Compulsive Overeating and Emotional Needs

You’ve heard it before “you can’t get enough of what you don’t need” pointing out numerous ways we habitually look in all the wrong places to fulfill our emotional needs. Compulsive overeating is a socially acceptable place to put anxiety, depression and loneliness. When it is an emotional need not being filled no amount of food no matter how healthy or decadent it is will ease the pain.

Are You Overeating Compulsively?

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you fear eating around others?
• Do you fear once started you cannot control your eating?
• Do you diet or think about dieting?
• Do you consider food your friend?
• Do you mentally beat your self up after overeating?
• Are you secretive around eating?
• Do you hide or horde food?
• Do you feel isolated or alone?

The more questions you answered yes to the more you may be falling into trying to meet your emotional needs with food and the more you try to meet your emotional needs with food the more vulnerable you become to compulsive overeating.

While it may not be easy to consider you are doing this you may want to take heart….you are not alone! Compulsive overeating is not to be confused with obesity, not everyone who is overweight has an eating disorder as there are many reasons for obesity and overweight. And not everyone who eats emotionally or compulsively is overweight. Many compulsive over eaters purge the excess calories by vomiting, using laxatives, and over exercising. The problem here is not the food, it is not even the weight it is much deeper and more personal than either what you eat or how much you  weigh. It is about the issues for which you have chosen food to be your drug of choice and numb the feelings and emotions of everyday living.

Physical Symptoms Of Compulsive Overeating

• Weight gain
• Insomnia
• Depression
• High blood pressure
• Purging behaviors
• Exhaustion
• Isolation

Journey Back To Normal Eating

Normal eating is a very personal and variable state yet there are many sign posts along to way to let you know you are on track. progress and improving ones physical and mental health is what you will want to be striving for, perfection does not exist so have your goal be health, wellness and improvement. This of course is a lifetime goal so pace yourself and enjoy the journey.

• Know your body has the knowledge to care for you
• Begin to listen to your body’s wisdom by slowing down
• Stop dieting it only sets up your eventual overeating
• Relax or meditate
• Feel what ever you are feeling and honor it, try writing your feelings in a journal or talking to a trusted friend or counselor
• Write down everything you eat each day and review it without judgment let this be an exercise in honesty and in what is
• Talk to the food ask it what it can do for you, listen
• Eat only sitting down
• Don’t eat in the car
• Use self-care to interrupt the binge: take a bath, sing, light a candle, read a good book, do a self massage, play calming music, dance, something good for yourself

By becoming honest and aware -the power of the food as drug begins to loosen. Your journey to wellness is in your hands and it is done one day one meal one snack at a time. The diet industry would have you believe they have the answer yet it doesn’t seem to work …no matter which one is tried. The answer is in you and it is by slowing down and being in your body, listening to the wisdom of your own satiety and hunger cues that you will once again be youeself. Take this challenge of compulsive overeating as an invitation to self healing and a journey to wisdom- your wisdom. Begin today.

Mind Body Nutrition

What is Mind Body Nutrition?

First off it’s what a number of nutritionists, like myself, have been teaching for years. We are the nutrition counselors and therapists who have gone far beyond counting calories, prescribing diets and generally thinking for clients in favor of teaching the clients to find, feel and trust the wisdom of their own bodies.

Marc David of The Institute for the Psychology of Eating says:

Mind Body Nutrition is an exciting new field that explores how thoughts, feelings and beliefs impact nutritional metabolism and health. It focuses on the fascinating connections between brain, body, digestion, and behavior. And it brings to light how the social, emotional, cultural, and spiritual dimensions of life can literally and scientifically influence how we digest and assimilate a meal, and how we burn calories.”

“Clearly, the field of nutrition is ready for an infusion of new insights that will take us out of the rut of “eat this, don’t eat that” and into a new realm where we can address all of who we are as eaters – mind, body, heart, soul, metabolism, and more….”

Mind Body Nutrition and Me

This has been an uphill climb for me for many years as the clients and customers came to me looking for the perfect diet, food combination, system, cleanse, food or supplement. Often my frustration had me wondering if I was totally in the  wrong field. While I ate, suggested and sold organic foods, supplements and herbals I often cautioned my customers and clients that it was also their mind and body that had a say in their well-being. Actually I now know the mind-body has a lot to say about our total health.

To see what people like Marc David, Deepak Chopra and others in the mind-body field are doing to bring light to this wisdom of the body is exciting and reliving. The more we talk and share our personal experiences in this field of mind-body nutrition the sooner people can stop looking outside themselves for what I used to call at my health food stores- the natural magic pill to heal them. Many simply refused to consider the healing elixer of their own mind-body wisdom and replaced allopathic medicines with natural ones.

There is no doubt our environments, foods, water and supplements have a place in our healing and creating healthy lives but not at the expense of a respectful and intimate relationship with our own bodies.

There Is No Perfect Diet!

The changes a body goes through in only one day is too vast to ever think what was perfect yesterday will be perfect today. So imagine the changes in a week a month or a year….and still some are looking for diets to stay on for a lifetime. Yet we can rejoice in the fact that we are fully equipped with a system, the enteric nervous system “the brain in the belly” so to speak to know what we need.

Now to get in touch with yourself enough to be able to hear what the brain in the belly is saying is the key. People with severe disconnect between mind and body can be so far off they have actual disordered eating but you don’t have to have an eating disorder diagnosis to be deaf to what your belly is speaking.

Feeling adventurous?

Good! Just for fun try the breath as your guide to your belly.

Try to relax and simply feel where your normal breath goes.
Next take a conscious breath with just a little effort to relax your belly as you inhale.

Did your breath go:

• deeper?

• Longer?

• fuller?

Just notice.
Try a couple more of these conscious breathes taking 5 or so total and just note how you feel. Notice if you felt your belly rising and falling with each breath or if you held your belly tight and firm and finally how it felt to go there with your awareness. This is getting to the mind part of mind-body nutrition. And you thought your mind was all in your head!

If you doubt me just consider our language, when we admire what a courageous person did we say he had “guts” his enteric nervous system led him on, the brain in his belly knew what he should do. Also consider other cultures, in my Tai Chi class we have much emphasis on the area about 1-1/2 inches below the naval know as the “dain tein” this is considered our center. One last example is in eastern cultures when asked to point to where they know something they will point to their belly where as in western culture we point to our heads. And I am sure you have all said at one time “I just knew it in my gut”.

Jot down your reactions in the comments below if you feel to share with us and be sure to stop back later this week for more tips on connecting with your brain in your belly and mind-body nutrition.

Be Well~

Slow down, you eat too fast!

Photo by Lara604 on Flickr

Eating Too Fast

Hungry again? People zipping through the day often find themselves hungry  and thinking “but I just ate an hour ago!” If you find this happens to you or if you cannot even remember what or when you ate perhaps you are eating too fast. It seems eating fast has become a natural part of our hurried lives. Yet when we look closely it is apparent this speed may be only a part of a  detrimental way of living; mindlessly.

If our minds cannot remember the foods we just ingested I venture to say that our taste buds did not have a chance to catch the experience either. Eating is for nourishment to be sure and part of being nourished is experiencing taste. Without the taste buds engaged the satisfaction in the meal is completely missed and more food is needed (at the same meal or soon after) to continue to meet this need for satisfaction.

The Slow Down Eating Cure

The wonderful thing about slowing down your eating is that it really doesn’t end up taking more time out of your day as you have satisfaction the first time around and are not nagged every hour for something more. While there are many ways to begin noticing the speed at which you eat and the mindset you are in, my favorite is the raisin-eating exercise. Simple and to the point so why not give it a try!

Raisin-Eating Exercise

• Set out on a plate 3 raisins
• Get comfortable and turn off your phone
• See the raisin -really see it before you eat it
• Smell the raisin
• As you begin to eat each one notice your body working to move the raisin to your lips
• Proceed to eat the 3 raisins as if for the first time, slowly
• Notice your speed, level of relaxation, any feelings or thoughts arising
• Journal or mentally note these thoughts, feelings and conditions

Some ideas and thoughts to consider

• Where did these raisins come from
• How many hands did they have to pass through to arrive on your plate
• What did each one taste like
• How did it feel in your mouth
• Were you in a hurry to swallow
• Desiring the 2nd raisin with the 1st still in your mouth
• Was the raisin how you remembered it to be

This is a powerful exercise to bring our awareness to what we are actually doing when we are doing it. With practice this awareness can be brought to all our meals and so much more joy, satisfaction and nourishment will be available to us.

Bon Appetit!

I’d love to hear your experiences with your 3 raisins, feel free to comment below.

The Joy and Health Benefits of Culinary Herbs and Spices

Please visit my friend in blogging Amelia Burton’s site for this latest post of mine.

The Joy and Health Benefits of

Culinary Herbs and Spices

Be sure to check out the rest of Amelia’s blog as she has a ton of info and resources. Trusting your summer is restful and sweet!

Be well!!

Self Care for Compulsive Overeating and Eating Disorders

Self Care, the chance to take a few moments or a few days for your own self care. Sounds like a good idea and so today I suggest you make it more than a good idea and make it a commitment! OK I’ll join you, as a matter of fact it was my registering for a water color class (I do not paint in any medium) that prompted this post. I realized I am always promoting self care and the venturing out into new ways of caring for ones body, mind and spirit yet found my self in a bit of a rut this week. Tired, overworked and no playtime in sight I decided to take a bit of my own medicine and sign up for a class. Creative Healing Through Watercolors: Overcoming Your Fears sounded just right!

Clients often report that because they have the distress of a constant companion -ED there is often little energy or enthusiasm for venturing into unknown territory for fun and relaxation. Yet it is precisely the unknown that holds the gift of fun, growth and renewal and those are the gifts many with compulsive overeating and eating disorders really need.

So today look at your schedule see what you can carve out for a little adventure and whether you decide on a water color class like me or belly dancing to a video or opting for a new hairstyle whatever-just stretch a little bit, move just beyond what is comfortable and safe. Call it adventure and you can usually stretch a little more than usual.

Fear comes up you say? Yes I know I feel it right now as I write! Water color painting class…just the materials list sent me into a thought (and it is just a thought) that this was over my head and I am not an artist and so on. Yuck! What nonsense! I can do what ever I choose as long as I do not endanger myself or those around me, in whatever medium I feel inclined to try on any given day. This goes for you too! It is no mistake to go and experiment with new ways to care for ones body mind and spirit.

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. ~Elbert Hubbard

I’d love to hear your comments and for your own ways of stretching into self care. You can offer a great help to others who read your suggestions!

How To Know If You Have An Eating Disorder

With the general public so obsessed with dieting and the “perfect” body there comes a time for many people when they just stop and ask themselves “do I have an eating disorder or am I just being healthy?” While knowing how to maintain our health and fitness is important to a fulfilling life -finding balance is key. Remembering we have different body types and have different physical and nutritional needs can take us far to listen not only to the experts but to our own bodies.

If you feel like you have some concerns around eating and if it is healthy or disordered then doing some internet research on eating disorders can be helpful and speaking with your primary physician about your findings will help you get beyond yourself and reaching out for help.

The heart and mind of eating disorders

While researching and reading you will want to keep your heart and body connected. Eating disorders can be elusive as the mind may be saying one thing and the body another. Checking in with your body as you read will give you clues, just as it does around hunger and satiety, as to where your eating may fall on the continuum.

Feeling what you feel and being aware of those feelings can remove the confusion the mind may add when trying to sort these things out. They are not right or wrong they are just feelings and they are clues for you to see if you are eating healthy or have gone too far form normal eating.

Eating disorder signs

• Acute awareness of calories in food
• Acute awareness of how many calories are burned by exercise
• Isolated
• Withdrawn
• Secretive
• Fear of eating in public
• Inflexible thinking

Eating disorder symptoms

• Dramatic weight loss
• Constipation
• Abdominal pain
• Feeling cold
• Chronic tiredness
• Excessive energy (diet pills)
• Limited social spontaneity
• Loss of menstrual cycle
• Restrained emotional expression

Eating disorder behaviors

• Refusal to eat certain foods
• Preoccupation with food, eating, calories and dieting
• Commenting of being fat despite being underweight
• Denial if hunger
• Cooking for others without eating
• Avoidance of mealtimes and situations involving food
• Excessive exercise regime regardless of illness, weather, or schedule
• Refusal to maintain normal body weight for height/age
• Denial of serious low body weight

The flip side of eating disorders-normal eating

If we can call this huge range of eating anything it would be “normal”. Taking a look at what is considered signs of normal eating can be quite revealing. If your defenses are up around the thought of having disordered eating or an eating disorder you can flip it all around and see how much stress is encountered around normal eating behaviors to break out of the possible denial. Normal eating leaves lots of room to move, to be flexible and to have your preferences and desires without judgment.

Related posts:
Dieting's Allure 
Nutrition and Thinking

Dieting’s Allure

Another New Diet…

You’ve heard it time and time again, the diet that will cure all your body weight related concerns. You also know that the diets you have tried in the past did not work because you are looking at yet another one to come to the rescue. So what’s the allure, why even go there?

Because it is plain old exciting! The thoughts of a new body, gaining control over a big part of your life, the new self respect. These thoughts can be as exciting and adrenaline producing as drugs. Could it be you have become a “new diet” junkie?

The search for a life inside a new diet book is as empty as any other addiction, you simply cannot get enough of what you don’t need. The craving is for something deeper and more intrinsic to you as a human being than a new set of rules, that often go against your natural rhythms, to bring you into a socially acceptable weight for just a little while. If the last one kept you in sync with your body you would not be surfing the web for yet another new diet to save you or fill you or relieve you in some way.

There is so much information available to the general public about weight loss, dieting, eating healthy and weight gain that you could probably write your own diet book right now. So again what is the allure, why even consider that someone outside yourself knows more about what you should and shouldn’t be eating? Basic nutrition and wellness information is readily available in many places and you will want to know the basics about how a human body operates. After that you will have to look to yourself for the answers because it is not just about the food and your energy expenditure.

Are you doing any of the following on a regular or on-going basis ?

• overeating
• binging
• restricting
• under exercising
• over exercising
• using laxatives
• using diuretics
• purging
• otherwise being obsessive or compulsive about your weight

If you have some of these behaviors and before you buy yet another diet plan or program take some time to discover your self, your life, your relationships to see where you are getting your needs met and where you may be lacking the enjoyment and intimacy you may desire.  You are so much more than your body and knowing who you are will go a long way in naturally doing things that support your body and life as a whole.

When the new diet book is finished, the first few weeks or months are past and the allure of the high is waning the old and familiar feelings of dis-satisfaction and boredom may creep in because you can only continue with will power alone for so long.  The weight loss first may stop then weight begins to gain at possibly a faster pace than ever before due to a lowered metabolism caused by calorie restriction. When weight gain happens thoughts of a new body, gaining control over a big part of your life, the new self respect disappears and you have set yourself up to start the cycle all over again.

Consider taking a break from the ball and chain of dieting and having to be dissatisfied with your body because it does not look like the magazine models or your neighbors for that matter. Consider your body as unique and look inside to see what is really needed for your health and enjoyment of life. Consider those things needed as self -care and go out and do them….you know what to do… you really do.

Leave your thoughts on self care and the allure of diets in the comments section and let your voice be heard!

Lazy Food Choices Causing You Harm?

Lazy! Don’t you just love that word? Brings up all kinds of feelings and thoughts doesn’t it?

I wanted to get your juices flowing because for the most part we have total control over our food choices. Lazy may be an ugly word to describe our failure to choose with intention but for some it may fit. Another thought is that no plan or intention was made to begin with so life and all it’s busyness takes control.

The easy way can be the drive-thru at your local fast food joint yet we know that is for the most part a decision being made out of a desire to just get it done -a desire to not have to think about it. No thought no intention.

A wonderful place to change this lack of intention is in your mind when you are at ease and not starving for fuel for your day. So if you are curious and willing to give your mind a new twist on eating let your imagination take the lead for a few moments right here right now…

After reading this take  three deep belly breaths and relax your muscles from your toes slowly up your body to your head, let yourself feel heavy and staring to slow down.

Let the image of a typical very hungry and rushed situation appear in your mind…feel it and with your mind now use the power of intention to see in your mind a choice you would have desired more for your body and minds health and well being.

You imagination is limitless once you give your self permission to let it be. So come up with all kinds of intentional choices you would both enjoy and know would serve you and your body well for the day.

After your see the new choice…feel it, enjoy it for a moment.

Breathing again deeply for three belly breathes let your mind know this choice is a possibility.

The imagination is much more powerful than the will so why not have it working for you every day! Play with many possibilities and let the imagination do it’s work finding real life choices for you.

In the real world

You will be now in a position to have your auto pilot choices (much kinder term than lazy) questioned by a new way of possibly doing the same old ingrained habit. Let this new thought be heard and felt -feed it if you will on a regular basis by doing the guided imagery often when ever you have a few moments to spare.

What a relief to have a sweet and life enhancing place (your imagination) to go while waiting at the DMV, or your least favorite long line, for hours. Use this otherwise frustrating time for your health!  Learning to make life style choices with intention can give you a powerful new lease on life. Often lives are lived on auto pilot and people end up in places they never wanted top be. By giving your mind a visual with a new idea you no longer need to live with the same old knee jerk reactions you have used for far too long.

I hope you take a few moments now to rest in your imagination and feel the possibilities you can think up…letting the subconscious work out the details. Relax, breathe and imagine your new food choices that will become life enhancing intentions.

Be Well!

Health and Wellness of Community

I am taking a moment to share with you the gratitude I have for those who have taken the time and energy to  read this blog and be a part of this community of readers. We all have busy lives and so much we want and desire to do that I wanted  you to know  your participation has not gone unnoticed.

Mahalo for the support!

Let me share with you a beautiful quote from Jean Molesky-Poz, a former Franciscan Monk.

As we share in the breaking of bread…as we share in words, I am also breaking my life, I am breaking open my memory and sharing it with others, and they with me.

While we have not yet shared a meal we do share the trials and joys of our eating lives together. This is an intimate subject for many it causes anxiety and fear. If you find your self in the camp of food related anxiety know you are not alone and that there are skills and practices that can bring you clear through to the other side of anxiety to joy and peace during the intimacy of eating.

For today use the thought of not being alone, of  simply knowing others have been on this same journey and have found peace. Just in this knowing you can begin to slow down the anxious thoughts and feelings. Just today go this way knowing you are not alone.

Feel free to share your specific triggers or situations in the comments section and we can break them open to see where you can begin to change direction and take a step toward peaceful eating.

With Aloha~Gina

Guest Nutritionist on Amelia Burtons Blog

Amelia Burton’s blog

If you are interested in getting some of the best information available on exercise and fitness take a surf over to AmeliaBurton.com.au

Actually this link will take you to the first guest post I did for Amelia as she has asked me to contribute as guest nutritionist. We have so much in store for you so check back often or be sure to subscribe via rss feed. While your at it why not subscribe to this blog too, I’ll keep you in the frame of mind to stay motivated and love yourself to health!

See you there!