Archive for the ‘Emotional Eating’ Category
Sane Eating – Part 2: Hard But Not Impossible
Thursday, May 5th, 2011If you’ve read Sane Eating – Part 1, and you agree it makes sense to try to eat sanely amidst the food craziness, you may wonder – “How in the world will I get there?….”
You wouldn’t be alone–it is indeed hard to reach and maintain a healthy weight without getting caught in the craziness. Both biological and psychological factors can complicate things. But “hard” doesn’t necessarily mean impossible. Let’s look at some of the concerns that make you wonder if it’s possible.
You might believe, for example, that your genes will always get in your way. Genes certainly do contribute to how our bodies metabolize food. They can influence how we get “hungry” and “full” signals. They can even touch on how often and rapidly we like to move, and how good our food tastes to us. Genes always interact with the environment, though. And we and our thoughts and behavior are part of “the environment”. We do affect how genes end up expressing or not expressing themselves. (more…)
SHOULD YOU CALL YOURSELF A FOOD ADDICT?
Tuesday, April 19th, 2011(recently posted at Psychology Today blogs,
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/thin-within
Can we get addicted to food? Lately, the question has absorbed researchers in fields from psychiatry to diabetes medicine. We see headlines like “Addictive Tendencies Tied to Obesity” and “Cravings for Junk Food Mirror Drug Addiction.” We still may not fully understand how food does and doesn’t work like other addictive substances in the brain. However, it’s clear that some parallels exist, and that these are worth understanding. If you’re an overeater, though, how does this information affect you? In other words, do you need to know if you’re addicted to get control of your eating? And if you are, what then?
To recap the emerging science: brain scans show similar activity patterns in the brains of those seeking drugs and those seeking foods they tend to overeat. Also, researchers note correlations between obesity and family addiction history. Processed foods, with their sugar- and sodium-dense flavor enhancers, have been shown to increase the appetite for more of the same. Indeed, they are “engineered” to do so. In decades past, food was not thought to be addictive, and not all current research confirms the addiction hypotheses. Still, it’s pretty clear that science can confirm what overeaters have long declared: some foods are hard to stop eating. (more…)
BE KIND TO YOURSELF: It’s Better for Your Diet
Tuesday, April 12th, 2011How we beat ourselves up for that brownie or pizza slice! Once we’ve lost control or overdone it, forget about self-care and serenity. But research keeps confirming some ancient wisdom when it comes to eating better. Gentleness, being kind to oneself, paves a better path to success than self-flagellation.
One early (2007) study asked dieters to go easy on themselves in the face of eating proferred candy. Eaters first rated as “highly restrictive” ate less after hearing a self-compassion message than those who did not. Christopher Germer, Ph.D. mentions this study in The mindful path to self-compassion (2009). He explains, “When dieters’ heads are ‘not cluttered with unpleasant thoughts and feelings,’ they can focus on their dietary goals rather than trying to improve their mood by eating more food.” (more…)
EAT SANELY: New Articles on the Web
Friday, April 8th, 2011Here are some recent Eat Sanely blogposts to check out:
“Can You Jump-Start Weight Loss?” , www.yourtango.com/tereseweinsteinkatz
“Be Kind to Yourself: You’ll Eat Better, Really”, http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/thin-within (reprinted, above)
“Is Your Relationship Making You Fat”, www.yourtango.com/tereseweinsteinkatz
“Must Marriage Add Pounds”, www.yourtango.com/tereseweinsteinkatz
You can follow Dr. Katz now on Twitter (tkatzphd)
and on scribd.com (tdkatz)
SELF-ESTEEM….AT ANY SIZE
Tuesday, October 26th, 2010I recently posed these questions on my Psychology Today blog: How Do You Like Yourself…When There’s So Much to Change? And, How Do You Change….When You Don’t Like Yourself? (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/thin-within 10/8/10 and 10/22/10)
For all of us, perhaps, but especially for those trying to lose weight, these are crucial questions. Despite the growing number of Americans struggling with their size, we continue to think negatively of the overweight. It takes a lot of work to keep from internalizing these negative views—and few succeed.
Yet the very process of making major changes, such as those needed to lose weight for good, requires that we bring some self-confidence and care to the task. In other words, you’ll have an easier time sticking to new, at-first-uncomfortable routines when you’re feeling worthwhile and capable. And worthwhile and capable are surely not how the world works to make a heavy person feel.
So consider that balance between self-acceptance and the push for change. If there are things about your body or your eating habits that you don’t like, try to separate all that from your notion of who you are as a person. No one is perfect….and given your particular history and biology you’ve probably been doing your best until now. Despite what we might take from the media or from ill-informed others, “it’s not just you”. A lot of factors conspire to make overeating easy, and weight loss hard, in our current world.
Paradoxically, accepting all that may make it easier to start the tough job of change, and to succeed.
SLOWING DOWN, SITTING, AND LOSING WEIGHT
Friday, October 1st, 2010Maybe you can’t lose weight without exercising, but sometimes slowing down, and even sitting, help more than you might think. Last week my Psychology Today (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/thin-within) blog explored research on how the very presence of fast food in our world promotes bad choices. In fact, purposeful slowing down for reflection, stress management, or better self-care sometimes makes all the difference in achieving dietary changes. Here I’ll address a related phenomena—that is, the role of sitting in weight loss. (This article appeared in a slightly different form in the July 2008 Diet Coach’s Letter.)
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We usually talk—a lot—about moving when we talk about staying fit. Sitting can actually help us, though, too, when we’re trying to improve our fitness, particularly our eating habits. How? To understand, we need to think about how habits change. In other words, how do we ditch habits we don’t like and build the ones we want?
Change usually does not happen instantly or all at once. And many people find changing how they eat hardest of all….some will say harder than quitting smoking or drinking, even. “At least with drinking, you don’t have to face it every day” is what I often hear. This is true— with food, you have to get used to eating less, or differently, while the same “triggers”, or eating cues, surround you. For some, a good deal of mental or emotional preparation must come first. (more…)
Emotional Overeating: Returning to those questions
Friday, August 6th, 2010Back in February and March, I blogged on topics related to emotional overeating, including the question of how addiction factors in. I share some further thoughts on this issue at “Thin From Within” this week. Read at http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/thin-within.
SUGAR: Eating Sanely with a Sweet Tooth (Part 1)
Friday, June 25th, 2010Sugar can doom our weight loss or sane eating plans. Even as diet trends rapidly zig-zag and change, “avoid sugar” remains a constant. Our craving for sugar remains constant, too. And it continues to flavor more and more of our nation’s foods.
Why avoid sugar? Well, its “empty”, non-nutritious, calories leave us hungry and easily fatten us. It decays our teeth. It can interfere with mood and energy. Now, more and more evidence links sugar with inflammation, and inflammation with nearly any and every health problem. Yet who can stop eating it? (more…)
THIN FROM WITHIN
Friday, June 11th, 2010 This week I’m happy to introduce you to a new blog I’ve launched at Psychology Today. Called “Thin From Within”, it’s subtitled “how inner conflict keeps people stuck”: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/thin-within
The Eat Sanely blog will continue to comment on relevant news, offer practical advice and strategies, and from time to time explore the emotional elements of eating. The new blog, on the other hand, will focus mainly on the inner emotional aspects of how we eat. This includes, too, how we manage to change or improve how we eat.
Most of us know how difficult it is to lose weight, to maintain a healthy weight and a healthy relationship with food. Regular readers know that I don’t automatically and always suspect emotional underpinnings to weight struggles. The foods overwhelming our senses today, loaded with sugar and salt and fat, help create these problems. So does the more sedentary lifestyle typical of our time, and the high stress levels many of us experience. However: it happens that even after we’ve learned what works, and even after we’ve acquired the right tools, we can find ourselves unable to follow through.
When that’s the case, it makes sense to check within. What I call “inner obstacles” in the Eat Sanely course can keep us from caring for ourselves as we wish. We know that stress and anxiety can make it difficult to eat well. Emotions that operate outside of our awareness—guilt is often such a culprit—can sabotage our efforts as well. And likewise, becoming conscious of, and dealing directly with, our emotions can free us.
So, I hope that “Thin From Within” will spark awareness, enable reflection, and support that freedom. I invite you to visit the site and comment where you wish!
WEIGHT LOSS AND DEPRIVATION
Friday, April 30th, 2010“But not all overeating is emotional….” I blogged on March 21. In part I’d reacted to a headline stating “What Are You Hungry For?…It’s Not Food…In Fact, It’s Everything But Food.” While I bristled at that, it did precede some good wisdom in the form of an excerpt from Geneen Roth’s Women, Food and God. In fact, with sane eating in mind, I turn now to a Roth quote highlighted in the pages beyond that headline. She says “To change your body, you must first understand that which is shaping it. Not fight it. Not force it. Not deprive it. Not shame it.” This is saying a lot. To start with, let’s consider the “Not deprive it” part. How in the world can that support healthy weight? Isn’t deprivation a built-in part of losing weight?
People indeed report feelings of deprivation as a primary reason for abandoning weight loss efforts. Often these feelings lead to overindulging in sweets, high-fat, and junk foods and in gorging on large portions. To lose weight, to maintain a good weight, to make changes for the better, does require eating less of such things. Is feeling deprived, then, inevitable? I think to make changes that last, that become part of us, the answer has to be “no”.
Part of what has to happen, I think, is a change in perception, in how you think about and conceive of these foods in your life. People who come to successfully manage their weight start to recognize the role of choice. Their inner dialogue will tend to some form of: “Yes, of course I can have that slab of mud pie…but do I really want all that goes with it—feeling stuffed, guilty, and then struggling forever after with the weight?” Taking care of themselves, then, is doing what leaves them feeling more peaceful and on track with longer-term goals, not what immediately pleases the senses. (more…)
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