What are the quesitons you want answered?

Make a list of about six questions that you want answered concerning your eating habits, the way you see your body, the way you feel in your body, how you feel about yourself, or other issues in your life.

A few examples might be:

Why do I crave certain foods?
Why do I binge/overeat at night?
Why do I have certain digestive issues after eating?

Please post your questions here.

Stress while eating...

Stress depletes nutrition. Simply put, anxiety, rushing, forcing, pushing, and negative self talk all put the body in the physiologic fight-or-flight response. In this stress state, vitamins and minerals are excreted, blood flow to the digestive organs dramatically decreases, calorie burning is slowed, and hormones that signal the body to gain weight are produced. Our mental/emotional state has powerfully influenced our nutritional metabolism, regardless of the good and healthy food we may have eaten

When do you eat?

When you eat is as important as what you eat. This is known as Bio- Circadian Nutrition. Simply put, we are designed to digest, assimilate and calorie burn most efficiently between the hours of 12:00-1:30pm. That’s why many traditional cultures wisely and instinctively have their biggest meal at mid-day. So, if you have a tiny breakfast, small or moderate lunch, and a huge dinner, you are setting up the ideal conditions for weight gain

Are you a fat addict

1.  Is a baked potato just an excuse to carry butter and sour cream? Is bread a good reason for butter?
2.  Does whipped cream bring joy to your heart?
3.  Is an evening with chips and dip very nearly perfect?
4.  When you discover a new potato chip, do you get excited and want to tell all your friends about it?
5.  If you are hurtling down the highway at 50 miles per hour and drop a chip in your lap, do you paw around trying to find it, rather than waiting until you stop the car?
6.  Is the difference between fried fish and baked fish like the difference between color television and black and white?
7.  If you go to a movie and don't get any popcorn (or anything else), do you sit in front of the screen thinking about buttered popcorn more than the picture?  Are you astounded that I might consider you'd go to a movie without getting buttered popcorn?  If the butter machine is broken, does it sort of ruin the whole outing?

If you answered yes to more than half the questions, this raises the possibility that you are addicted to fat.  You can change.  With time and careful attention, you can have a free and joyful life not controlled by food.  I can show you how.

Are you a refined carbohydrate addict?

1.       Do you get strong cravings for specific carbohydrates such as garlic bread or crackers or pasta?

2.       Will you go far out of your way to get a specific type of bread, such as scones or homemade breads?

3.       At a spaghetti dinner, do you look at the garlic-bread basket and identify a piece that you really want? As they pass the basket, do you watch in suspense to see if anybody else takes it before the basket gets to you?  If somebody else takes it, do you feel disappointed?  If your husband takes it, do you get angry?

4.       Do you have rituals around bread products?  For example, blueberry muffins every Sunday morning, a sausage biscuit on the first morning of vacation?

5.       Are refined carbohydrates (bread, pasta, white rice) a substantial proportion of your daily food intake?

6.       Faced with a choice between a large scoop of tuna salad on a lettuce leaf or a tuna-salad sandwich, which attracts you more?

7.       Is a hamburger without a bun like a face without a smile for you?

8.       At a snack table, do you return most often to the crackers or to the celery?

A yes to more than half the questions raises the possibility that you are addicted to this category of food items. You can change.  With time and careful attention, you can have a free and joyful life not controlled by food.

Taken from Anatomy of a Food Addict by M.A. Anne Katherine