Is this you? Us?

We spend so much time thinking about food and our bodies and feel so helpless especially when we've made so many efforts to change. Maybe we've lost a few pounds or a 100 pounds, it took so much effort but slowly and surely we made bad food choices and the pounds crept back on.

We can get so muddled in our minds that sometimes we get such a blank spot that we just blindly eat anything when we get the signal "it's ok to eat". Sure when we are really busy or really occupied with other things we can actually forget about eating but as soon as there is a blank space in our lives the first thought is FOOD. All the time you hear people say they don't need to be depressed, lonely or bored to eat, they can crave stuffing food even when they are happy and feeling blessed.

So it must be our emotions, we have a problem with our emotions. YES, without a doubt there are people with serious emotional problems, these people can act out the severity of these problems in many ways not just with food. If you are one of those people, seek professional help.
There are many counselling groups and places to go to talk to people who can help you. You don't just have to go to a psychiatrist or psychologist; in this day and age there are so many sources that are willing to help you. There are even some free groups like A&A or Overeaters Anonymous and many Community centers often organize help groups ...it's up to you to get help.

But maybe you don't have severe emotional problems. Maybe you can see how well you solve all the problems and trauma that is our daily lives. Maybe you know you are actually smart and can function in spite of everything in your life including things that happened to you in your past. Maybe you think there is something the matter with your spirituality,/conscience/emotions there are so many books being written on the subject…yes maybe you can find a spiritual way to lose weight. Maybe you can lose weight when you immediately forgive yourself and learn to love yourself. Maybe you can even lose weight when you forgive everyone else in the whole wide world that you felt responsible for what ails you and the planet Earth in general. Past, present and future.

As long as you realize that the future is unknown and hellish problems can rise up in the future. So you also need skills to not fall into the old patterns when “stuff happens”.

Speaking of patterns here is what I think,

We broke our appestat. As soon as we overate repeatedly for years, we broke our appestat. That means we can go way past the signals that say “STOP! I am full, I can’t eat another bite”. It also means that no amount of work on our emotions will repair our appestat…only chance we have is years of re-programming it and a lot of hard work coping with eating less than we used to.

We have likely screwed up our blood sugar and forced our livers to store so much glycogen as fat that it will also take years to straighten out our metabolisms.

We had a bad habit of trying to starve ourselves after we ate too much. This has nothing to do with emotions or loving ourselves this is a natural logical response to overeating. *Ate too much one meal eat less next meal or don’t eat at all tomorrow.* Years of doing this has totally screwed us up.

I am going to take a break in posting about this just for now because I need you to hear me….you need to change. You do not need a diet. You need to relearn how to eat healthy food in proper portions everyday. You need to reprogram yourself. You need to face that years of screwing up is not because you are a pathetic overweight hopeless person, it’s because you got lost and lost the ability to eat properly. You became a HABITUAL OVEREATER, and it’s unlike any other bad habit, you cannot abstain completely like with cigarettes or drugs and alcohol. You have to eat

So this is about retraining, reprogramming and building new habits, it could take years. You are about to face a giant challenge that has many obstacles, hurdles and steps backwards…but…you first have to believe that a simple plan of eating healthy balanced meals in proper portions will restore you. Now here is where I get fanatical-ish. NO MORE PROCESSED FOOD. Listen, hear, understand…your body does not need one more drop of refined sugars in the form of processed food. NOT ONE DROP. In order to restore your ability to eat properly you have to believe that. This is not just about losing weight; this is about RECOVERING from food obsession and overeating.

*Addendum: I've become aware I should define "Processed Food". In reality just chewing your food is processing it. I am referring to all foods that are so over refined+ manufactured that they convert too quickly to sugar/glycogen in your body. I am not referring to Pre-Prepared healthy food. How to know the difference? Well this is a serious problem if you have to ask, sorry to be so blunt. Probably if you omit foods that are made with Sugar + Flour you will eliminated 90% of the problem processed food out there. Many professionals believe that if you crave a food you are likely addicted to it, and the primary source of food addiction is this quick digesting of food as SUGAR/Glycogen. Yes, processed food is quickly turned to ALCOHOL in your body and like an alcoholic you CRAVE more.

There is also a belief that if flour or sugar is listed after the 5th or 6th ingredient it is a very insignificant amount. Perhaps that is a good way to start eliminating it from your diet

Have a look at this post about insulin and your liver.

http://caloriegirl.blogspot.com/2010/02/good-carbs-vs-bad-carbs.html

I welcome questions on twitter :)

http://twitter.com/CalorieGirl