developing The Habit Of Changing Your
Scenery: What To Do After You Yell "Cut!"
If you’ve had a rough day at work and you find yourself pacing around the house
looking for a way to release the tension with food, then maybe you need a
change of scenery for an hour or two to get away from the refrigerator or pantry.
Here are few ideas for you:
•
Go to a bookstore. Getting ‘lost’ inside a Barnes and Noble can be a
really “therapeutic” experience sometimes. Browse the magazine rack or
let yourself drift to a section of the store that catches your fancy. It doesn’t
have to be the “self-help” section so you can “work on your issues”. In
fact, that might be a little too serious right now. Glance at a book about
your favorite musician or type of music. Is there a certain historical period
you’re interested in? Flower arranging? It doesn’t matter, just give
yourself the time to unwind with some pleasant, light distraction.
•
Go to a park. If the weather is nice, go to a park and go for a little walk.
Maybe bring an iPod if you have one and listen to some music or a book
on tape. Feed the ducks.
•
Go to a movie. Sometimes taking a couple hours to go sit in a move can
change the subject like nothing else. It’s almost like you get transported to
another world for awhile, and when you come out you’ll likely feel like
you’re in a different frame of mind altogether. Maybe try a good comedy
to get yourself laughing and in a cheery mood.
•
What else can you come up with? What do you like to do? Bowl?
Shoot some hoops? Batting cages? Video games? Find what works best
for you and do it!
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Chapter 14: Stack The Positives
It's really important to look within and ask yourself if you're focusing on what
works and what is going well vs. what doesn’t work or isn’t going well. In many
ways this is the proverbial glass half full vs. glass half empty question. Are you
an optimist or a pessimist?
It's important to recognize that ultimately this is a choice you make by what you
focus on on a moment to moment basis. This is about your self-talk. For
instance, if yesterday you had a 'bad food day', are you beating yourself up about
it today? Are you still mad at yourself? Maybe you're still angry about the slice
of cheesecake you had 3 weeks ago, or maybe you're holding on to the fact that
you wanted to workout 3 times last week, but only did it 2 times?
What you want to watch out for is what Dr. Martin Seligman of the University of
Pennsylvania calls “stacking”, which is a process where you stack one failure
after another, placing them on top of each other until you feel like you’ll never get
to your goal and then you just give up and abandon your plan.
How many times this week did you say "why did I do that? And why didn’t I get
to the gym? And then why did I have that slice of cheescake when I said I wasn’t
going to?"
Sometimes it’s easier and really just human nature to focus on all the bad things
vs. the good things. Roger Ailes, a political analyst, said in his book “Grits, Guts
and Genius”: “People may or may not slow down to look at a pastoral scene
along the highway. But everyone looks at an auto accident.”
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You want to become aware of the ways in which you have this tendency to focus
on the negative things in your life rather than the positive things. This requires
making the deliberate choice to be optimistic and focus on what works rather
than what doesn't.
In other words, you want to turn this stacking mechanism on its head. Instead of
focusing so intensely on the negatives, start focusing on EVERYTHING you do
that is positive.
For instance:
•
What small positive changes, mindset changes have you done?
•
What did you not do today (in a good way)?
•
Write down all the ways in which you’re already a different person.
•
Write down all the positive changes you’ve made
•
All the successes you’ve had
•
What have you done well in the last 2 months?
•
What good habits have you adopted?
Think of it this way, in each moment you have to make a very simple choice
(which is not to say always easy) between hope and despair. There are so many
contexts you have to make it in:
•
If the number on the scale isn't going down.
•
If you blow it by eating a bunch of lousy appetizers when you're at drinks
with your friends
•
If you're out of work and looking for work.
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•
If you're fighting with your husband
•
If your son is struggling in school.
Why is Stacking the Positive So Important?
A few reasons:
1. Your thoughts, your mood, your attitude about life creates your reality. We're
not talking about some new-age pseudo philosophy. Just about every kind of
personal development model, religion and philosophy says this in some way or
another: your thinking create your reality. It's like a self-fulfilling prophesy. For
instance, people who inherently don't trust others often attract untrustworthy
people into their life. Because they're always thinking about it, it's what they
expect to happen. Some people expect success in their lives, and some people
expect struggle and disappointment. And guess what? They're both usually
right.
2. Being negative doesn't help anything. Ask yourself, what does it do that is
constructive or helpful? It just heaps piles of dirt onto your day. It doesn't make
you feel better, and it doesn't lift your mood.
3. All you have is this present moment anyhow. Yesterday is gone and
tomorrow may never come. All you have is this moment, this day. It's a blank
canvas. What do you want to paint on it? Something sad and dark, or
something colorful and hopeful?
One helpful tool is to get in the habit of asking yourself, "What Do I Want?" Not
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just in the sense of what you want in a material sense, but how you want to feel
and what you want your life to be like. You already have a picture in your mind of
what you want, now it's time to focus on it more. When you are focusing on the
negative you are focusing on what you don't want. You can't get to what you
want by focusing on what you don't want.
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Chapter 15: Learn To Receive As Well As You Give
No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to
grow.
-Alice Walker
___________________
“I don't feel like I have much worth and don't deserve much in life. I feel like the only way
I can make friends/companionship is by being nice to people. On the other hand, half of it
is because I'm a compassionate/understanding person (which comes from the experiences
I have had in the past- I want to treat others the way I would like to be treated).
Ironically, many of these people I'm nice to, probably don't even deserve my help. And
pretty much all of the friends I've made throughout my entire life have hurt me or said
demeaning things to me (because they're jealous/insecure themselves). For example,
when I look nice or wear something, they would make a comment about it. And then I
feel guilty about wanting to look nice (nowadays, I look plain/don't put effort into my
look).”
___________________
“Find a little healthy selfishness in yourself - along with a healthy dose of indifference. Yes both of these things in moderation are healthy. Giving of yourself all the time is not
healthy. I come from a family of compulsive 'givers' and it took me a long time to realize
that's how we affirm ourselves instead of affirmation coming from within. This means
when you can't give, or other people don't recognize you for it or appreciate it, your worth
doesn't get affirmed and you feel empty inside. It's important to look outside yourself and
reach out to others, but when that's where your perceived value comes from, it's not
healthy giving.
I would actually bet you don't feel that you have much worth and you don't think you
deserve much in life. However doing nice things for others temporarily makes those
feelings go away. Not trying to discourage you or be hurtful by questioning your generous
gestures, but you need to look at where your motivation to give to others comes from. Is it
because you are a secure, strong, happy person who empathizes with others and sees
places where you can make a difference? Or is it because you need to feel like you have
worth and your only value is what you have to give to others? In one scenario your glass is
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always full, in the other your glass is constantly being emptied and will never be full.
So that dose of selfishness and indifference are going to be needed when you turn off your
spigot of understanding compassion and only turn it on when it's truly needed instead of
'always being there' (and this doesn't make you a bad friend - indeed it makes you more
effective). You'll need it when you turn down offers of food so you won't 'hurt someone's
feelings' and you'll need it when you've come home from a bad day and feel the need to
comfort yourself with food. Instead of taking that bad day to heart, your healthy dose of
indifference will kick in (you may have to nudge it at first) and you will realize it was just
one day, and not everything went smooth but you aren't going to win them all and
tomorrow is another day. Then you will let it go, have a healthy dinner, take a walk and
enjoy your evening.
Not sure if this rings true with you or not, but as a reformed 'giver' your post really
resonated. Best wishes!”
___________________
“We have to ask ourselves every day "Why am I more comfortable giving than receiving?"
I think if we remember to ask ourselves daily, we'll find more and more subtle reasons and
habits that drive this behavior. I walked away from all friendships that were one way
streets a few years ago. It was HARD. PEERTrainer has been helping me. My life is
now filled with people who care about me.”
___________________
“My starting point was very similar to yours. I walked away from all the toxic relationships
in my life - in fact I moved very far away from anyone I knew. It was REALLY lonely and
hard at first. I took that time to really do some self-examination and determine what steps
(professional, personal, spiritual) I would take to become the kind of person I wanted to
be. Eventually I came to a point where I was at peace and happy with myself, and then
through the course of making changes and growing I met other people doing the same
things and formed some really good constructive relationships.
I also learned to separate people from their problems and only 'give' when and where it
will actually accomplish some good and the person truly wants change. This helps me not
get too invested in stuff where I can't affect the outcome. So I'm still there for people, but
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I no longer take the weight of their drama on my shoulders. Y'know I no longer seem
attractive to toxic friends these days. :-) However initially I kept reaching out to these
types of friends because those were the only kind of relationships I knew and I had to be
very conscious of that.
But in order to do any of that I had to spend some time with myself and learn to be happy
with who I was without anyone else around. Saying that now, it sounds a bit narcissistic
to me, but it wasn't forever and I realized my identity had gotten tied up in other things
and wasn't grounded in myself or my accomplishments. And I'm not 100% - I still have
insecurities and weak spots but I acknowledge them and instead of berating myself for
them, I pledge to keep working on them. Beside our weaknesses and how we handle
them are what makes us likeable and keeps life interesting.
So it was more of a journey than a sudden realization, and this post could get a whole lot
longer, but life is much better and richer now that I have a healthy and constructive
relationship with myself. It spills into everything I do. I wish the same for you.”
___________________
Are you the kind of person that spends all your time helping others, but when it
comes to your own health, needs and well-being, you hardly rank on your own todo list at all? If this sounds like you, then like the above quotes suggest, you
really need to look at how you can take care of yourself better.
Putting yourself at the bottom of the list can happen in number of ways. Maybe
you just get caught up in the habit of taking care of your family (children,
husband, elderly parents, needy friends, etc) and you get so used to putting
yourself on the backburner that you almost forget your needs matter as well.
You might get so stressed out that only place you find a reprieve is “nurturing”
yourself with an order of 20 Chicken McNuggets at the drive-thru.
Maybe like one of the contributors above, you learned a long time ago to be a
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“people pleaser” and that you feel okay as a person as long as you’re “making
nice” and taking care of others. You might have allowed yourself to become the
sponge that absorbs everybody else’s problems, while yours just get hidden
away or covered up by food.
Regardless, being an endless caretaker of others can feed into your emotional
eating and snacking habits (pun intended). If this is you, then please take this
chapter to heart and start to put yourself at the top of your to-do list. If you’re not
at your healthiest and best, then you can’t offer your best to others either. Maybe
you need to figure out how to schedule “mental health breaks” into your day
instead of running around 24/7 for others.
Maybe you need to start setting limits in your relationships and not avail yourself
to others who aren’t respectful and grateful. It’s a wonderful thing to help others,
but if you’re already running on fumes, then you’ve got to figure out how to fill
your own emotional gas tank first. Acknowledge your own needs and commit to
getting them met. If you can do this by yourself, then great. But also recognize
where you may need some outside support and nurturing as well.
An important thing to be on the lookout for is being a subtle martyr. If you extend
yourself endlessly but then find yourself resentful that you don’t receive back in
return, then something is out of balance. This is not a healthy place to be giving
from. Don’t let yourself fall into that martyr role by giving and giving and then
feeling resentful about it. If you have people in your life that are a drain then start
setting limits. Whether you stop returning phone calls, change the subject with
negative people to something positive, tell them what you really feel or think, or
make new friendships with healthier people, just start to make your needs a
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priority.
If you feel guilty for doing this, then with great care and compassion, we again we
say: Get Over It! Don’t play a role for others you don’t enjoy because you think
you have to. Maybe you feel selfish for asserting what you want in your
relationships. Please understand that there are two kinds of selfishness:
unhealthy selfishness (where you always put yourself and don’t really care what
kind of impact it has on others) and healthy selfishness (where you honor and
respect your own needs, and your recognize that if you’re not healthy, happy and
centered then you can’t really be of genuine help to anybody else). You’re not
being selfish if you don’t want to have dinner with a friend when what you really
need is a night of quiet to take a bath, write in your journal and relax. On the
contrary, you’re just taking care of yourself. If nobody has ever given you
permission to take care of yourself in this way before, then take these words as
your official permission:
You are hereby free to love and nurture yourself and put your needs at the
top of your priority list!
Of course we’re not saying put your children and others who literally depend on
you at the bottom of the list, but please do find a balance. You need it and you
deserve it! Learn to give from a place of empowerment and joy in being
able to genuinely help others. Don’t do it because it’s your default setting
to do so, because you will actually feel worse in the long run. If you find this
happening, then we advise you really step back and start taking your own needs
into account.
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Chapter 16: What Can You Learn From What You
Already Do Well?
It’s a fact that you already do some things very well in your life. How do we know
this? Because everybody is highly skilled in some area of their life. Spend a few
moments thinking about what this is for you, because it might be able to have a
dramatic effect on your emotional eating and night snacking. A lot of people
might feel frustrated and despairing when they try to come up with their thing(s).
They might want to throw their hands in the air and get down on themselves by
thinking, “I’m just not good at anything!”
Everybody does at least one thing really, really well and we want to push you to
figure out what that is for you. The truth is that it’s almost certainly more than
one thing, but for now please find at least one.
So what is it for you? Maybe you’re really good at budgeting and managing your
family’s finances. Maybe you’re an ace at training dogs, or getting teenagers to
be compliant when they’re in a stubborn mood? Maybe you’re a stellar math
teacher, or perhaps nobody knows how to crochet like you. It doesn’t matter
what your thing is- just identify it.
By now you might be asking what this has to do with your emotional eating and
night snacking? The answer is: a lot. Why? Because there is a “structure” to
what you do well. Whatever your skill is, you instinctively developed a strategy
to perform that task well, and the more you understand that structure, the more
you can apply it to your emotional eating.
For example, let’s use the money management example from above. Sit down
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and think through the “structure” of how you do it (or whatever your thing is) well.
List out how you do it. For instance:
1. At the beginning of each week, I think through all of the situations I am
likely to experience where I will have to spend money so I can plan
accordingly (dinner out with a friend, a gift for the birthday party my son is
going to on Saturday, oil change for the car, groceries, etc).
2. I recognize that unplanned things might come up and I have to be able to
address them if they do (car needs repairs, air conditioning goes out at
home, I need a new tool for the project for the back deck I’m completing,
etc).
3. I speak with all of my family members so they know what our budget is as
well, and everybody can plan accordingly.
4. I chart everything out in a spreadsheet each week and month so I know
exactly where I am on given day in relation to my budget.
5. I reconcile my bank account monthly online.
6. I’m always on the lookout for the lowest interest rate credit cards while I
am still paying off the balance for the vacation we took last month.
7. Every month I look at what we spent our money on so I can figure out
where I can cut unnecessary expenses.
8. I have a financial advisor I meet with quarterly to discuss long-term goals
and investment strategies.
9. Once a month, I treat myself to something small I really want like a
manicure, massage or new shirt or blouse.
We could probably go on for awhile, but you get the concept. The idea is to
come up with as many things as you possibly can. If it takes a bit of time to do
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this, then that’s fine. It’s worth the effort- and so are you.
Next, look at your list, and figure out what you can “translate” to your emotional
eating and weight loss efforts in general. Everything on your list may not directly
apply, but you will certainly identify things that do. For instance, sticking with the
example above:
1. Your looking at the week ahead and planning what activities you have
that will cost you money may translate very well to your weight loss.
Maybe you know you have an extraordinarily busy day on Wednesday,
and when you have a day like that you usually come home, order a large
pizza, and eat way more of it than you’d like. Being aware of that, you
can make sure there is a great salad waiting for you in the refrigerator
that night.
2. Instead of just speaking with your family members about what expenses
lay around the bend, you can also speak with them about the kinds of
foods you keep in the house. Tell them they better enjoy the Ho-Ho’s,
Doritos and Oreos that are still in the cupboard, because they’ll soon be
gone- and they won’t be coming back!
3. Building on retrospectively looking at your monthly expenses,
meticulously log your food choices too so you can see what’s working
and what isn’t. Make the necessary adjustments.
You probably didn’t realize, but you can actually learn a lot from yourself. You
already do some things really, really well, so figure out how to replicate those
results in this new domain of your life.
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Chapter 17: The Power Of The Warrior Mentality
People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and
courageously. This is how character is built.
Eleanor Roosevelt
___________________
There was a great mythologist named Joseph Campbell who studied literally
thousands and thousands of myths and great stories from all over the world.
Campbell said that all of these stories were always about a heroic character who
was fighting for truth or justice, or to find her passion and true purpose in life.
Campbell’s greatest contribution, though, was the realization that the tales of all
of these great hero’s were ultimately just metaphors- metaphors for your life and
mine. He said that each of us is the hero on our own journey- a journey (and
granted, often a struggle) each of us is on to find our truth, our passion and
to create what we really, really want in life.
Here’s the catch though: in order for the hero- meaning you or I- to have the life
we deeply desire, we inevitably come upon a threshold. Campbell calls this “The
Threshold of Adventure” and in order to really claim the life we want, we have to
get across it.
This can be tricky, though, because in order to get across it we have to change.
To at least some extent, we have to leave behind what is comfortable and
familiar. Think about this a bit. What is comfortable and familiar is exactly what
has gotten us to exactly where we are today. It’s not what is going to get us the
new result we want.
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Campbell says that when every hero gets to his or her threshold of adventure it’s
always scary, because what lies on the other side is the unknown.
The
hero almost always experiences the desire to retreat, quit and seek comfort in
what is more familiar.
Think about this in terms of your struggle with food. How many times have you
tried to make changes, but you keep bumping into that same threshold over and
over again? Maybe you do great for 3 or 4 weeks, but then you have a stressful
week at work, your focus slips through your fingers like a 7 year old spends $20
at Toys R Us, and you go right back to your uncontrollable night snacking.
Maybe you do great for a few months, lose 15 or 20 pounds, but then for some
inexplicable reason you just start sabotaging your success and find yourself back
at square one.
We often like to think of the battle with emotional eating and night snacking as a
classic Hero’s Journey scenario. Why do we say this? Because there is
something you deeply, deeply want. We know this, because you wouldn’t be
reading this e-book if it wasn’t true. Maybe you want your health back, or a sexy
body and to start dating again; maybe you just want to feel ‘normal’ again and not
constantly plagued by the fear that you’ll binge and eat all night. Maybe you
want to go home for the holidays and not be anxious about what your parents
and sister are thinking.
Whatever it is, you wouldn’t be reading this if there wasn’t some major change
you really wanted to make in terms of your body and health. And yet, you keep
bumping into that threshold.
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So how does the hero finally get across this threshold? By having the courage of
a warrior. Many people think being a warrior means being aggressive or
exploitative of others. However, if you look at the image of a warrior as it shows
up in classical stories, the opposite is actually true. A warrior stands for truth
and justice. A warrior fights for what he or she wants and deserves.
So, as a warrior, you have to decide what you are going to fight for. You have to
decide what you will allow to define your life: your fears or your dreams.
You deserve the health and the happiness you want- but you have to claim it.
That’s the warrior’s work.
As a warrior, your job is to claim your power by being at your best, pursuing your
happiness and being as healthy as you can be. This requires the courage to
change. It requires the courage to fully commit to ourselves and our highest
good; to commit to breaking out of this little jail cell we created. It requires the
courage to face our fears, “slay our dragons” and fight for what we want!
Your issues with food are the “battle” you must fight as the hero on your own
journey. You CAN shed the limitations and challenges that have kept you stuck
in the same rut with your emotional eating for perhaps several years. You have
the ability to become a new person in many respects.
Please understand this: the only thing that can hold you back is your
unwillingness to grow and learn. The only thing holding you back from
stepping onto your Hero’s Journey is your own fear, limitation and
procrastination. The truth is, you don’t even have to know every step involved in
getting there- you just have to be willing to commit to that first step across the
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threshold. It’s really something worth doing, because on the other side is that life
you’ve been wanting for years- maybe even decades.
Voltaire said: “Come to the edge, he said. They said: We are afraid. Come to the
edge, he said. They came. He pushed them and they flew.”
So, will you come meet us at the edge? Life is short and time is precious, so
please don’t delay.
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Chapter 18: What Does It Really Mean That "I Am Ok As
A Person? What Are You Going To Tell Me That Mr.
Rogers Didn't?"
“You are most certainly NOT alone! What helped me through my darkest days was my
therapist (are you seeing someone?), and being able to talk to close friends about how I
was feeling. If I had known that yoga was so restorative back then, I would have started
it. Instead I gained a lot of weight that I am still trying to lose. Once I decided that it was
time to REALLY take care of myself (meaning, cutting down on alcohol, fried foods, and
other things that made me feel bad about myself) and started to pay attention to myself
positively, the weight started coming off....Take care and good luck”
___________________
“The only advice I can give - since everyone's situation is different - is to acknowledge
those rough times and ask for help. It's a hard thing to do but remind yourself that you are
worth it and that you CAN feel better.”
___________________
We have already discussed many facets of your emotional eating and mindless
snacking, but perhaps the single most important thing we can say to you is that
regardless of your past challenges and frustrations, you are fundamentally
okay as a person. Many people with extra weight and deeper issues come to
believe the opposite- that they are not okay, and that they are somehow “flawed”
as people. In other words, they believe they are “not okay”. Very often this belief
is what fuels their compulsive overeating.
If you carry these deeper beliefs you truly need to change them. Whether you do
so by gradually just letting them go or by working with a professional who helps
you clear these cobwebs out of the cellar, the end point is the same: to realize
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that you are fundamentally okay as you are- imperfections and all.
This doesn’t mean you have nothing to improve or work on- we all do. What it
does mean, though, is that you are intrinsically okay as you are. What it means
is that you can forgive yourself- right now- for your past shortcomings.
What it means is you can be very, very patient and loving with yourself, and you
can be your own ally in life rather than your own worst critic. You need to come
to believe and accept this deep in your heart, and let go of anything that stands in
the way of your doing so.
How do you do this? We focus on this in the visualization audio component of
this program, so that is a great resource to begin with. In short, you deepen your
self-acceptance by practicing self-acceptance. If this sounds simple, that’s
because it is (not to be confused with ‘easy’). You practice self-acceptance by
sitting down, removing yourself from distractions (turn off the TV, radio or
computer) and literally practicing accepting yourself exactly as you are- flaws and
all.
Close your eyes for a few minutes and love yourself for who you are. You do not
have to be perfect to be worthy of this love. Forgive yourself for your
shortcomings and accept yourself completely. The two go hand in hand. Allow
whatever feelings or frustrations you may be carrying to come to the surface.
They won’t kill you. You will be okay.
Be compassionate to yourself. Imagine how you would respond if you were
walking down the street of poor city in a poor, developing country, and you saw
an abandoned, scared child.
How would you feel?
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What would your instinct be?
You need to give yourself at least the same degree of care, concern and love you
would give that abandoned child. As hard as it may be for you to fathom, you
deserve it too. When you get that at a gut level, you’ll be at least half-way there.
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Chapter 19: A Powerful Thought From A Famous
Greek Guy
The universe is transformation; our life is what our thoughts make it.
Marcus Aurelius
___________________
“YOU are not lost.....we all fall behind, and then catch up again, and learn from one
another how to get this right...as long as we just keep on trying. Mistakes are not
mistakes if we learn from them....they are valuable lessons. Read more of the posts and the
answers that are shared...you will find so many others like yourself that are struggling...
and then they get a breakthrough. The light at the end of the tunnel shines through if you
are faithful and do not give up hope....be determined, keep occupied with other things,
but stay focused and on track with your eating and exercise. You cannot fail when you are
faithful.”
___________________
A key thing to bear in mind as you work on these issues is that there is no failure,
only feedback. What we mean is that regardless of your past attempts to curb
your emotional eating and mindless snacking- no matter how many times you
may have tried and no matter how much frustration you may have experiencedyou must make a crucial decision about what that means. The decision is
whether those past attempts represent ‘failure’ on your part, or whether they are
simply ‘feedback’ that will help you get where you want to be. Don’t
underestimate what a powerful decision this is, because it really shapes your
entire mindset.
For instance, let’s say you go out for dinner with your friends. Maybe you have a
couple drinks, and even though you only planned on eating a salad, your friends
order a bunch of appetizers and dishes for the table, and you join in- eating WAY
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more than you planned. Then dessert comes, and you partake in that too. You
get home and you’re so frustrated with yourself that you get out a bag of Oreo’s,
and eat 12 of them thinking “what’s the difference- I’ve already blown my whole
week!” Obviously the next day you’re not feeling so great- physically nor
emotionally.
This is where the crucial choice gets made to look at the evening as either failure
or feedback. If you decide that this evening represents a failure, you potentially
set yourself up for even more frustration and disappointment. Perhaps you’ll tell
yourself, “Well I totally screwed up last night, and my weigh in Friday is going to
be horrible, so what’s the difference? I might as well just keep going.” Or
perhaps you’ll abandon your weight loss efforts for months, and have to really
start from scratch.
The alternative is to look at the evening as feedback. For instance, you
acknowledge, “Okay, that didn’t work very well. I’m not pleased about it, but
what can I do differently next time?” Then you can begin to brainstorm what
might work differently. You can make a list of all the possible things you can do
differently that might help you make a better decision next. You might write down
things like:
 I cannot drink before dinner (or just have 1 drink) because I know when I
drink it’s easier to make bad food choices.
 I can eat a healthy snack or salad before I go out so I’m not starving when
I get there.
 I can just say I’m busy until later in the evening meet my friends for a drink
after dinner. This way I can better control what I eat and still get to enjoy
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the social time with friends too.
 I can make sure I have an ‘ally’ in my group of friends who is committed to
eating light and healthy too. This way we can hold each other
accountable.
These are of course just a few ideas, and you’ll certainly come up with your own.
The point is to recognize that you have a choice. You always have a choice
about what meaning you make of things. We want you to understand how
important this choice is, because it really shapes what happens next. It
shapes how you think next, and it shapes your next choice.
If you choose to go the failure route, you’re likely to make more unhealthy
choices. If you go the feedback route, you’re likely to make better choices as a
result. It’s just that simple.
The reason this choice has such serious ramifications on your overall emotional
eating progress (and weight loss in general) is because we all make mistakes. If
you expect perfection from yourself, you will almost certainly be
disappointed. Therefore, you have to have a strategy in place that will help you
rebound successfully from mistakes. It cannot be overestimated how important
this is.
Would you rather make a 300-calorie mistake or a 3000-calorie mistake? This
may sound a little extreme, but it happens all the time. Similar to what we
described in the example above, you may eat a piece of cheesecake that you did
not intend to. Let’s say that’ say that’s a roughly 300 calorie mistake. Sure, it
might have been preferable to have not done it. But if you get right back on track
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from there, it’s still only a 300 calorie mistake- really not quite tragic in the
scheme of things.
However, if you really say “screw it” and throw caution to the wind, within a day
or so you could wind up with a 3,000-calorie mistake. Within a few days or
eating with abandon you could turn that into a 10,000-calorie mistake or more!
This is why it’s so important to look at your slip-ups as feedback about
what didn’t work, and then to come up with a new strategy about what will
work. Construing these slip-ups as a failure on your behalf only weakens your
morale until you actually give up.
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Chapter 20: A Checklist on How To Stop Eating In The
Middle of a Binge
So, you’ve now got all these great tools, but how do you put them to work if you
find yourself on the verge of a binge, or how do you stop yourself if you’re in the
middle of one? Here is our step-by-step checklist for breaking the binge cycle.
Print out copies of it and put in on the fridge, in the car, in your purse or wherever
else it will be most handy when you most need it.
√
Do This…
Decide you are not going to do this. First things first: make the decision
that you’ve had enough. You’re not going to do it this time, or you’re going
to break the negative cycle you’re in. Commit! You are a warrior! You can
do it!
Walk away from the food. First things first: walk out of the kitchen, pull
over at a gas station and throw away the candy you are eating, or walk out
of the food court at the mall and go back to you car. Whatever situation
you’re in, get away from the food!
Acknowledge that food is a false solution. It won’t make you feel better- in
fact it will make you only feel worse. Recognize that the anger and guilt you
will feel after you eat is not worth the momentary pleasure you’ll get from
eating chocolate, cookies or ice cream.
Remember: you are the director of this movie and it’s time to yell “CUT!”
Breathe! Take a few deep breaths. Realize that you are in control.
Whatever emotional experience is causing you to want to eat is not greater
than you- you are greater than it. Keep breathing until you feel yourself
calmer and in control.
Relax! Take a moment to just relax a little bit deeper. Pay attention to
what is going on in your body and let go of the tension. Especially focus on
relaxing the muscles in your jaw, your tongue, shoulders, abdomen and
pelvic region. Just relax and let the tension go!
Practice Self-Acceptance. Keep breathing, relaxing, and practice selfacceptance (see chapter 16). You are okay just as you are.
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Optional Steps. If you need some more assistance, try one of these:
1. Pick up the phone. If you need some support, start calling people in
your support network until you get somebody on the phone. Get the
reassurance you need that you are in control of your emotions and food
choices.
2. Move! Get up and move around at least a little bit. Walk around the
house or yard. Walk around the block if need be. Keep breathing. Maybe
stretch or do some simple exercise. Move the emotional energy through
your body in a way that doesn’t involve food.
Figure out what to do next. Figure out the most important place to put
your attention next. Maybe the best thing to do now is to get on with your
day and put your attention on something else entirely- work, taking care of
the kids, answering emails, etc. Maybe you need to spend some time
reflecting on what’s going on by journaling. Maybe it’s a good time to go
workout.
Regardless, figure out what you need next that takes you in a positive
direction and do that.
Celebrate. We know it sounds a little cheesy, but this is important. When
you do well, you need to celebrate it. You need to get psyched about the
fact that you just thwarted a binge- that you were more powerful than your
urge to eat. This reinforces your progress in a powerful way.
Remember, you’re building habits here. The more you feel good and proud
of yourself for your positive choices, the stronger you build the habit in that
direction. Positive thinking leads to positive habits. It’s just the way things
work.
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Chapter 21: Being Less Emotional Is Possible: Changing
The Trigger As Well As The Response
“It is good to find out how to substitute or change emotional eating, but I think it's better,
and possible instead to change the trigger, and not the response- being less emotional IS
possible, and personally, as a woman, I find it liberating.”
_____________________
We thought this was a really interesting suggestion and wanted to expand on it a
little bit. Does it feel like your emotions get the best of you? Does it sometimes
feel like your emotions are running you rather than the other way around?
Maybe you overreact to everyday situations and it creates a lot of arguing
between you and your husband. Maybe you even see it coming, know it’s not
going to really help in any way, but you still don’t know how to avoid it.
If this sounds familiar, then please go back to Chapter 6 and begin applying
those tools to everyday situations where your emotions get fired up. It all begins
with first becoming aware that you have a choice- in every moment- about how
you’re going to respond to situations that come up. Use your breathing to give
you access to making a better choice. Take a deep breath (or two, or three) and
realize that you have a choice about how you respond to things.
Maybe you need to walk away from the conversation with your husband to think
about the best way to respond. Maybe your boss is being demanding and
impatient, and you need to take a few moments to remember not to take it
personally. Maybe you just need to get off the phone with your mother when she
gets into her neurotic “shtick”.
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The bottom line is this: the more you practice taking some deep breaths and
finding your center, the more you will realize you can be in control of your
emotions.
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Chapter 22: Take a Different Route to Work or School
If you find that you keep getting caught up and making bad decisions over and
over again in the same situation, then maybe it’s time to mix things up a bit.
Much like we discussed about habits and patterns in Chapter 4, you may need to
change some of the routines in your daily pattern.
If you travel by Starbucks every day on your way to work, and at least a few
times a week you get caught in it’s “gravitational pull” and find yourself munching
on a latte and chocolate chip muffin (feasibly 600-700 calories), then maybe it’s
time to consider a different route to work while you’re strengthening the skills
you’re learning in this e-book. There’s no shame in simply removing some of the
temptations that cause you to get caught up as your day goes by.
It’s crucial, of course, to deal with the underlying issues and to develop the selfconfidence and self-assurance so that you can walk by the plate of brownies and
not need to eat them. It’s important, because those temptations will always be
there, and it’s very difficult to eliminate them altogether unless you’re living in a
Himalayan cave foraging for berries. But while you’re getting there, removing
those temptations is a very sensible thing to do.
If you normally drive by Krispy Kreme on the way to get your son from Karate,
and you know those fresh, hot doughnuts always call out to you, then maybe
there is a different way to get there. Look for those pitfalls in your regular routine,
and get creative about eliminating them.
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Chapter 23: If You Sleep More, Will You Eat Less?
“Thought this was interesting - and so true for me!! People who get less sleep tend to eat
more snacks, according to a new study.
Dr. Plamen Penev of the University of Chicago studied 11 volunteers in 14-day studies. At
least three months apart, they were given 5½ hours or 8½ hours to sleep in a room with not
much to do but plenty of snacks that they could eat at their will.
When they had the shorter times in bed, they consumed more energy from snacks,
including eating more carbohydrates.
The author said that longer exposure to unlimited food and changes in reward seeking
and motivation may underlie the increased consumption of snacks associated with a lack
of sleep.”
___________________
“That's definitely true for me, when I'm tired, especially if I've been out the night before, I
reach for the snacks to keep me going.”
___________________
While the reason for this correlation is not conclusively clear, research
consistently shows that there is a consistent correlation between getting sufficient
rest (at least 7 hours per night) and weight loss, and as the above quotes
suggest, it can have a dramatic impact on snacking behavior as well.
Research suggests that getting insufficient sleep can:
•
Slow down your basal metabolic rate (the calories you burn while resting)
•
Decreases your leptin levels- protein hormone that is produced in the fat
cells of the body
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•
Make it difficult for your body to metabolize carbohydrates. This in turn
can lead to extra glucose in the blood stream which in turn leads to higher
insulin levels and greater body-fat storage.
Our intention here is not to get too heavy on the science, but to simply suggest
that getting enough rest may help you start to make the shift to get your
emotional eating and snacking under control. Aside from all the science, there is
a common sense component here as well. The more rested we are, the better
decisions we tend to make in all areas of our lives. Our emotional reactions to
stuff that comes up (our kids tracking mud in the house, husband coming home
late from work- again!, etc) tend to be more balanced and we generally feel
calmer and more in control in general. So, if you aren’t getting enough rest (the
studies suggest at least about 7 hours per night) then look to see how you can
increase it. Even a little bit may make a big difference.
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Chapter 24: Why You Don't Want To Let Your Snacking
Habits Transfer to Another Area of Your Life
I don't agree with simply changing your crutch. It might work but do you really need a
different problem? I say to work on eliminating the issue itself.
___________________
The reason we are offering an in depth range of tools in this e-book is
because we want you to be able to change your emotional eating and
snacking behavior for good. This involves not just eliminating emotional
eating and night snacking, but also not just transferring the bad habit to
another area or your life.
Many people end up swapping one compulsive behavior for another. How
many times have you heard somebody say that they quit smoking and then
gained 30 pounds? This is a classic example. But it can also happen in the
reverse order: you get your food consumption under control but wind up with
a shopping, drinking or gambling habit that sabotages your happiness just as
much.
By really taking the tools and information in this book to heart, you should be
able to circumvent this without great difficulty. They are designed to help you
look at the root causes and develop strategies that will prevent the need to
act compulsively in some other way. That said, it’s still important that we
mention it so that you are very aware of the possibility of transferring the
behavior to something else in your life so you can flag any early warning
signs that this may be happening.
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Chapter 25: The Link Between Your Sex Life And
Emotional Eating
Back in Chapter 2 we discussed how food can easily wind up as the replacement
for an intimate relationship. This is obviously a big and loaded issue, and this is
not a book on “sex therapy”. That said, it’s still definitely an important topic to
look at when you’re working to turn around emotional eating and snacking
patterns. There are a couple of things to consider here.
If you’re not in a relationship, and in particular if you’re not even dating, then it
would be smart to look at the possible connection between this fact and your
eating/snacking frustrations. We’ve worked with a number of people who are
very obsessed with food and their weight (think about food all day, obsessively
plan meals, snack all night, etc) who are not dating.
For a variety of reasons, they are avoiding intimate relationships. As soon as
they begin to work through their fears of intimacy and start getting out there to
date, their issues with food clear up remarkably quickly. Relationships are one
of the cornerstones of human life (Freud said: Love and work are the
cornerstones of our humanness). They are also one of the most challenging
aspects of life, and yet this is what typically causes us to grow as individuals.
If you are not satisfied or challenged in a positive way in this area of your
life, then something is going to move in to fill this void. It could be food,
depression, drinking or any number of things. Maybe you were treated sexually
inappropriately by an adult when you were a child, and you’ve never been able to
address it. Regardless of you personal history, if you really struggle in this
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respect, then please understand that your issues with food may be symptomatic
of your issues with intimacy. If you’re having difficulty or trepidation to break
through this barrier in your life, then working with a therapist on this issue is
probably a very good idea.
If you are in a relationship, and your sexual life is unsatisfying, then this could
also contribute to your emotional eating and snacking. Maybe you have financial
stresses that get in the way of healthy intimacy with your partner; maybe you’re
both just consumed with work and raising kids and while you’d like to have a
more robust sex life, it just keeps getting put on the back-burner.
Regardless, there are a number of ways in which your sex life may be off track
with your husband or wife, and this too can contribute to out of control eating
behavior. Like we advised above, you may need to take a very close look at this
possible connection and take pro-active steps to resolve it. Maybe you and your
husband can start scheduling “intimacy” time together once or twice a week.
This doesn’t have to be forced time in the bedroom: maybe it would be good for
you just to schedule that time to talk and share and work on your communication.
Maybe things have gotten off track so much that some kind of counseling is
needed to get the communication flowing again. Whatever is specifically going
on in your situation, the most important is to start looking at positive steps you
can start taking now to move things in a healthy direction. By addressing the
sexual issues in your relationship, you just may root out the weeds that are
causing your relationship with food to be a burden.
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Chapter 26: Why Sometimes You Don't Want To "Just
Do It"
“I'm just a normal girl. If I can do it, you can do it. Don't be afraid of yourself. You deserve
to voice your wants and needs. You have every right to participate in this life 100%. You
don't have to sit on the bench.”
________________________
Addressing the underlying emotional issues that lead to your food choices is of
course a very important piece of the puzzle, but it may not be the only one. You
probably also have to look at some of the bigger lifestyle choices you make, and
how that affects your eating and snacking habits. As we like to put it, you either
have to “Speed Things Up” or “Slow Things Down”.
Speed Things Up: “Don’t Just Sit There, Do Something!”
Relationships may not be the only void that food fills in your life. It’s also
possible that you’re feeling stagnant in other areas of your life. In other words,
you might be bored and you’re trying to entertain yourself with food! Part
of the solution for you may be to “speed things up in your life”, meaning mix it up
and get involved in things that stimulate and challenge you. Here are just a
handful of ideas to get the wheels spinning in your head:
1. Are you bored in your job or career? If so, we’re not saying you should
just quit your job and find a new one. We understand that may not be
feasible. But if you’re really dissatisfied in your career, then maybe you
need to look at this. Maybe it is time for change. Maybe it’s time to go
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back to school in the evenings like you’ve been thinking about for years
to get a nursing or business degree.
2. Maybe you’ve been raising your children for several years and now that
they are in school, you’re ready for some new stimulation and it’s time to
revisit your career. Maybe you had a career track that you walked away
from to raise a family and now it’s to reenter the job market. Maybe
you’ve had a business idea swimming around in the back of your head
for years and it’s time to really explore it.
3. Find something creative or challenging to do. Is there something you’ve
always wanted to do but have just kept delaying because “the time just
wasn’t quite right”? Maybe taking a pottery or a stand-up comedy class?
How about a martial art? Or running a marathon? Or maybe there is
hobby you used to absolutely love that you got away from? Knitting?
Woodworking? Windsurfing?
4. Volunteer or get involved in your community. There is a never ending
array of things you can involve yourself in your community: the local
chamber of commerce, rotary/lions clubs, an animal shelter,
hospital/hospice volunteering, school board activities, local not for profits
and charities, and local land preservation committees to name just a few.
The options are endless and you just might find something that
stimulates and brings the best out in you- and benefits others in the
process.
5. Get creative and start brainstorming to see what else you can come up
with!
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Slow Things Down: “Don’t Just Do Something- Sit There!”
“I also allow myself a snack at night. That is my most difficult time, probably because it is
quiet and all the negativity creeps in.”
_______________________
“I haven't been able to control it 100%, but I can get through days, weeks and sometimes
months without slipping. When it seems especially tough for me to stay on track, I have a
running dialog with myself in my head. Really just acknowledging how I feel, why I feel
that way, and telling myself that food isn't going to fix the emotions. Good luck!”
_______________________
We just discussed how adding some substance to you life can make a big
difference in your life by breaking up your emotional eating and snacking
patterns. It’s possible, though, that exactly the opposite is what you need. Some
people fill their lives with so much activity (mental and physical) that they never
really come to a place of conscious rest. When we say conscious rest, we mean
having the ability to slow your mind and body down, find your ‘center’ and truly
relax. A lot of people are so used to the constant activity around them- as well as
the constant ‘chatter’ inside their heads- that the only way they know how to
come to rest is by spacing out in front of the television, using alcohol to unwind,
or going and going until they’re absolutely exhausted and they can do nothing but
sleep.
Sometimes this constant ‘on’ pattern is very connected to emotional eating. If
you are constantly on the go, then you may find yourself eating and snacking
unconsciously, or as an attempt to “let off some steam” in the midst of your
hurried lifestyle.
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If this sounds like you, then the thing to recognize is that you most likely seek out
distractions to avoid something in your life. Maybe it’s painful emotions you don’t
know how to deal with like we discussed in chapter 2. Maybe you just don’t like
being alone- or you feel lonely- and you seek out constant entertainment or
social events to distract you.
Unlike what we discussed in the previous chapter, the solution is not to get busier
and more involved, but instead to reduce some of the busyness you may be
using as a distraction. For you, part of the solution may be the inverse of the old
adage “don’t just sit there- do something!” and instead “don’t just do somethingsit there!” In other words, if you find that you tend to make yourself overly busy
as a means to distract yourself from facing life’s challenges and uncertainties,
then slowing things down, finding your center and learning how to experience
some genuine relaxation and quiet within might be the smartest thing you can do.
Learning how to do this could be the subject of it’s own book. Joshua is a
specialist in this, and we will have some resources available soon that will go into
this in much greater detail. For now, we’ll offer a few basic principles for you to
begin working with.
First, as we have emphasized so far throughout the book, your breath is the
single most valuable tool you have at your disposal for starting to make the shift
to a calm, balanced state of mind. Your breath is your first entry point into
conscious relaxation.
We highly recommend you carve out at least just 5 minutes a day to practice this
conscious relaxation. Turn off the TV, shut off your cell phone and go sit
somewhere quiet where you can be alone. Just start practicing the breathing
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exercise we shared in Chapter 6. Let that be your entry point to conscious
relaxation.
Next, start to focus on relaxing the muscles in your body. You don’t have to force
it, but notice where you are tense and start to relax those muscles. Use your
breath to just let the tension go- let it just wash away.
You may notice that your mind is very active and that your thinking seems out of
your control. That’s okay and normal. Just notice the chatter in your mind, let it
go, and keep bringing your attention back to your breathing and to you body.
Just keep focusing on relaxing your body and releasing tension.
You might want to do this with your eyes closed; you may want to keep them
open. It really doesn’t matter- find what works best for you. It’s possible that
once you start to relax, you may even feel yourself begin to doze off a little bit. If
so, that’s okay. If you can, set aside a few more minutes and indulge in it. Take
a ‘power nap’ to recharge your batteries. Often 10-15 minutes is all you need to
really bring your system to rest and renew your energy and focus.
Above all else, use these conscious relaxation sessions to find your center and
realize that you are in control- of your life, your emotions and your food choices.
Create a simple practice for yourself- even if it’s for 30 seconds at a time- to
come back to your center. Practice this every time you feel yourself slipping into
a negative emotional state that could lead to making bad food choices. All it
takes is a few breaths and a reminder to yourself that it is you who is steering the
ship- not your emotions and habits.
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Chapter 27: The Relationship Between TV and Weight
My biggest time saving trick has been to turn off the TV. Sounds a little corny, I know,
but I have one show that I like right now, and it's on an hour a week (and I haven't found
when the reruns are, so I'm saved from them). I watch it, and I literally don't watch any
other TV.
Sometimes it's really hard because I just want to come home and veg in front of the tube
to decompress from my day. But I try to either just lie down for a couple minutes on my
bed with a cold compress on my eyes, or do a little meditation/yoga, or just power
through it. I find that on days when I power through it and go straight to the gym or
straight to making dinner, I'm more productive the rest of the evening in getting my
cleaning/organizing/bill paying/projects/etc tasks done. It's like if I sit down, I'll never get
back up. But as long as I don't sit, I'll get a second wind and get a ton of stuff done.
The other hard time for me to not watch TV is during dinner, but now I just read a
magazine, or sit in front of my computer and read the newspaper or my email, or a book,
or I try to focus on my food and really enjoy what I'm eating (although I find that gets
boring pretty fast).
____________________
A number of studies have shown that the more time you spend sitting in front of
the television, the more likely you are to gain weight (a number of studies
highlight how this is particularly true with children). If you think about it, this
makes a lot of sense. As we described early on in Chapter 1, we live in a very
entertainment oriented culture, and we learn from an early age to combine
entertainment activities with food. So it makes a lot of sense that if you spend a
few hours a night in front of the television, you’re likely to be consuming extra
calories. Whether it’s snacking on pretzels and M & M’s or drinking a few
glasses of wine (and whatever snacking might follow that) it’s frankly almost a
given that time spent in front of the tube is going to be time also spent eating.
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Here are a couple possible solutions if you have a number of shows you really
enjoy watching:
1. Get very disciplined about snacking on healthy foods when you’re sitting in
front of the television. If you like crunchy things, then cut up raw
vegetables. If you like frozen treats, try freezing grapes, blueberries, or
pineapple (or buy already frozen) and snack on those. They take awhile
to eat because of the cold, and they taste awesome. If you like salty
things, try sunflower seeds in the shell. They taste great and you have to
work at it to get to the actual seed (be careful with your quantity, though,
they are nuts and are high in calories and fat).
2. Try water or club soda with lemon for an enjoyable beverage. You can
buy a huge 2 liter bottle of club soda for less than $1. They come in a
bunch of different flavors, have no chemicals or artificial sweeteners, and
you can well hydrated while you enjoy a nice, fizzy drink. You can also
make a spritzer with a little bit of fruit juice (keep an eye on the calories) or
unsweetened ice tea.
3. A third obvious solution, of course, would be to reduce your time in front of
the television set. This may not be such a bad idea in and of itself.
Whether it’s the NBA playoffs, cable news programs, Grey’s Anatomy, or
a great movie, most of us enjoy watching at least some television. But if
you’re the kind of person who turns it on when you get home from work
and it only goes off when you’re about to go to sleep, then you might want
to re-evaluate this aspect of your lifestyle a bit. There are probably a
number of other really good things you could be doing with that time. Let’s
face it- it can’t all be good television! How about reading a book, working
out (even just walking the neighborhood with a friend or your husband),
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taking up a hobby, or even volunteering? Just consider that there might
be some more enriching, beneficial things you can do than spend several
hours a day watching TV.
Also consider this: think for a moment what so many of the commercials are
about- tasty food treats. The advertisers know very well that most of us are
entrained to sit in front of the TV with our favorite snacks close by. In fact they’re
counting on it, and that’s how they sell you on their particular offering. The less
time you spend parked on the sofa in front of the tube, the less you’re going to be
bombarded by these less than supportive messages.
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Chapter 28: Six Ways To Prevent Relationships From
Interfering with Your Food Choices
A researcher by the name of John de Castro, Ph.D from Sam Houston State
University conducted a study of about 500 participants to better understand the
relationship between relationships and food consumption. The results
demonstrated that if you dine with even just one other person, you will eat an
average of about 44 percent more than if you would if you were simply eating
alone. If you dine with a group of 12 (say a dinner party of family gathering), and
you are likely to eat 76 percent more!
That research says a lot, but if you just look to your own experiences, it’s fairly
easy to see how our relationships can be a major stumbling block for many of us
in making the smartest food choices. Because food is such a social activity, and
because relationships of different sorts are pervasive in our lives, it’s VERY
important to develop a ‘tool-set’ to make smart food choices when we’re around
others. Before we offer you some practical tools for dealing with this, let’s quickly
review some of the ways relationships present challenges that can sabotage our
smart food choices, and trigger us to emotionally eat or snack.
 You go out for dinner with your husband. He’s much bigger than you and
has a higher metabolism to begin with. He orders a big 16-ounce steak
with a baked potato, vegetables (soaked in butter), salad (covered in high
calorie dressing), dessert and maybe a beer or two to go with it. You were
contemplating just ordering a salad, but what he’s getting sounds so good,
you order it too, telling yourself you’ll just eat half and take the rest home.
The problem is, assuming you do just eat half, it may still be 700-800 (or
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10 points, depending on how you’re measuring) calories more than you
should be eating that meal. You didn’t want to miss out, got a bit
impulsive, but now you have to live with the frustration of having made a
bad choice.
 Your wife spends all day preparing your favorite chicken parmesan dish.
Of course you can’t really eat that without a nice side of pasta, garlic
bread and a glass of red wine. You intended to come home and eat a
salad, steamed vegetables, and brown rice, but you don’t want to hurt her
feelings so you eat it- and it tastes so good that you have seconds!
 Your co-workers love to bring food into work to “share” with everybody
else. Usually it’s pastries, cookies, candy or other sweets. They say they
bring it because it’s on sale, but you know that’s a convenient excuse so
they don’t have to feel so guilty eating it alone. Nevertheless, as you’re
sitting at your desk making your calls, those donuts seem to have little
legs of their own and they’re running laps in your head, just begging you to
chase them. Finally, at about 10 a.m., you think what they hell, and go
have one (or two, or three, or…).
 You’re at big dinner with friends. You go in telling yourself you’ll only have
a salad and maybe one drink, but unfortunately that plan goes out the
window pretty quickly. Your friends start ordering another round (then
another, then another…) and “make” you order with them. You are having
fun, feeling relaxed, so what’s the bother? But then the appetizers start
arriving and…well, you get the idea…the evening did not go quite as
planned.
 You go to mom’s house for Sunday dinner and she cooked your favorite
lasagna, which of course comes with a healthy portion or her homemade
garlic bread. You tell her you just want a tiny piece, and you get a look
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like you must be from Mars: “Request Denied”. You get a big piece like
everybody else which you just eat because it’s just the easier way to
handle it.
Certainly you get the idea. The point is that our relationships are here to stay, so
we have to find creative ways to deal with these inadvertent “food pushers”, who
while they may love us, don’t always understand what we’re going through. Here
are some tools to help you navigate these sometimes challenging waters.
1. Find a way to ‘get back to you’
You have to make a ‘psychological break’ between what others do- whether it’s
our spouse, friends or co-workers- and what you do. You have to create some
distance so you can make a choice based on what’s right for you and not what
others are doing or want you to do. You need to create the space to ask
yourself, “What is right for me right now?”
So how to do you do this? A few things we have seen work are:
 Take a deep breath. Are you catching on by now that we really
believe in this whole “take a deep breath thing”?
 Walk away for a few minutes to give yourself room to think. Find an
excuse. Go to the bathroom, go make a phone call or go get something
from the car.
 If you know you’re going to a restaurant, get the menu online or by fax in
advance. This way you can peruse the menu in advance and you won’t
be overwhelmed by choices in the moment.
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2. Understand that “No” is a complete sentence
So many people are so used to thinking they HAVE to provide an explanation for
their choices, and you just don’t. Ultimately, “No” is a complete sentence. Of
course you can be more gracious and polite, but we want you to understand that
you don’t have to explain:
 Why you don’t want to eat dessert
 Why you’re ordering a salad
 Why you don’t want an apple martini
You simply do not want it and that’s okay! “No” is a complete sentence.
Get comfortable using it and living with apology.
3. Let other people’s issues with food be their own.
Other people’s anxieties and issues around food are not your issues, so don’t
allow them to be. Of course be kind, respectful and diplomatic, but don’t allow
others to make you feel guilty for making food choices that are right for you. You
simply don’t have to eat what you don’t want to make others happy. Let
them work through their own issues. You just focus on yours.
4. Communicating your boundaries around food to others in advance
We have found that it’s usually helpful to communicate your boundaries in
advance to others when you can and when it’s appropriate. Engage your
husband or wife’s support in advance. If you think about it, it’s just not such a
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cool idea to just show up at home when your wife has slaved in the kitchen all
day for making your chicken parmesan, and you suddenly announce that you
now only eat brown rice and vegetables! The same applies when you’re visiting
family.
5. Focus on the healthy options they already make
A variation on this communication theme that can work well in families that don’t
talk easily and openly about such things is to emphasize the healthy options your
mother prepares (salads, soups, vegetable dishes) and tell her how you’d like to
eat lots of it when you’re home for the holidays.
6. Develop pride in being the disciplined one.
This last idea may sound a little cheesy, but it’s really an important one. A lot of
times we don’t want to stand out in the crowd. We’re embarrassed to have that
attention put on us. Of course, you don’t have to be showy about it, but we want
you to turn that self-consciousness on it’s head and be proud of being the
member of your peer group or family who is the disciplined one. Don’t take their
issues and insecurities on and be proud of your own choices. Live without
apology.
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Chapter 29: When You Overdo It: Developing Trigger
Points For Very Positive Action
If you do go overboard- whether you just overeat a bit or go on a full-blown
binge- be careful not to starve or deprive yourself afterwards. This is a natural
and understandable reaction, but it’s ultimately counterproductive because it will
only make you hungrier and can set you up for another binging episode.
If you have a bad night, just get back on track with regular meals the next day. If
you want to eat healthier foods like salads and smoothies to get yourself back on
a healthy track, then that’s fine. Maybe also focus on drinking plenty of water to
flush your system of the not-so-healthy things you ate the night before. Just be
careful not to force the pendulum back hard in the opposite direction by depriving
yourself. Remember, you are looking for a centered, balanced approach where
you feel in-control of your choices on an ongoing basis. Finding this balance will
serve you much more than flipping back and forth between the extremes.
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Chapter 30: Creating Non-Food Rewards
Now you have to retrain your brain to think of anything OTHER than food as a reward.
Maybe a walk, or the suntan bed, or get your nails done, or take a nap, or pamper yourself
in a bubble bath......Rewards are fine...just learn to make them NOT food. Eat to live, use
food only as fuel for the body. You can do this, I know you can. Do not self-defeat.
Change that negative thinking to , YES I CAN. Promise yourself for one week you will
not cheat or overeat. Once you have a week under your belt.....the 2nd, 3rd, 4th weeks will
slide right by without effort. But just tell yourself it is ONLY a week. When you see a
weight difference, you will be ecstatic and that will keep you going. Remember 3 meals, 2
snacks, then HUNGER is not what you are feeling. HALT....hurt, anger, loneliness,
tired are emotions that mask as hunger.
Like doing your nails. Reading a good book. Tell yourself, you are wonderful! You can
lose weight and you will. Good Luck !
_______________________
Because so many people who seek emotional comfort in food often use food
indulgences as a ‘reward’ of various sorts, it’s a very good idea to create a good
list of alternative, positive non-food rewards. So from now on, if you have a great
day at work (or a bad day), if you have a great week with your diet, or you get a
raise or a promotion then you will have a non-caloric way to treat yourself well.
Here are a few other ideas, but see if you can complete the list and keep it handy
as a reminder and a reference for when the time comes:
1. Get a massage (even a 20 minute shoulder rub can be very refreshing).
Don’t want to pay for it? Create an agreement with your husband or wife
to pamper each other when a reward is due.
2. Manicure or Pedicure.
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3. A small gift for yourself (even something small like a book or musical CD
you’ve wanted can be a nice reward).
4. A day off to just be outside and enjoy yourself (again, barter with your
husband/wife about who has to watch the kids).
5. A movie, baseball game or musical concert.
6. What else do you come up with?
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Chapter 31: Using Hydration To Kill Cravings
“I use to be a emotional eater but with the help of everyone here I'm proud to say I'm not.
I think before I eat now. A lot of times I wasn't hungry so I would drink a glass of water
or go for a short walk. Ask yourself next time you want to put that cookie in your mouth:
Do I really need it, if I eat one can I stop there or am I going to eat the whole bag?”
______________________
“A glass of water with freshly squeezed lemon juice...kills any craving I am having!”
______________________
“Drink some water and make sure you are not really hungry.”
______________________
It’s pretty common knowledge that drinking plenty of water helps with overall
weight loss, but it can also be a great tool in your arsenal for changing your
emotional eating and night snacking habits. Here are some ways water can help
with this:
1. It’s a healthy, non-caloric way to satisfy a craving when you just feel like
you have to consume something. Drinking a few tall glasses of water can
give you a sense of feeling full, and can satisfy an oral fixation when you
just feel like you want to put something in your mouth.
2. If you have a strong urge to eat, stopping to drink a few glasses of water
can create some natural space to give you time to step back and think
about what you really want to do. It’s a great negative pattern/habit
breaker. Also, as one of the above quotes suggests, it can help you
discern if you are really hungry or not.
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3. Drinking water is a good habit to have in place. It’s the best drink choiceperiod. The more you instinctively turn to water, the better your overall
health and weight loss efforts are likely to be. Start adding some lemon or
lime to your water and it will take on a totally different and enjoyable
character. Or try lemon and club soda. Strange as it may sound, you’ll
start to actually crave it and look forward to it.
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Chapter 32: Are You Endlessly Chasing Stuff That You
Don't Have?
“Sounds so simplistic but it has helped me. Develop a gratitude practice. Get a special
journal ONLY for the practice...make sure you like it.
Every day write down 3 moments or things you are grateful for....can be as simple as the
smell of your mango soap, a stranger who smiled at you in a store, something beautiful
you read. You can write a short sentence about the event, person, thought or thing...or
more.
I write at night...last thing before I go to bed. I know it sounds like something Oprah
would recommend (actually, I think she did)...but honestly it helped me.
Somehow I think you can’t hold gratitude and anxiety in your thoughts at the same time.”
_____________________
“You are not alone! There are alot of us that can understand. I second the idea of a
gratitude journal. I have had to work myself out of some dark places & it has really helped
me to keep a journal that marks the small things in life that I am happy to see. It can really
help retrain your mind to pick out the positives things, the small blessings encountered
each day. Instead of going through the day seeing only the spilled coffee or the person
that cut you off in traffic you may see the smiles & the kindness.”
______________________
Most of us are endlessly chasing something in our lives...more money, a better
job, a better body, the next relationship, better toys. In the never-ending quest
for 'more', we easily lose sight of the fact that we are alive right now with so many
gifts and blessings that they can hardly be counted. Instead, we take this for
granted, and think that in order to be happy, things (and people) must change
and life must accommodate us. We live in one “If…then” statement after
another:
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•
“If I had more money, then I’d be happy.”
•
“If I just lost the weight, then I’d be happy.”
•
“If I had more money, then I could hire a personal trainer and lose weight.”
•
“If I had a husband/wife, then I could finally get on with my life.”
•
“If I had more free time, I could get in shape”
•
And the list goes on and on…
Beneath all of this endless searching ultimately lies the fundamental desire
to come to a place of rest within ourselves, and to find a sense of
happiness, connectedness, and fulfillment. Yet few people know how to truly
go about getting this. Doing so often involves a significant reorganization of our
values and behaviors. For many of us it involves slowing down and facing the
things we avoid by always 'being on the move'.
We are all guilty of losing sight of the many positive things we already have in our
lives. Perhaps the best way to “remember” these things is to be truly grateful for
them. We would all benefit from committing to find moments in our day to deeply
appreciate and be grateful for what we have- in spite of the normal ups and
downs that come.
This is such an important part of the process because it brings our attention back
to what we do have, rather than endlessly focusing on what do don’t have yet.
Shifting out attention to this positive place of gratitude is a great (and in our
opinion necessary) “balancer” to the intense and avid pursuit to make changes in
our lives and achieve our goals.
Gratitude reminds us that while it’s great to pursue our goals in life, having
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happiness and wholeness ultimately results from a choice that comes from
within. It’s good not to forget this, lest we make the tragic mistake of taking our
lives for granted. Having gratitude reminds us that regardless of what is going on
in our lives, we can be happy just to be alive.
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Chapter 33: A List Of Suggestion From People Who Are
Successfully Dealing With This
Weigh yourself after dinner
“Weigh yourself at night, right after dinner. You usually lose about 2 pounds between the
night and the day and you'll be able to figure out how much you'll weigh the next
morning. Try it - knowing that number will prevent you from eating anything else for the
entire night.”
_____________________
“That’s a good tip. I weigh myself right after dinner...but then I snack all night and
definitely notice the weight hasn’t changed much in the morning. If I don’t snack there is a
greater weight loss. I guess that’s how the numbers slowly creep up.”
Make the Decision Not to Eat
“This may sounds easier said than done, but sometimes you just have to really make the
decision not to snack. I guess it's about willpower, and some have more than others. It's
too easy to give in when you feel you want something to eat, but you can just say no, even
if it's hard. And think how much better you'll feel about it the next morning.”
Brush Your Teeth Right After Dinner
“Say the kitchen is closed or have some fruit. A crunchy apple in slices can be very filling.
Also brush your teeth after dinner, the minty taste will take your mind off of snacking.”
Put Motivating Pictures on the Refrigerator
“I have a page from People magazine's article about women who lost 100 pounds or more
on my fridge. Seems to help motivate me.”
____________________
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“Take a picture of what you want to look like out of a magazine and think each time: is
what I am about to eat worth it?”
____________________
That and a picture of myself at 150 lbs wearing a size 14 do absolute wonders for me. The
photo is on the freezer door, right at my eye level. And it's the first thing I see when I step
up to the fridge. It reaffirms my determination to keep releasing this extra weight. Then I
weigh myself to stay on track.
Maybe I'm a bit obsessive, but I weigh myself on a digital scale several times a day, to
keep from eating more than I should. I see how much I weigh first thing in the morning
after going to the bathroom, then after breakfast, after lunch, and after dinner. There is a
4 lb difference between my first weigh in and my last weigh in. That's all the food &
water I take in during the day, that gets properly digested at night. If my last weigh in is
more than 4 lbs over my first weigh in AND my first weigh in the next day is more than
my first weigh in the previous day, I know I ate too much and get back on track right
away.
But things have been going well for me. I'm losing anywhere between 8 ounces and 2 lbs
every week. I expect to be under 300 in a few days, and then I'm going to have a party! I'll
serve a fruit platter, a veggie platter and pitchers of water with sliced lemons & oranges
floating in them. And we'll dance all night long!
Put the Scale Next to the Fridge
“I have a tendency of weighing myself and being TOO happy with the number, then
eating to treat myself ... only to be disappointed in the number on the scale for the next
few days. So I think a scale next to my fridge might just reduce the mini-binges.”
Focus On Some “Not-So-Pleasant” Images
“I read an article recently that reported that Sumo wrestlers attain their size and weight
by eating meals very late to pack on the pounds. That really did it for me - I don't want to
look like a Sumo!”
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Plate Sizes
A lot of people share that changing their plate sizes helps a great deal. For
instance, instead of eating from a full size plate, eat your entrée from a salad
plate. Limit your portion to a reasonable portion size on that smaller plate. Of
course this will be less food than you would be able to fit on a full size plate, so
you can send the message to your brain that you have eaten a portion that you
have eaten a full plate of food.
Of course the real trick is not going back for seconds!
Commit to Sit When You Eat
Another “trick” we have seen work extremely well is to “commit to sit”. Commit
that you are only going to eat when you’re sitting down. No more grazing from
the fridge or pantry, or eating your meals in a hurry standing over the kitchen
counter. Use this commitment as a way to practice being mindful with your food.
This is a good way to slow things down and create some space between your
impulse or urge to eat, and actually doing so.
Want to take that even further? Commit to only eating when you’re sitting down
at a proper dining room or kitchen table. This could be really useful if you tend to
eat a lot in front of the television on the couch or in the car.
Treat it Like a Medical Condition to Make Yourself More Mindful of What
You’re Doing
“Somewhere I read that if you're prone to overweight, you should think of it as having to
live with some chronic condition, like diabetes I, or a food allergy or something -- Yeah,
you'd rather not have to deal with it, but you know what to do and you simply have to be
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responsible about it. ie, You're not going to let it stop you, and there's no point whining
about it. :) And in a way, it forces you to take charge of your health.”
Spend Time With Your Family
“If you have a kiddo - go give them a hug and have a tickle or pillow fight or wrestle festspouses may be into this as well…”
Do Some House Work
Here are a bunch of ideas that we found in the PEERtrainer community threads
that people found helpful when struggling with the urge to emotionally eat and
snack:
1. Polish some shoes
2. Clean out your toothbrush holder (those auto ones can get really gross
quick cause you just can't see the buildup until you take it apart)
3. Wipe off all the switchplates in the house...
4. Sort laundry, dirty or clean. And if the dirty laundry doesn't quell your
appetite, maybe taking a good whiff of garbage might... just thought of
that, never done it on purpose myself though.
5. Take up knitting
6. Do some dishes or cleaning...vacuum.
7. Give yourself a pedicure...
8. Work in the garden or arrange some flowers.
9. Do a crossword puzzle or Sudoku
10. Write some thank you cards from holidays, birthday, etc…or plan an
upcoming birthday party for you son or daughter.
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Part 3:
How to Navigate the Toughest
Situations: The Emotional
Eating and Mindless Snacking
Troubleshooting Guide
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Introduction
In Part 3, we are going to look at a wide variety of scenarios where people tend
to get tripped up and find themselves prone to emotional eating and
uncontrollable night snacking. For each scenario, we’ll give you specific
suggestions to help you move through the situation without succumbing to old
eating habits. As you have the time, we recommend that you read through the
entire section to find the scenarios that are closest to where you struggle. As
with the rest of the book, you may have to do a bit of “digging” and “mixing and
matching” to find the solutions that work best for you.
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Chapter 34: How Do I Find The Time To Eat Healthy and
Exercise?
"I wake up at 5:30, make the lunches, make the breakfast for everyone, dash off to bathe,
get dressed to head off to my job by 8am. I finally return home at 6:00 just to help with
the homework, settle the kids into the bedtime routine, head back over to the kitchen to
make dinner for my husband and I to literally crawl into bed by 10:00 just to do it all over
again. I am from a culture where the woman carries most of the cooking load but I also
have a full time job. I know working out and eating better would help me, but I'm just so
tired. It's everything I can do to just manage the day to day life that frankly, I don't even
know where I would find the five minutes to take this delicious walk you speak of, and my
breakfast apple fritter gives me the sugar boost I need to carry me through the morning
meetings.”
___________________________
Granted, sometimes it truly seems near impossible to make the time for healthy
cooking, slow & relaxed eating and exercise. Nevertheless, consider that each of
us probably spends at least a few minutes of the day “frittering”.
In case you don’t know, frittering is the way in which a person can spend several
hours a day keeping busy without actually getting anything done. A typical
frittering episode looks something like the following:
It may start with the urge to check one’s email “a bit”. This goes on for about 10
minutes or so, and then, miraculously, we find ourselves on a webpage with
stories about one or more of the following: the latest political news, stock market
updates, sports scores and- most importantly- the latest celebrity gossip.
Somehow this then reminds us of something we thought about the night before,
and is now absolutely critical to ‘Google’. After about an hour of such behavior,
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we convince ourselves that we must really get down to business, so we wean
from the computer and decide to file some papers that have been sitting around
for weeks…which leads to cleaning up the kitchen a bit…which leads us to
running some very important errands…
Anyhow, you get the idea. Bottom line: many of us think there is no time in the
day left for healthy cooking or working out. And yet, most people we knowpresent company included- spend at least some part of the day frittering.
So our suggestion is to substitute frittering for good, honest time management.
Every morning, schedule your day and establish specific goals. Make one of
them a commitment to workout at a specific time, and make this a high-priority
“appointment with yourself” that you don’t compromise on!
When you work out you will feel good about yourself and your body. This, in turn,
will make you more productive and efficient in your work and with your family.
If you can transform 30 minutes of frittering into 30 minutes of exercise twice a
week and once on the weekend, for example, you are building a positive exercise
routine into your busy schedule that is manageable and highly beneficial.
Now we understand some people are genuinely busy all day long with the tasks
associated with raising a family or running a company. If this is you, the next
suggestion will be of more immediate value.
If you are truly strapped for time, then we encourage you to rethink your
definition of exercise. Many people get stuck in the trap of thinking that exercise
means running or walking 3 miles, or going to the gym for 45 minutes. While that
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may be ideal, it doesn’t mean it’s the only way to think about exercise.
We often hear from people who have no consistent exercise regimen, and yet, all
of a sudden, they want to go to the gym 4 times a week. They are almost always
setting themselves up for failure, because they don’t yet have a strong,
consistent habit of working with their body that way. They may do it for a week,
but then they lose their motivation or focus…again! Instead, we encourage them
to start with doing something- ANYTHING- for 5 minutes at a time. This can be a
simple walk, some light stretching- even just breathing exercises. What is most
important is to build a consistent habit of doing some sort of healthy physical
activity.
Granted, 5 minutes of breathing exercises or simple stretching is not going to
help you lose a ton of weight. But, especially if you’re starting from scratch, it
does establish a positive habit you can then build on. This is critical. Those 5
minutes can become 10 and then 15. Walking can become running and then
resistance training.
And then you will have come full-circle: when you have built a positive habit of
engaging your body in exercise, you are 100% more likely to make time in your
busy schedule to continue this habit. Maybe you get up 30 minutes earlier in the
morning, or maybe you forgo watching TV for a quick trip to the gym. Maybe
you’ll squeeze your exercise into your lunch hour or even a coffee break. In
other words, you will find the time.
So, if you’re busy, remember, “Who isn’t?” Don’t let it be your excuse. There is
always something you can do, even if it’s a little bit at a time. This is the simple
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choice each of us must make on a daily basis and don’t forget: even five minutes
can get you very, very far.
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Chapter 35: How Do I Stop Eating After Dinner?
“I don’t know if this will cause an outcry, but can you eat dinner a little LATER? I know
everyone pushes eating earlier, but maybe eating later will stop your snacking....”
_____________________
“I think eating "late" is defined as less than 3 hours before bedtime...so if you're eating
dinner at 6pm and hit the hay at 11pm, you've got some wiggle room.”
_____________________
“Don't stop eating after dinner, just have something healthy, I love a 100 calorie bag of
popcorn around 8pm, it is my treat.”
_____________________
“Some nights I eat dinner at 10 pm and hit the hay at 10:20 so that I can be back at work
on time in the morning. Hey, I know it's supposed to be bad, but I've lost a lot of weight.”
_____________________
“If you get hungry later at night, I usually brush my teeth, then I will drink about 2 glasses
of water fairly quickly and wait for about 30 minutes- that usually works for me ... if it
doesn't work, then you are probably hungry. When that usually happens, I will grab 1/4 of
canned tuna with a little salsa on a 1/2 whole wheat slice of bread toasted.”
_____________________
“All I can say is it's a habit and you just need to make yourself stop. Sorry no magic pill
answer. I used to snack every night, I had to eat something before bed. Now I eat dinner
and I don't allow myself to eat anything after. If I feel hungry I drink some water and that
normally takes care of it. After about a week of feeling hungry at night without my snack
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my body got used to the routine and now after dinner is actually my easiest time not to
eat.”
_____________________
“Get on the Fat Smash Diet, it cured me of all night time snacking. An addiction I
thought I would never be able to beat. At the most now I have a piece of fruit or a ff
yogurt or a fruit smoothie. And believe it or not a lot of nights I have nothing to eat after
dinner. It's worth a check into. It is healthy, reboots your body back to normal healthy
eating patterns.”
_____________________
“I eat healthy throughout my morning & workday. Unfortunately almost everyday I blow
it when I am done work by snacking, eating high calorie dinners. I do not keep junk food
around the house, but Ill snack on "healthy" junk food like 100 calorie packs, sugar free
treats, etc. Anyone have any suggestions or have the same problem?”
_____________________
“I TOTALLY HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM......I try to eat a sensible dinner
because I've been good all day and then I feel like I'm hungry an hour later and want a
snack or two or three. Its really frustrating.”
_____________________
“Make sure you're getting enough calories during the day. Everyone needs at least some
healthy fats & fiber, too. If you're essentially 'starving' yourself during the day, it makes
sense that you're famished by the end of the night.
OTOH, if that's not the case, you may want to try altering your meal times and/or
spreading out your meals into more frequent, smaller 'meals.'
Hope this helps!”
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_____________________
“Or you could just suffer through the hunger pangs for a few nights until they go away.
that worked for me. it was tough, and i showered, brushed my teeth, flossed for an hour,
gave myself facials, cleaned out closets...just kept myself busy and NOT eating. after a few
nights, the pangs were gone and my evenings are a breeze to deal with now. for my
dinner, i usually have a yogurt and an apple and some veggies with hummus...keep it light
but healthy.”
_____________________
“I have the same problem. I have figured out that I want to reward myself for being 'good'
all day, and sweets are my reward. Sometimes I try to make sure I have not so bad treats,
like sugar free fat free chocolate pudding/fudgsicles, or diet hot chocolate or something.
But sometimes it seems like that perpetuates the problem.”
_____________________
“Eat a decent breakfast. Studies proving that eating a decent-size breakfast heads off
night bingeing have gotten a lot of press lately. As a former eat-most-of-my-calories-afterdark type, my anecdotal experiences are in total agreement.
100-calorie packs aren't "healthy", they're just portion-controlled treats. Sugar-free and
fat-free don't necessarily mean calorie-free, so don't fall into that trap either.
It sounds like there might be a bit of boredom going on...or if you've got a crazy homelife,
maybe food is a bit of escapism/avoidance. See if you can find another outlet for that by
getting involved in more structured activities at night - a gym routine, a night class, a
weekly volleyball game, a regular trip to the library, that sort of thing. If you're nowhere
near the fat-free cookie jar, you can't dip into it, right?”
_____________________
“Ditto the poster above: those 100 calorie packs and sugar free snacks are not healthy.
Look at the ingredients.
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Perhaps you're not eating enough throughout the day? And if you have a tough workout
routine (over 60 minutes with lots of exertion) maybe you should have a low-calories
protein shake afterwards for recovery. This could help ward of hunger.
I'd get rid of all the snack pack junk food and keep a bowl of fruit around. After dinner
when you think you're still hungry, think about whether you want an apple or banana or
orange. If the answer is no, then you're not really hungry and you're snacking for some
other reason.”
_____________________
“The bottom line is implementing more self-control. Ask yourself, before you grab for a
late-night snack, "is feeling bad worth the momentary taste sensation of this treat?"
As far as the 100-calorie snackpacks, and the sugar-free, fat-free treats referred to, these
are, by no stretch of the imagination, whole foods. whole foods will not only provide you
with more nutrients per calorie, but are more filling for a longer period of time. Instead of
a 100 calorie snackpack, why not go for 100 calories worth of almonds or yogurt or fruit?
the answer seems obvious, just difficult to implement. don't fall into the trap of eating
junk food that's disguised as healthy-diet-friendly-food.”
_____________________
Distract yourself - stay busy in the evenings with projects, social activities, etc. Break the
habit by making a major effort to not eat after dinner for 3 whole weeks. Brush your teeth
right after eating.”
_____________________
“A friend of mine makes a habit of drinking a big glass of warm water right before bed some crazy theory about it helping to burn calories or something. But, I'd imagine, doing
that would keep you from also reaching for a snack right then; the effort of consciously
drinking a big glass of water always makes me sort of full for at least a few minutes.
However, I'd imagine she always has to get up in the middle of the night to pee! So
maybe that's not such a good idea.”
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_____________________
“Diet soda. Seriously - it's a treat cause it tastes sweet - and if you grab the kind with zero
calories - it's not breaking any diet rules. I absolutely love the diet sierra mist. (zero
calories, and caffeine free)”
_____________________
“I try to avoid this at all costs but if I really have the urge I keep frozen red grapes in the
fridge and will have a little baggie of these. Or crystal light with 0 calories is great. Lots of
flavors and fills you up quick.”
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Chapter 36: How Do I Stop My Afternoon Snacking?
“I am a breastfeeding mom and no matter what come 3:00 I have a crazy need to snack. I
know my body can't me starving but my brain wants to eat everything in sight. I will have
a snack and with in 5 minutes I can barely concentrate on anything else. Any
suggestions?”
_____________________
Eat a bigger breakfast. If you are hungry at 3, have a healthy snack that is filling enough to
get you to dinner.
_____________________
“Try having a small meal every day at 3pm. I find when I'm hungry and try to find a snack,
I try and find something small, that doesn't really contribute much to my daily calorie
allotment. And I find that whatever it is, I'm not satisfied afterwards, and I'm still hungry.
But, if I plan a mini-meal, and prepare it, and sit down and eat it, then I can be totally
satisfied. Maybe something like a lean cuisine meal (many have less than 300 calories), or
a can of soup, or some leftovers, etc. I do best when it's something warm, and that takes a
little bit of prep - i.e. can't eat it straight out of the bag.”
_____________________
“I think you should allow yourself to have a snack if you're craving one! Make it a small
snack (about 100-150 calories with carbs and protein) like a piece of string cheese or an
apple with a tbsp of peanut butter.
It's good to eat something to keep your metabolism running.”
_____________________
“That's definitely a normal time to need a snack. Try something high-protein, like a boiled
egg, and see if that doesn't satisfy rather than set off the eating urge.”
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_____________________
“Crazy! I am a nursing mom and have the same problem. I always thought it was because
I always watch t.v. from 3-4pm, but even when I don't I am still starving. I eat a good
breakfast and lunch, but that does not seem to help. A small snack does nothing for me. I
am ready to eat a whole meal and then some and I am ready for dinner in a couple of
hours too. It is so frustrating.”
_____________________
“My wife is nursing. Our doctor told her that it was normal, since she is making milk and
all that good stuff.
Are you worried about losing weight while you nurse? If so, why? Just be a mom and be
happy for now.”
_____________________
“To the mom who is also starving-- isn't it crazy. It's almost like you can't get enough.
To the dad whose wife is also breastfeeding-- Thank you for the kind words, but it is
important to my psyche that I lose some weight.”
_____________________
“You’re nursing you need to eat more. JUST MAKE IT HEALTHY AND YOU
WILL STILL LOSE WIEGHT. HOW ABOUT A MILK AND PROTIEN AND
A FIBER. I NURSED FOUR. THEY ARE GROWN NOW I LIVED
THROUGH GUILT OVER THE FAMILY BED AND FEAR MY CHILDREN
WOULDN'T BE INDEPENDENT! I WAS A LE LECHE MOM, MY KIDS
NURSED UNTIL THEY WERE THREE, ONE WAS PRACTICALLY FOUR.
THEY ALL WENT AWAY TO COLLEGE. THEY ARE VERY
INDEPENDENT. GOOD LUCK YOU ARE GIVING YOUR CHILD A
GREAT START. YOU KNOW YOU BURN A RIDIULOUS AMOUNT OF
EXTRA CALORIES RIGHT. GOOD LUCK.”
_____________________
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“Mix carbs, protein and fats in your 3pm snack.”
_____________________
“I have found that a Thomas's english muffin, toasted with a tablespoon of peanut butter
is very satisfying in the afternoons. It happens to me every afternoon around 3 because
that's about the time I can relax after I get home from work. Use the reduced fat peanut
butter and you won't really be able to taste the difference between it and regular fattening
peanut butter. It's also really good on slices of apple or celery. I think it's the protein that
helps get me through the afternoons. All that for only 2 points and you'll stay satisfied
until dinner.”
_____________________
“Well I’m not breastfeeding but I eat an afternoon snack every day - in fact most my meals
are really just snacks:
7am - 110 cals
10 am - 150 cals
12pm - 300-400
2 pm 100-200
4pm 150
7pm 300-400
9pm - 100-200”
_____________________
“I can't verify the truth of it but my niece is breast feeding and she told me that
breastfeeding burns like 1500 cal a day.
So if that is true, no wonder you are hungry. I would think your body is telling you
something.
I find that soup can be very low calorie wise but very filling for a mid day meal.”
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Chapter 37: I Just Ate A Meal And Now I Want
Something Sweet. What Should I Do?
Many times you crave sugar because your body needs to replace the sugar it
used in “flight” or “fight” mode. This can happen after an intense workout. It can
also happen after you’ve “thought” hard trying to vigorously solve a problem. It
can also happen when you need more sleep. Or when you haven’t had enough
nutrients in your day.
Since it could be a result of so many things, we want you to slow down in both
your thinking and your physical exertion. You might be working out harder than
your body can actually do.
Try these ideas:
1. Wait it out. It might take 20 minutes for the food to fully get you’re your
bloodstream.
2. Drink some peppermint or green tea. Both aid digestion and are soothing
after a meal.
3. Drink water with lemon. The astringent in the lemon can curb your
appetite.
4. Have some high nutrient vegetables! Sauteed spinach or the PEERtrainer
energy soup is a great thing to have when you are craving sweets.
Slow down your thinking. Focus on things you can control. You can only control
your own thoughts and when you focus on this, your energy gets replenished.
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Chapter 38: How Do I Keep the Weight Off During the
Holidays?
“My mom loves to serve 5 bowls of pasta, garlic bread (with probably a stick of butter, etc.
You get the idea. It's hard when I go home for the holidays, I usually try to get more
active because I'm always afraid of insulting my mom. My family is mostly heavy except
for me, and I'm trying to lose 15 pounds. I hope they get healthy soon.
My problem is whenever my family gets together all we ever do is eat. I mean we go out to
eat or snack when we stay in. We are all going on vacation over the weekend and I don't
know how I am going to restrain my self.”
________________________
“My family definitely revolves everything around a big meal and snacks! I usually try to
take a walk after eating to get it moving and start burning some of it off. Now that the
holidays are coming I’m trying to set goals on how much i will eat and how much i will
exercise b/c in the winter months I always gain weight and I hope to change that this
year. I would suggest before visiting your families plan an exercise routine cardio would
be the best idea for each day you will be staying and 3 days after you return home each day
working backwards toward your regular routine, and if you ate more than you should
have exercise a little more.”
________________________
Consider these ideas:
1. Snack on raw veggies half an hour before the big meals so you’re already
satisfied when the food arrives.
2. Volunteer (or insist if you have to) to serve everybody at the table. This
way you’re controlling the size of the portion that winds up on your plate.
3. If eating bread, rolls, etc is a big downfall for you, then subtly put it at the
opposite end of the table so you can’t unconsciously reach for it.
4. Try to avoid alcohol. While alcohol may very well enhance the mood and
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enjoyment of the experience, just be very cognizant how it whittles away
your self-control with food. If you’re going to have a drink, be extra
disciplined about it.
5. Go back and read Chapter 25 on relationships and food choices.
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Chapter 39: What If I’m Not Hungry For Breakfast?
“We hear so much about breakfast being the most important meal of the day and you need
it to keep your metabolism up, but what if you just aren't hungry until lunchtime? Any
thoughts or experience with this? It doesn't affect the rest of the day - like it doesn't cause
over-snacking or over-eating later (logging in WW points to make sure). Thanks!”
______________________
“No one is saying you have to eat breakfast if you don't want it. However numerous
studies have shown that those who eat breakfast every day are, in general, more successful
at losing weight and keeping it off. Note - those results don't say you can't lose weight
and keep it off if you don't eat breakfast, just that it works that way for more people than
not.
If this doesn't work for you and you're happy with the way things are - then do what
works best for you.”
______________________
“I didn't eat breakfast until I was about 21 years old when I started living with my, now,
husband. You just have to force it a little, at first. Just have something small-a piece of
fruit, a handful of nuts, a bar, an egg... It will become normal after a few weeks/months,
and you'll actually be hungry for it in the morning. It's nothing but good for you. Give it a
try!”
______________________
“I don't feel like eating breakfast, I don't feel like exercising, I don't feel like eating
healthy...blah blah blah. They are all excuses.
There are certain things you need to do if you want to lose weight. Eating breakfast is one
of them. Not just so you don't overeat throughout the day but also so your metabolism
stays high.
I can't remember where I read it but it said that if you are not hungry within 30 minutes of
waking up you ate too much the night before, just a thought, I'm always hungry when I
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wake up but I also eat my lightest meal at dinner.”
______________________
“Interesting. If I go to bed I hungry, I wake up not hungry at all. I always credited my
stomach shrinking overnight to that. And vice versa, if I go to bed stuffed I wake up
starving. I have no scientific proof on the stomach shrinking thing, that's just me trying to
rationalize things.”
______________________
“I too am always starving in the morning after a big dinner too, not at all if I ate a light
dinner.
As far as the breakfast thing, I started eating breakfast NO MATTER WHAT about 2
years ago when I started trying to lose weight and I think it really helped me. It's now a
habit, I am hungry first thing and feel better in general all day. I would recommend it!”
______________________
“Yep! Me too! I think its because of the level of acid in your stomach, from digesting all
night? If I eat too much too close to bedtime I wake up hungry. What is a good simple
breakfast?”
______________________
“I agree with the previous posters. Eat something anyway - even just something small, like
a 1/2 protien bar, hardboied egg, 1/2 a yoghurt. It should help with metabolism. Eating
breakfast has been KEY to my losing weight, and I wasn't a breakfast eater for 30 years.”
______________________
Eating within the first 30 minutes o waking up gets your metabolism going. That's why
breakfast eaters are more successful with weight loss. What it comes down to is this- if
you want to lose weight you'll eat breakfast. Your best bet is protein. A boiled egg,
yogurt, a glass of milk, a cheese stick even peanut butter. Good luck.
______________________
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If you're not a breakfast person, try drinking your breakfast! Have a glass of fruit juice or a
low fat latte in the morning! Or a smoothie...
That way, you give your body some nutrition, kickstart your metabolism but don't force
yourself to eat when you really don't want to!”
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Chapter 40: Case Study: How to Avoid Late Night
Snacking In College
So it's almost 4 am, and I have an assignment due tomorrow at 12pm (yay college.). I'm
starving, so I made myself a peanut butter sandwich on light white bread (protein) and
am drinking orange juice with an 'emergen-c' in it for a vitamin C energy boost.
So, I've noticed this type of snacking happens about 1ce per week if not more for me and
was wondering how do I log the 300-400 calories of damage? Should it count in today's
calories, yesterdays, or just be taken in stride as 'life happening'? I know NOT snacking
would be optimal, but when the last thing I ate was at 7pm for dinner, I'm REALLY
hungry...”
______________________
“So i know staying up late is also supposed to be bad, but i'm in college and i'm lucky if
I'm ever in bed by midnight, usually it's more like 1 or 2 am. I generally do sleep until 9:30
or 10, so i am getting my 8 hours, but in order to function people need fuel. I often eat late
at night cause it'll have been like 5 hours since dinner and I'm hungry. will this make me
fatter?”
______________________
“Eating "late" is generally considered within 3 hours of bedtime. So you'd technically be
okay having a substantial snack around 9/10pm -- but try to avoid a full meal.”
______________________
“Sometimes you have to prioritize, and if you're up late working on an assignment, the
energy to focus is probably more important in the short term than weight loss. 300-400
calories once a week isn't the end of the world; it averages out to 50 calories a day over the
week. Maybe try to do some extra exercise the next day? But don't beat yourself up about
it. If it was an extra 400 calories every day, you'd have a problem!
As for logging, if it's after midnight I'd put it on today's calories, I think. Also? Well done
for sticking to a healthy snack; at least you're not bingeing on a pizza and a gallon of
Coke!”
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______________________
“I'd say if you haven’t gone to bed yet then it is still yesterday. But then...are you going to
get any sleep?”
______________________
“Hope you got your assignment done and you feel good about it. How I remember this
high stress under the gun living in college!
I'm with most of the posters here, don't beat yourself up. You needed SOMETHING to
stave off the tiredness and to supply some protein for your alertness. Your choices were ok
and you didn't eat a jar of PNB...instead had a sandwich.
Post in a way that makes the most sense to you...it doesn't matter to the rest of us how
you are posting.
Hang in there, you are doing great! Best wishes getting your work done.”
______________________
“I have the same problem... insomnia. And often get up to snack. Sometimes its a must!! I
log it on at dinner but leave a space and label the time. I just read about the fiber PGX (it
expands 600 times in the stomach so watch out!) and I'm going to try to have MUCH
smaller midnight snacks with the fiber. Some calories are necessary to feed the brain, but
mindless eating benefits no part of the body or Soul.”
______________________
“Thanks for the posts guys :] Extra work out the next day is out since I'm usually
exhausted after an all nighter :) but I think I'll just add it all up and do some extra on the
weekends, or count that as my running 'off day'.
As for getting any sleep, that's totally optional here :P .I'm at an ivy league who's work
load is supposedly 'world notorious'. *shrug*
long live pb&j!! and starbucks' skinny lattes :) “
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______________________
“I'm a student too. Anything after midnight I just count for the next day.”
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Chapter 41: Anti-Snacking Strategies Involving Your
Teeth
The title of this one speaks for itself. Of course, it’s ultimately more
advantageous to work through the issues that cause you to want to snack
mindlessly, but in the process, as strange as this may sound, if it works it works!
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Chapter 42: Controlling PMS Cravings
“How do you control cravings when you're pms-ing? I find it really difficult, and I can
gain five pounds in three days just from snacking so much!”
______________________
Oh man - I am totally with you on that one... honestly, I have a hard time telling myself
"no snacking" so instead I make sure that when I know it's going to be that "time of the
month" I have lots of healthy snacks around and with me throughout the day. It's
obviously still not the best practice, but at least I know that I'm getting some nutrients
into my body when I chomp down on carrots, edamame (the soy beans they often serve as
appetizers in sushi restaurants), or fiber crackers. the other thing that helps I find is
drinking A LOT of water and/or herbal tea. That's my two cents... hope it helps.”
______________________
Cravings are your body's way of communicating need. Pump up the nutrition - add fruits
and dark leafy greens to your meals, add a small handful of raw unsalted nuts or seeds to
your salad, and stay away from caffeine, processed foods & especially sugar. Drink water
and walk.
______________________
It's funny -- I can't STAND salt at any time of the month except when I'm PMS-ing, and
then I crave it. So you know what? I eat it (although I try not to eat fat with my salt;
definitely pretzels are better than fries.) And I retain water for a week -- up to 8 pounds of
water! But figure that's the way it's supposed to work; it's normal and healthy to retain
water before one's period.
Also, your metabolism is a little higher during your period (which is why a lot of people
feel cold) so you do have the urge to eat more to fuel that. Just keep the snacking healthy
and you won't go wrong. I wear a big fluffy sweater, too, so that I'm not eating
BECAUSE I feel cold.
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______________________
I found chromium helpful with cravings, but then later it made me jittery, I can't
understand why? You could try eating foods high in chromium, like mushrooms. I agree
with other posters, it may be helped by nutrients, but I too get intense chocolate cravings
before my period. I give in by eating small amounts of very dark chocolate, which I find
satisfying because it's so intense without doing too much damage in terms of calories.
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Chapter 43: I Am Always Hungry! What Do I Do?
Does anyone ever feel that no matter what the eat they are still hungry? I keep reading
how you can eat all the veggies and fruit you want because that is what your body needs
and it will in turn end up making you feel less hungry, but it seems like I have been
"snacking" all dang day so far..cereal for breakfast, apple, blackberries, pretzels, ceasar
salad for lunch....and yeah here it is 1:36 and I want more...I don't feel satisfied at
all...HELP please...could use any hints or tips on how to make myself feel more satisfied
so I can stop snacking. Granted it's healthy, but even all those "healthy" things will add up
after a while. Thanks for all your help guys!”
______________________
Are you drinking enough water? You should try drinking 8oz of water in between the
snacking and the meals. It also takes awhile for your body to get used to the change in
eating so its only natural that you will still feel hungry until you make this your new eating
habit.
______________________
“I try to drink a lot of water, it helps me stay full.
Also, I pretty much eat all day too. I don't usually eat very large meals to account for the
fact that I am hungry all day and kind of "graze" on fruit, veggies, pretzels, etc. As long as
my portions are small it has helped me. You could try adding more protein to you snacks
too, it will help you stay full. Peanut butter on your apple, a piece of cheese with your
veggies, a hand full of almonds, etc.”
______________________
“There is definitely a transition while your body gets used to eating only what it needs.
Hunger is OK sometimes - in fact it is quite normal to be hungry before your next snack
or meal. I often am afraid of hunger and will eat right before a planned meal because I
don't want to feel hungry.
I love Beck's saying "Hunger is not an emergency". I have to chant it sometimes when I
am feeling hungry and ready to eat everything in sight.”
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______________________
I picked up this top a long time ago from one of my many fitness resources - it was to eat
protein with every meal. So, blackberries with some yogurt. Pretzels with some lite
cottage cheese. Salad with some chicken...you get it. Protein apparently stays with you
longer = feeling satisfied longer. I tell ya - I can eat 1200 calories a day and not feel that
gnawing hunger shortly after meals/snacks when I do this - I'm pretty good between
meals. And I can eat 1800+ in mostly carbs (fruit, breads, crackers, etc.) and be starving!
Worth a try.”
______________________
When your body starts having to depend on its fat stores, it sends messages to the brain
that you are starving (because back in caveman days, long periods without food created
this problem for us today). The fact is your body LIKES being fat to a point... that's
right, it likes to be stingy with it's fat reserves holding on to every ounce. Listen to your
hunger to a point but know hunger is also just a wolf cry sometimes. I would recommend
“The Beck Diet Solution” to retrain your eating and “You: On a Diet” to learn about your
body.”
______________________
“Could you think about it like this: if someone was giving away cigarettes, would you
smoke them just because they're free?”
______________________
“I've heard that people can mistake thirst for hunger. Personally I don't know how, but
drinking a glass of water when you're hungry can solve the trick.
Of course if you're really, really hungry all the time try eating a diet high in fiber. This will
help you retain water and make you feel more full- not to mention the added benefit of
being regular if you know what I mean.
Foods that are high in fiber are whole grains like oats and bran- please note brown rice
although considered a whole grain has no to little fiber and is not beneficial in this
circumstance, vegetables (celery surprisingly has the most fiber content), and fruits all
have fiber. Beware of eating too many servings of these foods, especially whole grains and
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fruits (they have higher calories per serving than vegetables).
Take a look at your BMI and activity level to see how many calories/servings you should
be eating per day- you may be too restrictive accounting for the constant hunger. A good
website to check out is caloriecount.com. This will keep you on track of you are at all
unsure of how you should be goaling yourself.”
______________________
Actually, a cup of brown rice has 3.5 grams of fiber...
______________________
I used to have this same problem. I was ALWAYS hungry. My doctor explained that
fruits and veggies and grains burn off in 2 hours or less, but meat will sustain for longer
periods of time. Now I work in eggs, cottage cheese, fish or lean meat with each meal. As
a result, it is not uncommon for me to go 6 hours until the next meal on the weekends. I
have a schedule on weekdays of every 4 hours. Plus, when I do get hungry, it is a different
kind of hunger. It is not so painful and I don't get weak or shakey.
This was a difficult adjustment for me because I was not much of a meat eater. I can only
tolerate the leanest of lean. Skin, bone and fat gross me out on steaks and chicken, etc.
But, now that I have been doing it for a while, I know what cuts to buy, etc.”
______________________
“Have you asked your group/team members to take a look at your logs and see if they have
any suggestions? Maybe there are more filling things you could be eating in your diet and
your wasting many of your calories on things that are just not as filling.”
______________________
Eat 6 mini meals a day, protein at each: eggs, egg whites, cottage cheese, lean meats,
protein shakes. Eat this way for 3 days and your hunger will go away. I was stuck on a
horrible plateau, working out heavily for 6 days/week and STARVING all the time. I
met with a specialist and he gave me this program, within 2-3 days, cravings were gone
and - seriously, believe it or not - I actually had trouble eating all of my food.”
______________________
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A WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE treated me like it was all in my head. My Weight
Watchers buddies ("if you stick to the program, you'll lose weight") and nutritionists
("don't snack between meals!") and they were all f*cking WRONG. I'm a strong girl and
they made me feel like I was crazy. I even went to my doctor for diet pills because I
assumed that there must be something really wrong with me. Why didn't I have will
power? What's going on in my brain? Is it addiction?
But I got on this program (6 mini-meals with protein, reasonable carbs, lots of veggies)
and I lost 8 pounds of fat in 6 weeks - even added 4 pounds of muscle - without being
hungry even once. Oh, and this includes one "cheat" day (on a day that you do a
challenging workout).
______________________
Chromium Picolinate. I used to have a lot of problems with hunger too. I read an article
one time that said chromium picolinate helps regulate the release of insulin and helps
control hunger. I take 2 x 200 mg capsules in the morning and at bedtime. That
combined with trying to eat more protein has helped me tremendously.
______________________
“I agree with a number of posters about more frequent but mini meals. Same foods, just
split up in to little meals. Also, after reading The Zone, I became convinced that I needed
some protein and fat in every little meal, and that I was eating way to many
carbohydrates. I used to get low blood sugar all of the time, and then ended up eating
whatever was near because I was feeling horrible, now that doesn't happen so much. Try
experimenting to see what works for you.”
______________________
“How tall are you and how much do you weigh, if I may ask? I am 5'10'' and weigh 168.
Am desperately trying to lose at least 8 pounds. Been doing cardio 5x/wk, eating healthy.
Stuck in a serious plateau! Always mix up my workouts. I'm bummed.”
______________________
“Above - give it time! Keep up your hard work! Vary your diet as well - you may need to
actually eat more some days to keep your metabolism revved up. Then go back to a
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reduced calorie diet for a few days. It may take 6-8 weeks to get those eight pounds off.
Also, try weight training! It will build lean muscle which will also increase your
metabolism.”
______________________
I am 43, 5’ 9” female and 197. I have been doing this for about two weeks and the change
has been astounding!!! I started at 205. I have really only had the hang of it for 2 weeks.
My body is really responding. I can feel the inches coming off. Definitely recommend the
weight training along with 30 min cardio. Muscle revs the metabolism. I don't count
points, I count calories. For now I do 1700. That is supposed to get me to 170 lbs. After
that, I will adjust accordingly.
Seriously, for the first time in my life, I feel that I have control over my hunger and really
believe I will reach my ultimate goal!
You should join my team. We have a whole team of HUNGRY people trying to get a
grip. We are great at supporting each other.”
______________________
“I use diet software to log my food each day. The software I use (I downloaded mine from
dietpower.com) also keeps track of 30 nutrients. When I saw that I was getting only small
amounts of some nutrients, I changed my diet to fix the deficiencies, and my hunger
problems went away. I paid $50 for my software, but there are some websites like fitday,
nutridiary, and nutritiondata.com that will let you log your food and see your nutrients for
free. Even if you only do it for a few days, the experience could be eye-opening. In
particular, I was getting plenty of vitamins from my food, yet very few minerals, so I quit
taking a multi-vitamin and started taking a multi-mineral instead.”
______________________
“I agree totally -- I went to a nutritionist and she said eat often -- 3 to 4 hours -- and always
include protein. The goal is not to get so hungry you're ravenous. Some people have the
kind of metabolism which needs small but substantial meals and snacks through the day.
This does work for me -- the problem is making sure I eat breakfast within an hour of
waking. If I let it go after that (and sad to say I often do) it means I'll be very hungry at
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night. Hope this helps!”
______________________
One of the most commonly asked questions that we get asked from our
PEERtranier Tip Of The Day subscribers is about hunger.
It doesn't matter whether you've been restricting yourself on a diet, or not even
watching what you eat at all, there are times that you suddenly feel so hungry
you don't even know how it hit you.
Often you find yourself in a situation where you didn't eat a proper breakfast, or
you went too late until lunch came around and the hunger hits you like a ton of
bricks. You feel like you could eat a house and if someone put a large pizza in
front of you at that exact moment, you could probably scarf down 3/4 of it, maybe
almost the whole thing.
What's interesting is that Dr. Fuhrman, in his book Eat for Health, says that actual
hunger is felt in your throat. Symptoms include salivating and light interest.
Actual "hunger" is when your body is ready for more nutrients.
Often that "starving" feeling are withdrawal symptoms from the caffeine, sugar or
other "nutrient-poor" foods you consume. These feeling that we confuse for "real
hunger" are usually felt in the stomach as growling, light headedness, little dizzy,
the general sensations we feel when we say we are hungry.
But at the time when you're "starving", the logic behind what's really going on
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doesn't matter. You just want food and you want it now. When you get to this
point, how do you satiate yourself without destroying all of your efforts towards
your weight loss for the week?
Here are a few tips:
1. Keep one of your favorite snacks in your purse or in your desk at all
times.
That doesn't mean healthy if you don't like the taste. If you throw an apple in
your purse but you don't particularly love apples, when that overwhelm comes
on, you will not eat that apple. You will think you are starving and way too
"hungry" for that apple to even begin to have an effect. You'll head to your
nearest "favorite food" place that will satisfy the hunger.
Pick a snack that you really love the taste of: maybe it's a fruit/nut power bar maybe a banana or maybe something else. Pick a snack that works for you, that
you really like, and next time the starving feeling comes on you'll have something
right there, and once you've eaten it, the binge feeling has come and gone.
2. Check if that hunger feeling really means you're thirsty
Most of the time when you feel hungry, you are dehydrated. Get a large glass of
water full of ice with Fresh squeezed lemon and see how you feel afterwards.
3. If you didn't put your favorite snack in your purse?
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Instead of using the starving excuse as a chance to stop at Starbucks for a large
muffin, croissant and moccachino, go find your favorite snack immediately!!
Think of what you would have put in your desk or purse and simply go purchase
that to eat now.
4. What if you give in anyway?
Lastly, if you are starving and you do head to the nearest pizza place and scarf
down 4 times as much as you usually do, don't make it the end of the world.
Don't use that incident as the reason for saying, well, I messed up, might as well
have pasta and that hot fudge sundae I've been craving as well.
Don't stack it with all the other things you were disappointed with in yourself that
day. You were "starving", you ate a lot, and that's all it is. Commit to making just
the next meal, just one meal one that follows your regimen and makes you have
energy and feel great and don't look back.
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Chapter 44: I Can’t Stop Snacking!
I know I know - it is a pattern that only I can break . . I'm trying - but I never seem to have
enough. I feel like I could always eat more: even if I'm not hungry. I don't snack on the
WORST foods even ,but Iknow it prevents me from reaching my goals.
Can anybody offer some CONCRETE ways / steps to help me? I realize it is a problem,
I realize I need to stop, but I don't know how!! It's killing me!
______________________
Can't offer you CONCRETE solution, but what I wanted to say is that if you like to
munch on snacks all day, then don't eat a traditional 3 meals a day. "They" say that eating
smaller meals more often throughout the day is better for metabolism anyway. If you do
this your snacks are really a small meal, and don't add up on top of your 3 meals. If you
have more substantial snacks/mini meals throughout the day, you won't need the smaller
snacks in between.
______________________
Chew gum.
______________________
Here's my concrete suggestion: when you have a snack, make sure that you combine a
protein and a complex carb. Some good suggestions:
salmon/tomato (or salad)
apple and peanut butter
celery and almond butter
cottage cheese and fruit
almonds and a slice of bread (high fiber, preferably)
pear and mozerella
______________________
I have this problem too. One of friends found a tip on the net which does help a little.
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1) try to drink loads of water when you feel the urge
2) If you feel like snacking, take a little of it and move to an area away from the TV (where
you could end up snacking more) and move into a room with other family/friends. Or just
leave the house for a while.
The water thing has helped me a little (reduced quantity of my snacking). I think I need
to try the moving into another room tip next time (which I hope never comes.
______________________
I have the same problem too! All i want to do is eat! but i agree with the chewing gum b/c
its a huge stress reliever and it gives your mouth something to do!
______________________
I go ahead and snack on things like Sugar Free Jello (the pre-made cups in the dairy case),
whole bags of pre-cut raw cauliflower or raw broccoli or raw celery, seltzer with lemon
juice. Sugar Free Jello is my favorite for weak moments -- for some reason it takes away
the cravings.
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Chapter 45: Vacation Eating
We will be driving on our vacation, and was wondering if anyone had healthful snacking
ideas. I am one to constantly snack if I am in the car for long periods of time. I have so far:
Apples, Sunflower seeds, Beef Jerky, Peanut Butter Crackers, sugar free hard candies,
gum. Case of Water. Wheat thins. I plan on getting some baby carrots, and yogurt. But
was trying to think of other things, that are 1 -healthy, and 2 not another carb. I have done
so well with changing my eating habits, I don't want to mess up now.
______________________
* snack packs of applesauce or Jello
* green beans, sugar snap peas
* diet Snapple or something to quench the old sweet tooth, if you don't mind Splenda
* string cheese
______________________
Kraftfoods.com. The Original Munch Mix! It's delicious!! I made it for a girls' night i
attended and got rave reviews! You can check out this recipe and others at
kraftfoods.com.
4 cups POST SPOON SIZE Shredded Wheat Cereal
2 cups popped popcorn
1 cup small pretzels
1 cup PLANTERS Mixed Nuts
1 env. GOOD SEASONS Italian Salad Dressing & Recipe Mix
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter or margarine, melted
2 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
PREHEAT oven to 300°F. Toss cereal with popcorn, pretzels and nuts in 15x10x1-inch
baking pan. Sprinkle evenly with salad dressing mix.
MIX butter, Worcestershire sauce and garlic powder. Drizzle evenly over cereal mixture;
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toss to coat.
BAKE 30 to 35 min. or until lightly toasted, stirring after 15 min. Cool. Store in tightly
covered container at room temperature.
______________________
Unsalted almonds
bananas
celery w/ hummus
______________________
protein snacks
hardboiled eggs
cottage cheese (in small tupperware, so they are single servings)
south beach bars/meal replacement bars
nuts
______________________
how about low-carb lavash or tortillas wrapped around turkey lunchmeat?
Peanuts and pistachios IN THE SHELL-- that way, it takes longer to eat, and you may
eat less... :-)
Cut up veggies.
celery
Carrots
Zucchini
broccoli
cauliflower
etc... :-)
Hummus or bean dip or veggie dips (Trader Joe's has some really yummy ones!)
Olives - Trader Joes' has some small snack packs-- packed in a LITTLE oil--with herbs
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& garlic. The pack is something like 2 or 3 servings and only costs about 89 cents... :-)
They are great and lightweight for snacking. :-)
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If you really like to munch constantly, it sounds like you need low-cal snacks. Be careful
with the sunflower seeds, cheese, and nuts, they're very dense in calories. Aside from fruits
and veggies, some good snacks are popcorn, some specialty dried fruits (my specialty
grocery store has containers of, like, tomatoes, mushrooms, strawberries, bananas, apples,
etc., dried until they're crunchy, and some are very low cal, you have to look at the label,
but they're by the crackers, not by the other dried fruits, which are typically high-cal), light
applesauce made with Splenda (by Musselman's, comes in lots of flavors, doesn't need to
be refrigerated), pickles, etc. Cut up lots of veggies before you leave for the trip, so you
have a lot of variety. Try some you don't normally have, in addition to the typical carrots,
celery. Add grape tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, squash, mushrooms, etc.
You'll get less bored with the healthy stuff if it's stuff you don't eat often.
______________________
Maybe you shouldn't take any. Seriously, maybe you need to get rid of the constant
snacking bad habit. If you're going to really remote places, I'd take some jerky or protein
bars and stash them in the trunk (only get in case of emergency). But it has to be
something you wouldn't want to eat unless you're really really hungry (that's a
backpacker's trick to stash something not-so-yummy for in case of emergency).
______________________
I don't agree with the above poster, Sorry. I guess I would rather see someone pack a lot
of healthy stuff and eat it, than run into the gas station for a giant sized snickers.
______________________
If you know your eating habits and plan for them accordingly, it's all good. Not having
snacks planned and packed on a long trip could lead to disaster.
That said, wheat thins and peanut butter crackers are not healthy, so tread lightly with
those. Pirates Booty or some other "healthy" chip or cracker would be a better substitute.
Nuts could be quite dangerous, too, so I'd watch your portion size (personally, I wouldn't
be able to do it).
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On trips I like the best fruits I can find: organic gala apples are my favorite, good cherries
(fun to spit the pits out the window - ew). Also baby carrots are great. Otherwise string
cheese, pria bars (110 cals) or clif nectar bars.
Also try dried apple rings - very low cal, high fiber and chewy. Grape tomatoes, too.
______________________
I guess i didn't express myself properly. I'll take something very little until my next stop. I
assume big meals are planned, so I'd only count on lunches and dinners, and maybe if it's
really no man's land, stop at a convenience store and pick something filling and
substantial, but very little.
My point is, when you have tons of food no matter how healthy - if you munch non-stop it's still tons of calories. Anyway, on the road I always like to eat whatever the road and
other locales offer, not food brought from home - it is so much fun.
______________________
Different strategies work for different people. I am an all-day snacker, and it has really
helped me maintain my weight loss. Sometimes when you are pulling through those long
hours, having something to snack on keeps you a little busy in case your companions have
fallen asleep.
Also, I don't know about special dietary concerns, but I am vegan, so it can often be
tough to find healthy, low-calorie, inexpensive food on the road, especially at a quick stop.
Often my only choice is the yucky watery pasta at Sbarro pizza or something hi-cal and
nutritionally void like a hot pretzel. It's good to know I have back-up veggies and fruits in
the car.
______________________
Take up a craft. What keeps me busy and my mind off of food is knitting... It is a great car
activity... and you could even do finger weaving or knitting with your fingers... get a cheap
ball of yarn and start weaving on your fingers if you don't know or want to learn how to
knit... you may not be sure of what to do with it in the end but it will have saved you a
bunch of mindless eating... some snacking is ok... but find something to keep your hands
busy.
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Be careful with knitting-- that you're not sitting in a seat with an airbag--in case of an
accident, the knitting needles may be quite dangerous...
I know that sounds kind of odd, but the thought occurred to me as I was knitting socks
with 5 double pointed needles...
The other thing is that some people get car sick if looking down at something while on
the road...
______________________
Yeah, I find knitting a great distractor from munching - especially in the evenings at
home.
In the car, maybe crocheting is a safer alternative?..
______________________
Thanks for all the suggestions... my munching on snacks, is only on long trips. When I am
home or at work that is not a problem. Just the opposite, I have to remind myself to eat
breakfast and lunch. Luckily my trip will be broken up with a day and half driving then
two days with friends, another day worth of driving that I am splitting up into two days
since I will be by myself for that leg of the trip, the next three days will be with friends or
family. Then two -three days to get back home.
As far as my "seeds" I have a 14.5 oz bag which is seven servings, I doubt if I will go
through half of it on the trip. The only advantage to them is they make me drink lots of
water. I think it is the fact that my hands are busy. I will be doing alot of driving myself,
and the seeds help keep me focused.
We plan on eating lunch on the road, and will probably only stop for diner. I do have the
apples, and plan on carrots to snack on, maybe some celery also. I am not big on alot of
raw vegtables, but I am getting better.
Thanks for your suggestions... See ya in 10 days.. Will let you know.
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Chapter 46: Discussion: Does Anyone Skip Dinner?
“I have found that I use up most of my calories between breakfast, lunch and snacking
throughout the day. Does anyone skip dinner to save calories or just have a low cal snack
like popcorn or watermelon”?
______________________
“I always save calories for dinner.
My mom used to use popcorn for dinner as a dieting trick whenever my dad was out of
town. She'd eat microwave popcorn while watching a movie and call it dinner. She
always lost weight that way.
(Though I can't really say that it worked - she's always been at least somewhat
overweight)”
______________________
“If I'm not hungry, I don't eat a big dinner. If I am hungry but I have already eaten a lot of
calories that day, I center the meal around veggies with a lean protein. You can eat a
pretty big stir-fry for around 350 calories - I use cooking oil spray, as many veggies as I
want and maybe two servings of light tofu.
Breakfast should be your biggest meal, and it's better to have eaten when you are hungry
throughout the day rather than try and "save up" for dinner because you may end up really
hungry and overeat or even binge.”
______________________
“I find that I lose more weight when I snack here and there for dinner rather than
preparing a big meal that I have to save my points for during the day.”
______________________
“I don't "save up" by starving myself. I eat what keeps me full, and I'm not afraid to get a
little bit hungry here and there to stretch out the time between meals and/or snacks. I
allow myself 300 calories for breakfast (typically either 1 light bagel w/ 2 slices light
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laughing cow cheese and 2 slices turkey bacon, or 2 slices toast w/ 2 eggs fried in PAM, or
a bowl of cereal w/ skim and 2 slices turkey bacon, plus a cup of coffee w/ coffee mate and
splenda - a good sized breakfast), and then 500 calories during the time that I'm at work
(soup and some fruit for lunch, plus a 100-cal snack in the afternoon, or, a turkey sandwich
w/ lots of veggies and mustard on it w/ fruit salad on the side, or a big salad with dressing
on the side and some sort of protein and fat - i.e. cheese or egg or walnuts or turkey
breast, etc.), and then 500 calories for dinner plus any late-night snacking (usually don't
snack).
If I use a portion of my "reserved" calories earlier in the day for some sort of treat, or just
b/c I’m hungry, then I take them out of what I have left over for dinner/snacks. At the
same time, that's helpful b/c I know if I have a cookie or piece of cake or something,
something that's good but not filling, that I will regret it later when I'm hungry! It makes
it so much easier to pass up the treats!”
______________________
“No, I never skip dinner. That's my biggest meal of the day. I'm pretty sure it's not a great
idea to skip meals. Although, that's not saying you need to have a huge meal at dinner
time. Breaking up your meals into 6 small meals throughout the day will keep your blood
sugar regulated, and give you more energy.”
______________________
“No, I really don't skip dinner. I think that hunger is one of the worst enemies to a dieter.
If I am hungry, my willpower breaks down and I am more likely to eat unwisely.
That said, if I find that I have used up all my calories for the day, some of my strategies for
dinner are:
-- eat a green salad with chicken breast for dinner (about 200 calories if no salad dressing)
-- go to the gym and work off about 300 calories so I can eat 300 calories for dinner.
-- keep track of an informal "calorie bank" (if I under-ate on a previous day, I get to put the
un-eaten calories in my calorie bank; if I over-eat on a day, I subtract the calories overeaten from my calorie bank).”
__________________________
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“I don't eat if I'm not hungry. So, if I'm not hungry at dinner time, I don't make myself eat
dinner.”
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“Skipping 1 meal is not going to make your body go into starvation mode.
I may not skip dinner but if I've eaten a decent amount during the day I might make it
pretty light like a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, Kaishi or Special K with skim milk (I
tend to go for the ones fortified with vitamins). Maybe a salad with lots of chopped
veggies and light dressing or a 4 oz serving of (cooked) pasta tossed with lots of stir fried
veggies and a light sauce. As a previous poster said you can eat a heaping lot of veggies
and do little damage calorie-wise so long as you prepare them healthfully.”
______________________
“I have to say just because you don't feel hungry doesn't mean you shouldn't eat. I used to
not eat because I wasn't hungry. I really truly wasn't hungry. I had energy and I wasn't
tired, I would eat maybe 1or 2 times a day and very small portions. It wasn't because my
body wasn't hungry but my head wasn't getting the signal... it is true, just like sometimes
we don't think we are thirsty, I couldn't tell I was hungry. However I will say that is no
longer a problem, I get hungry now!”
______________________
“My theory - stolen shamelessly from Elle way back when she was in my beta group, and
supported by subsequent readings - is that food is fuel. I fairly often do not get home until
9 or even later, and my bed time is 11 or 11:30. I therefore need fuel for two hours, tops,
from my dinner. That's maybe 100 calories (I'm just puttering in that time...watching TV,
doing laundry, easy, low-energy stuff), maybe 200 if I'm just coming back from the gym.
However, I do need fuel to get through whatever my evening activity is. I try to spread
out my calories like this:
breakfast (8:30 or 9 am at the office): 500 calories
midmorning snack (~11 or 11:30am): 200 calories
lunch (as late as possible before I'm starving ~1 or 2 pm): 500 calories
afternoon snack (~5 or 6, depending on how organized I am): 200 calories
dinner (9 or 9:30pm): 200 calories
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I'm a grazer - I definitely prefer eating small meals spread out through the day than three
big meals. And eating such a small dinner took a LOT of practice. It was ingrained in my
American-raised brain that dinner is the biggest meal of the day, and I often slip back into
that when I eat outside of my kitchen for dinner. But as I started to pay more attention to
my body, I realized that I was going to bed overly full, and that I was physically
uncomfortable. (I'd turn down sex because my stomach didn't want to have his weight on
me....sorry if that's TMI...but it was a big part of my making the connection between
eating too much for dinner and going to bed uncomfortably full.)
So I personally think that the traditional 3-squares-a-day is just that - tradition that we
follow blindly because we've never taken the time to think if it's what's best for us. Try
mixing it up! If you're getting enough calories through the day, and not waking up so
famished that you over eat or eat whatever crap is nearest, then skipping dinner is not a
big deal.”
“I don't even know what breakfast, lunch, and dinner are anymore. I eat soy burgers for
"breakfast", toast and eggs for "lunch", and fruit and yogurt for "dinner" (with plenty of
other stuff in between). I eat "breakfast" at 3 in the afternoon, and "dinner" at 4 in the
morning. Basically, I know what I can eat throughout the day and I just dole it out as to
what sounds good at the moment I decide I'm finally hungry. If you're hungry, please eat
some "dinner", but if you're not, don't worry so much about it.”
______________________
“I watched a show the other night called xxxxtreme weight lost. There was one lady on
there who ate her dinner for breakfast, then a smaller lunch and then had her breakfast for
dinner and lost over 150 pounds by doing this. Think back to all the farmers who had a
big breakfast to fuel their bodies for the day. Then they had a big lunch and small dinner
but burned off alot in the fields. I use to skip meals all the time but since I've joined PT I
force myself to eat my cereal every morning even if it's noon hour. I agree with everyone
one here you should never skip meals. In the past I always did that's probably why I could
never lose weight. Proud to say I'm down 30 pounds by eating 3 meals a day.”
______________________
“I never skip dinner - never! But then I don't eat huge meals and prefer to eat 5 or six small
meals a day. Keeps my blood sugar more balanced.”
______________________
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“I also eat non-traditional meals. If i wake up wanting peas & carrots w/ cous-cous, I'll
make that. If I want a bowl of kashi-lean at dinner-time, i'll have that. i often eat some
crudite and a yogurt for breakfast and it gets me through til lunch w/ no hunger
pangs/cravings. i totally listen to what my body is "asking" for.”
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Conclusion
So congratulations, because by now you have all the tools you need to turn your
emotional eating and night snacking habits around for good! This doesn’t mean
you have necessarily mastered it by this very moment and are at “The Point of
No Return”, but it does mean that you have the necessary tools as your finger
tips in order to make this happen.
Please be patient with yourself! It’s okay if it takes awhile to be completely
beyond your emotional eating and night snacking habits. The habits didn’t arise
overnight, and it might take awhile to “unlearn” them. If it happens quickly then
good for you! But don’t be afraid to take a long-term perspective. Sometimes
the urgency to change all of your habits in as short a time period as possible is
counterproductive because you might inadvertently sabotage your success.
Why?
Because if you have a bad day, or if the scale doesn’t move as quickly as you
would like it to in your overall weight loss program, then it’s very easy to get
discouraged and even give up altogether. We really want to urge you to not fall
into this trap.
You can, WITHOUT QUESTION, ditch your emotional eating and snacking
habits, and ultimately lose all the weight you want. We truly believe that, and you
now have the tools necessary to help you get there. But please, be patient with
your results. If you do this, you can get beyond your food frustrations forever.
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Whether you correct your bad habits and get to your goal in a week, a month, a
year or even more really doesn’t matter. What matters is relaxing into the
process, being patient with yourself, and building good, solid, stable habits that
will last a lifetime- not ones that will help you shed a quick 10, 25 or 50 pounds
only to bounce right back to where you’re starting from.
We’re very grateful to have been able to walk this far with you on your journey,
and we hope to be able to continue to support in the future. We also have a
fantastic, comprehensive 12-week weight loss training program that will help you
get solidly on your way to enjoying permanent weight loss. If you’d like to learn
more about it, please visit: www.peertrainer.com/coaching.
We’d also love your feedback and to hear your success stories. Please email us
anytime at: [email protected] and let us know how you’re doing.
Thanks again for joining us, and we wish you much health, happiness and
success!
Jackie Wicks and Joshua Wayne
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