Emotional Eating - Breaking The Ties

Have you ever noticed, we as a people seem to believe food is a reward system?

When you were a baby and you cried, you got a bottle. As a toddler, create a fuss, you get juice. As you grew up, the little zip lock bag full of Cheerios or animal crackers was always along for the ride.

We again, as a people seem to think food solves all the ills of our everyday world!

But did you ever stop to think just what are we teaching that child?

You are teaching them within the very first days of their life that comfort food will solve every problem you have as you grow up. Is that really what you intended?

How To Curb The Urge

Emotional eating is a means to an end. Granted it is a positive response and don't we all appreciate the positive more than the negative? But those lessons we were taught as a child, now that you are all grown up, have left you with a lifetime of bad habits and poor nutrition. Our emotional triggers are what defines our daily health. Bad habits learned and carried through the years have now left you sitting in a doctor's office with the diagnosis you dread more than anything else - Diabetes.

But breaking those bad habits now are going to mean the difference between you living out the rest of your life in the constant presence of one more medical doctor or you enabling your body to learn how to control those urges and desires to afford you a better future health.

Here is a list of enablers. That means these suggestions, if followed religiously, will help you achieve a positive response without the use of food as your defense mechanism.

• To start, we all have that picture of ourselves we hate more than anything else. Place it in a dominant area, right on the front door of your refrigerator so every time you open that door, you are also staring at that picture. Yes, it may be nasty, but yes, guilt is a fantastic motivator.
• Next, get constructive/get busy. Pre-plan right now what you are going to do with your hands EVERY single time you get the urge to have just that one bite. For some, it may be pick up the telephone, for others, grab your knitting needles and knit a sweater. Whether you will shovel dirt to work in your garden, grab papers and make copys from the copier at work, type up the next chapter of your own biography; grab a book and read to your child, go take a bath, take the dog for another walk, whatever your desire is, have that motivation in your mind BEFORE the mood strikes. When it does, you already know what you will be doing with your time, and fingers.
• Utilize the buddy system. Talk to a friend or another family member. When the urge strikes so hard even your pre-planned project isn't going to stop you from eating, call this person and talk for at least 10 minutes. The human brain is wired, any kind of temptation will usually pass within 10 minutes. If you can hold out for that long, the urge to splurge will no longer seem as important after those few minutes have gone by.
•  Stop starving yourself all day long so you can be famished by nighttime. So many people believe if they skip breakfast and lunch, just eat dinner, they can avoid a whole host of extra calories. Your body is not wired that way and all of your rationalizations aren't going to change that.

        Starting today, every 2-3 hours you will be eating something high in good quality protein and excellent fats. Grab a piece of oven roasted chicken or turkey (no skin preferably), a 1/2 cup of lowfat cottage cheese, some raw vegetables with a side of hummus or fresh salsa, some celery, cucumber or apple slices with almond butter, a handful of raw seeds and nuts, a hard-boiled egg. Solutions for quality protein and excellent fats are limitless. Then at your mealtimes, include the same types of foods with good quality carbohydrates. These are needed to give your body an unlimited source of energy to get through your days. You can actually feed your body constantly with the right type of foods and the pounds will just melt off all on their own anyway. Your problem has never been you eat too much, you just eat all the wrong kinds of food.

And finally, have a drink - 6-8 times a day at least. And no, that's not alcohol. Plain old-fashioned water is your destination. If you want flavors, add a squirt of fresh lemons or limes. Or you could throw in a few pieces of smashed fresh berries for flavor, without the extra calories, sugars and chemical additives common to every other kind of man-made drink there is on the market.

The trick here is to isolate your triggers. Know in advance just what is your downfall and then you can plan for it by having a healthier alternative already available. That diagnosis of diabetes does not have to be a beginning to a lifetime of poor health, future medical complications and a bottomless pit of money constantly being shelled out for doctors, drugs and supplies, it can be a new awakening to a different type of life. Aren't you interested enough in letting you control your foods, not the foods you eat controlling you?