Overcoming Secretive Eating
Finally – you are alone. No one else is around. Maybe you’ve waited until they are all soundly asleep. You find yourself in the kitchen sneaking food. Sometimes it’s cake, sometimes it’s ice cream. Other times you’re standing in front of the refrigerator eating leftovers without a plate. Once in a while, you plan ahead, stocking up on your favorite goodies on the drive home.
Almost in a trance-like state, you begin eating the foods you don’t want anyone to know you eat… in volumes you don’t want anyone to know you want. You eat quickly, not wanting to get caught. The irony is that you’re not really enjoying the food, you’re not really hungry, and you don’t know why you are doing it. Initially there is a sense of freedom, exhilaration, and relief. But something odd also occurs. When eating becomes secretive, it becomes both more exciting and more difficult to give up. A devastating cycle begins. The lure of sneak eating progresses, but so does the sense of guilt and failure. Of course, this leads to more sneak eating and on it goes. It becomes a overwhelming cycle that generates a life of it’s own.
EMOTIONAL NEEDS
Sneak eating is a metaphor for real needs. These are needs that are typically not addressed. We think we shouldn’t have them. Or we don’t know how to deal with them. It’s usually a time we can be alone, with all our wants and desires. It is a time we don’t have to pretend to be capable, competent, pleasant, likeable, strong, and without needs. It is a time to be entirely self-centered, where you don’t have to take care of the needs of anyone else and can focus completely on yourself.
Sneak eating is about hunger. Hunger that develops because of the deprivation of strict diets, restrictive food plans, and the list of "bad" foods that you "shouldn’t" be eating. Sneak eating is also a substitute for emotional comfort. A way to nurture the unaddressed feelings of shame, guilt, low self-esteem and loneliness. These feelings may be with you most of the day. It is only when the pace slows down, that the emotions begin to emerge. Not knowing how to handle these powerful emotions, eating follows. Eating in isolation can be a way of stuffing down emotions that seem overwhelming. Eating alone can provide down time without the interruption of family, work, or other responsibilities.
THE 10 MOST POWERFUL FEELINGS YOU EAT TO KILL
1. Hurt
2. Guilt
3. Anger
4. Shame
5. Lonely
6. Anxiety
7. Self-hate
8. Disappointment
9. Emptiness
10. Deprivation
These feelings are normal for every human being. We each need to take the time, and learn the skills, to sit with our emotions. Recognize that it is essential to know what is going on within our bodies. Know that you are important enough to take the time to be still and be with who we really are. Every person has wants, needs, and desires. We need time to focus solely on ourselves and satisfy our needs. Many of us were taught that these things were selfish and unimportant. We learned to disconnect and hide, lie and make excuses about our needs. We pretend we don’t need or want pleasure. We substitute food for what we really needed in life. We end up with a love/hate relationship with food. We try to force ourselves not to eat, especially not to sneak eat. And we punish and criticize ourselves for not being able to stop.
Recognize that sneak eating is not about your having shameful desires that cannot be controlled. Instead, sneak eating indicates that you have healthy, natural, human longings that you were not taught how to address.
QUESTIONS
There are a variety of things you can do to help build-up your willpower and let go of the need to sneak eat. Discover what motivates your behavior by asking yourself a few questions as each incident occurs.
* Where are you when you sneak eat?
* What were you thinking about right before you ate it?
* What were you feeling before you began eating?
* What need is this food filling (or stuffing) in your life?
* What else, other than food, would fill the wants and desires that you have?
* What is it that you really need?
Answering these questions and keeping a journal of your answers for future reference will help you understand what prompts your behavior. Your journal entries will serve as a starting place towards noting ideas. These ideas will help you work towards solutions once you are able to more readily recognize your pattern.
Dr. Annette Colby, RD
Nutrition Therapist & Master Energy Healer
For free inspirational newsletter, articles & info visit: LovingMiracles.com
972.985.8750
“Opening Creative Portals to Success”
By: admin
About the Author:
4 Tips for Fast Fat Loss Part II
Fat Loss Tip #2) Drink More Water
I know, I know, we’ve all heard this one over and over again. But how many of us really drink enough water? I’m talking at least 10 8 ounce glasses of water a day, minimum. You should really try to take in a full gallon of water each day. Keep reading, and I’ll include a secret tip on a specific way to drink water that will increase the number of calories your body burns each day.
Why, you ask? Let me count the ways. First of all, our bodies are over 70% water. That should tell you something right there. And you all know that you can go much longer without food than you can without water.
The body needs a lot of water in order to maintain its daily functions efficiently. In addition, water helps to flush out harmful toxins, as well as prime the body for fat loss.
If your body isn’t getting enough water, it does everything it can to hold on to the water it does have. The problem with this, is the way it holds onto the water. You see, over 70% of your muscle is made up of water. It helps to give your muscles that full, pumped look (along with glycogen).
However, if your body is not taking in enough water, that water is used for other things, leaving you bloated. And the way to get rid of that excess water, believe it or not, is to take in enough water.
This will rid you of that excess water weigh that bloats you, and begin to help your body run more efficiently and priming it to begin dropping body fat.
Once you begin taking in enough water, your body starts dropping weight, possibly 4 or 5 pounds in the first week. Now, this is mostly water weight. However, doing so optimizes your bodily functions, allowing it to run more efficiently and start burning stored body fat for energy.
Here’s another little trick you can use. Instead of just drinking water, begin drinking ice cold water. You see, there is a metabolic cost to eating. In other words, the digestion of food, as you’ll read about in the next tip, takes calories. Well, so does drinking ice cold water.
The body needs to heat up this water in order to be able to use it properly and doing so takes energy, i.e., calories. You can burn another 50 to 100 calories a day by drinking one half gallon to a gallon of ice cold water per day.
It doesn’t seem like much. However, in addition to all the other benefits of taking in enough water, by drinking ice cold water, you can drop almost a full pound of fat each month, or about 10 pounds per year.
Not too bad, if you ask me.Part III coming soon.
Gregg Gillies is the founder of .buildleanmuscle.com and the author of Get Fit Fast. He articleshave appeared in Ironman Magazine and he is a regular contributor to Body Talk magazine. Check outhis site on building muscle and losing fat
By: admin
About the Author: