OK I am an Emotional Eater

You took the mini test and you are an emotional eater. What next. One of the first things to understand is the difference between emotional hunger and physical hunger.

Physical hunger comes on slowly. Your stomach might growl and it has probably been 4 to 5 hours since you last ate. You might feel a little light headed and you would be willing to eat anything to cut your hunger. If you had an apple, you would happily devour it.

Emotional hunger on the other hand usually comes on quickly regardless of when you last ate and a particular food usually "sounds good." It is something that you use to feel better emotionally rather than physically. It is your comfort. Most of us would be looking for salty foods like chips, cake or cookies, something creamy like ice cream or there's CHOCOLATE!

My ultimate comfort food is Trader Joes Organic Tortilla Chips. Take a few minutes to ID your comfort foods. My comfort foods are __________ ,__________ ,__________!

Most of eat 80% of the time when we are not physically hungry. YIKES!

Once you have identified that you are emotionally hungry, you can ask yourself what you are feeling and develop other options besides eating.

Book Recommendation for Emotional Eating

You took the quiz and you are an emotional eater! Welcome to the world of being a woman. We all eat for emotional reasons.

One of my favorite books about Emotional Eating is "Shrink Yourself" by Roger Gould. He says that emotional eating is by far the greatest reason that we gain weight and it is never addressed in dieting. We use food to comfort ourselves and smother our feelings. Then we feel guilty and start the process all over again. Somewhere along the line we need to learn to break this cycle of powerlessness. He says that people feel powerless for five reasons: when we doubt ourselves, feel frustrated, feel vulnerable or unsafe, feel rebellious or angry, or feel empty.

His book is kind of a therapy book designed to help you understand why you overeat and how to break the cycle and take control of your emotions rather than eating. It is a heavy book but very helpful and full of ah-ha moments.

*Weekends are deadly for overeating because we eat out so much and can blow a weeks worth of hard work. Before you venture out remember to look up your calorie stats on-line and choose a meal that fits into your meal plan calorie level. It is impossible to eye ball a menu and choose a meal because foods that sound low calorie are not and foods you think are high calorie are often fine. THE MORE YOU KNOW THE MORE YOU CAN EAT!

Are You An Emotional Eater

These are a few questions you can ask yourself if you are not sure if emotional eating is a problem for you.

1. Do you think about food many times during the day?
2. Do you eat when you are worried, tense or upset?
3. Do you eat when you are feeling bored?
4. Do you often eat until you are stuffed or feel sick?
5. Do you eat when you are feeling anxious?
6. Do you mindlessly eat without thinking about it?
7. Do you sneak food because you are embarrassed by how much or what you eat?
8. Do you feel guilty after eating?
9. Do you eat small amounts in public but eat a lot when by yourself?
10. Do you have to clean your plate?
11. Can you limit yourself to one serving of your comfort foods?
12. Do you eat on impulse and feel unable to control yourself?
13. Do you eat when you are not physically hungry?
14. Do you lie to yourself about the quantity you ate?
15. Do you binge on huge quantities of food?
16. Do you spend your life on one diet after another?
17. Do you eat while watching television or reading?
18. Do you eat in the car?
19. Do you eat very quickly?
20. Do you hide the evidence that you ate, like your wrappers?
21. Do you feel out of control and distressed when you eat?
22. Do you use food to avoid uncomfortable feelings?
23. Do you miss work, school or social events because of your weight or eating habits?
24. Do you become moody all day long if you gained a pound?
25. Do you believe your weight is tied to your happiness?

Well if you are like most of us you answered yes to many of these questions. Diets are not successful long term because most of us do not work on our emotional eating. In the next few days we will look at some of the ways we can make some changes. Have a great weekend!

*Remember alcoholic drinks can be very caloric.

MINDLESS EATING

Most of us gain weight slowly over the years and it does not take a major diet redo to lose weight. Brian Wansink, author of MINDLESS EATING, says that if we can reduce what we eat by 20%, our brain will not notice it. He calls this the Mindless Margin. Other ideas he offers are:
Pre-plate all food that you eat, even dessert. You eat by volume and if your brain sees the food up front you will be satisfied and eat less.
Use smaller serving dishes and plates. The smaller the serving dish, the less you will eat. The smaller the plate the more satisfied you will be. Plate sizes have increased by 50%.
Eliminate impulse eating by making over-eating a hassle. Serve your plates and put the leftovers away so you will not be tempted to eat extra food. Put tempting foods out of sight. If cookies are sitting on a platter in your kitchen you will snatch one often. Snack only on a plate in the kitchen.
Practice distraction free eating. Distract yourself before you begin to snack but once you have begun to snack, do not distract yourself. Have you ever eaten a bag of chips while watching television and not even tasted them or realized you ate the whole bag. Serve yourself a ration upfront if you must eat while doing something else.
Make comfort foods more comforting. Eat comfort foods in smaller amounts and eat what you love. Try and rewire your comfort foods (cookies, candy, chips and cake) by making new favorites. EG. Try frozen yogurt with half fruit, fill up on fruits and veggies and save your comfort food for last when you are full and will eat less.
Use the half plate rule with your family and serve snacks in pre-done amounts and put the rest of the snack away.
Be careful of the portion distortion of fast food. Supersizing is not a bargain for your body.
Specific changes he encourages everyone to make are:
Plan 100 to 200 calorie changes in your daily eating that will allow you to not be deprived.
Develop food trade-offs. If I exercise I can eat a small dessert.
Develop food policies. If I do not eat at my desk all week, I will allow myself a muffin on Saturday.
Choose three ways to save 100 calories per day. This would allow you to lose 30 pounds this year without a major diet overhaul.

Ask Those Difficult Questions

Well, we are half way through the month of January now and those resolutions are beginning to fade and the frustration has set in and you may be feeling like a failure. Why can’t I stick to the latest, greatest diet? Could it be that diets really do not work as you have been told? They don’t. Let’s work together and develop some new habits this year and work on learning to feel again rather than eating when life gets difficult. This is where the hard work begins.

For those of you who have been Journaling or trying to keep track of your eating patterns, you should begin to see some of your problem areas developing by now. Even if you are not journaling, they may be obvious. Some questions to ask yourself as you begin to evaluate your eating are:
1. Are you eating smaller meals from a plate or are you still reaching for the bag and eating a random amount that might be the entire bag?
2. Are you looking for munching food when you are angry, bored, lonely, frustrated, depressed or really any emotion?
3. Is there a time of day when you are more tempted by snacking? How about night time nibbling?
4. Do you have a place where you can go to have a secret snack? Or is the break room at work deadly? Is your car your secret eating sanctuary?
5. Is there a person or situation like your job that triggers you to eat?
6. Is the junk food that you buy for your kids really your stash?
7. Are you practicing the half plate rule and trying to cut down on the processed foods, eating way too much sugar or no veggies?
8. Are you eating out for many meals, skipping meals or grabbing a large coffee drink daily that has the calories of a Whopper?

There are many questions that we could ask ourselves. Ask those difficult questions. HONESTY with yourself is what will drive your motivation. Eating to ease your emotions works only temporarily and usually leads to guilt and feeling even worse about yourself. It truly does feel great to fix these underlying problems and learn to eat for enjoyment and be free from the fear of food. We will talk about some of these areas this next week.

*Just a note. Journaling is the single, greatest predictor of whether you will lose weight or not!

Getting Started

Hi Everyone. I have given you a few ideas to get started as I knew you were anxious. To really start you need to go back to the beginning and sort of make a plan and start with the right mindset. Things to remember about developing a new lifestyle.

1. This is not a diet. There is no “blowing it” mentality that leads to shame.

2. This is a lifestyle change with no start and end date, just a commitment to live healthier.

3. Slow weight loss leads to success.

4. Make small changes that are easy to incorporate into your life.

5. Add exercise into your life slowly.

6. You get a lot more “bang for your buck” by changing your eating habits. EG. A 450 calorie coffee drink takes approx. 1 ½ hours to walk off so it is much easier to work on the habits and change to an Americano. Delicious and no guilt.

7. Be realistic and change your goals often if they are not working. That is ok.

8. Focus on adding really awesome delicious healthy foods and not on depriving yourself.

9. Find a few new special things that are lower calorie that feel like treats to you.

10. Find ways to keep a good, positive attitude as this will drive your behavior.

Review of "The Thin Commandments Diet" by Stephen Gullo

First of all, this is not a diet book, but a book with strategies for weight loss. It is a book that thinkers will enjoy. He presents a couple of ideas I had never thought about but are key and really make you think.
1. Think Historically. Most dieters gain back the same weight with the same foods in the same place at the same time of day for the same reasons and the same behaviors. If we did that in any other area of our lives we would make some changes. Wouldn't we?
2. Quit Using Food Baby Talk. When you feel deprived or crave certain foods have you said or thought:
But it's my favorite!
It's not fair that I can't have it!
But I've been so good!
It's my comfort!
It's my treat!
If you have welcome to the club. You might need to grow up in this area. He says most of us do not act like mature adults, but that eating is the one area of our lives that we revert back to childhood. We must develop strategies to give up these childish thoughts and become selective gourmets and stop resenting what we need to do to keep our bodies healthy and attractive.

I loved his bluntness with the truth. Let's accept ourselves as being underdeveloped in the area of food this year and work hard to make some changes and grow up. Tell it like it is Stephen.

More on those Deadly Calories

The average person is off by 25 to 40% when they are counting calories for the day. If that is so should we just completely forget about them? You hear many people saying don't worry about them. I am a firm believer in knowing calories. I believe that: "The more you know the more you can eat," and I am all about eating.
Calories are helpful in your decision making process when you are choosing between two items, especially when you are eating out. Why choose a 3000 calorie meal when there is one that is 800 that you love as much. Be mindful when you are eating out and go on-line and choose your meal before you go. This will save you 1000's of calories this year. Remember it takes 3500 calories to produce or reduce a pound so meals eaten out are killing us.
Purchase a small calorie guide and become familiar with your favorite foods. A good one is "Calorie King Guide"(Target).
Read Labels but beware as advertisers have become saavy to us and trying to trick us by putting the calorie amount of half of an item so pay attention.
Try and wrap your mind around the fact that the average woman can eat around 2000 calories/day. Some more, some less. It is a great idea to divide your day into meals by calories and plan 4 or 5 ideas that you consistantly eat for breakfast, lunch and then dinner (half plate rule) and snacks. As you do this you begin to kind of see what you have to work with. EG.
Breakfast 400 calories Lunch 500 Dinner 800
Snack 100 calories Snack 200
You can divide your meal planning guide anyway that works for you but you must eat breakfast.
By having this framework set you will really begin to see that you do not have alot of extra room for the mindless eating that you do. Also eating out takes on new meaning when you know what you are shooting for. Just try to plan a meal at Red Robin to fit into this meal guide.
If you develop a basic meal plan like I have shown, the next step would be to make the foods you love fit your plan. More on this in later blogs.

Calories Do Count

All calories count and if you eat more than your body needs you will store them as fat. We all have different levels of calories that we can consume a day depending on our metabolism and how much we exercise. If you overeat 100 extra calories per day you will gain 10 pounds this year. A small amount of food overeaten daily can cause a large weight gain. So what can we do? It is virtually impossible to count calories successfully and try to shoot for a specific number as there are so many variations and even the food packages are often incorrect. Is there any hope for us?

The easiest way to lose weight successfully is not to look for a diet where you turn your eating world upside down. As you are evaluating the things you are eating daily, look for the types of things you are eating and see if there are some things you can consistantly find a food swap or substitution for. EG. Try a butter or marg. that is half the calories, look for the lightened foods, eat more lean protein, eat beans, eat soups, eat salads with lean protein, look for some of the lightened desserts. The trick is for every 100 calories you can cut out from your diet daily for a year you will lose 10 pounds. So if you can just look for ways to clean up your diet and then be adding alot more vegetables you will most likely lose weight. If you eat a costco muffin (700 -900 calories) per day and you substitute a 200 calorie muffin and an egg you could lose many pounds this year. Cutting out your mocha each day could save you 450 calories a day. Imagine the calorie loss. Try the calorie free Americano. Clean it up and lose big this year and do not buy the latest greatest diet book on the market this year, even though every store has them highlighted. Start the year with a new resolution to eat healthy this year and ditch the dieting mentality even though I know you are very tempted with everyone trying to diet now. Don't worry because by February everyone will be back to normal.
BE SURE AND CHECK OUT TRADER JOES AS THEY HAVE MANY FUN HEALTHY FOODS THAT ARE NOT EXPENSIVE. THEY HAVE GREAT PRE-PACKAGED VEGGIES LIKE BROCCOLI SLAW AND CABBAGE AND SHREDDED CARROTS.

Helpful Ideas

Hi Everyone,
I wanted to give you a few ideas today as I know everyone wants to jump in rather than working on habits and emotional eating.
1. FEAST ON FIBER-The more fiber you add to your diet the less hungry you will be. Fiber helps slow down digestion and makes you feel fuller longer. I would suggest that everyone has a small bowl of a high fiber cereal daily. It's a great way to start your day. It is good to shoot for 35 grams of fiber a day but start slowly and work your way up. Try to get a cereal that has at least 10 grams of fiber or so. Trader Joe's High Fiber cereal is great and has 9 gm of fiber and is crunchy not mushy like some. It is great with yogurt. Try to add beans to your diet a few times a week. Keep a wide variety in your home and add them to salads and soups and casseroles or just as a side. A serving is 1/2 a cup. I think the average american only eats 1/2 cup of beans a year. Veggies also contain alot of fiber. It is not that hard to meet the level you need but it will take planning and the average person only gets around 10 gm a day.
2. EAT BREAKFAST. For some reason this point always provokes many comments in our classes. Everyone says they are not hungry in the morning. This is the one time that you need to eat as breakfast speeds up your metabolism and also people who eat breakfast eat between 300 to 400 calories less per day. And that my friends adds up to 30 to 40 pounds of weight per year. Breakfast is huge.
3. DOWNSIZE YOUR DINNER PLATES. If you can start using a smaller dinner plate you will feel better. I use a cute pink plate for myself that is a couple of inches smaller than I use for my boys. If your brain sees your plate as full it will feel satisfied. If you serve a normal size meal on the massive plates of today it looks like an appetizer and you will eat alot more.
4. ONLY EAT FOOD ON A PLATE. Quit picking and eating out of the bag. Plate all of the food that you eat and sit at the table. This really will help you to become aware of how often you are snacking and mindlessly eating. These are the calories that cause most of us to gain weight.
5. PRACTICE THE HALF PLATE RULE. Fill your plate half full of veggies and salad and just a bit of fruit. Concentrate on the veggies and learn to cook fresh ones. They taste great stir fried in just a bit of olive oil and garlic. Do not boil them. No wonder we hate veggies. Look for amazing new salad recipes with grains and just chopped veggies. Simple is great. It does not have to be complicated. Fill your plate 1/4 full of a lean protein and 1/4 full of a complex carb. If you are going to have a piece of bread skip the potato etc. Choose one healthy carb only that is starchy. Veggies are carbs but you can have as many of them as you like.
6. EAT PLANNED SNACKS. You will feel better if you eat smaller meals with a snack in between. A snack is not mindless eating from a bag of chips but a planned mini meal like an apple and cheese, veggies and hummus etc. Try to pair a fruit or veggie with a type of protein. Celery or red peppers with low fat cream cheese and walnuts. Just eat food that tastes great that is not sugar.
7. Start to decrease processed foods from your diet. The more sugar you eat the more you will crave it and feel lethargic. If you can fill up on healthy foods the cravings will decrease over time.

These are just a few ideas you can start with. I know you all know them but amazingly they do work. Try to make these changes with no diet mentality that you will do this till you lose weight and then be done. These are permanent changes that you will add to your life forever and you will become healthier which is awesome.

Ready, Set, Go

This is not a race to the finish line where we meet our goal and it is done. We have all tried the newest, latest diet and failed. There is hope and slow and steady does win the race. So join us.

Before we start we need to work on a few things and make a plan to figure out where we failed in the past and we are all different so this can be a bit tricky. There are three areas that we will be addressing in detail in the next few months. The first is actual food and some tricks to help us. The second is our habits and patterns. The third is emotional eating. Diets rarely address our habits and emotional eating so we squelch them for the diet length and then they overwhelm us again and we gain back our weight. We will develop personal strategies to fix our habits and find alternatives to using food when we are emotional. This is not simple.

The first thing that we need to learn to develop in our lives is grace for ourselves. This involves all or nothing thinking which is at the core of why most of us fail. We expect perfection in our eating life and if we are not perfect we start the emotional eating cycle. Oh my gosh, I ate a piece of cheesecake that was 400 calories and it is the end of the world so I will now eat 20,000 calories on a binge because of my failure. That is all or nothing thinking. It is OK to eat a small amount of food from your forbidden food list. It is not the end of the world. Please practice giving yourselves the grace you give others.

The second thing you can do for yourselves is to find a way to become cognisant of the food that you put into your mouth each day. In a perfect world we would all journal about what, why, when and where we ate during the day. I can hear the groans as I write this so do whatever you have to do. A great idea is taking a photo of every piece of food that you put into your mouth for the next three days. You will have your food journal in photos at the end of each day. Remember six extra bites of food a day can add up to 15 pounds of weight gain a year. Add ten years and you are 150 pounds overweight. You do not have to overeat by much to become overweight.

Many of us will not have to make many changes. Our goal is to have you eat the same way you are used to and add a few things to your diet and make small corrections. This summer I was at my moms house and she asked me to watch how she ate and help her. She ate too much fruit, not enough veggies, and her portions were a bit too big. She ate a plate of fruit at night that she did not want but my dad fixed for her. This was a habit that my dad stopped and she saved 200 extra calories a day. I had her practice the half plate rule that says fill your plate half full of salad or veggies (and corn, peas and potatoes are carbs ladies), one quarter of the plate lean protein and one quarter a complex carb. (one half cup serving of a good carb). This was very easy for her to visualize. She has dropped 15 pounds in 4 months by eating more food than she used to eat. She is almost 80 and everywhere she goes people are asking "What diet are you on and you look great" She did not have to make major changes to her life to become a success story but she did need to know what she was doing wrong. Being that I do not live with you guys to see what you are doing wrong, you will need to find a way to do this yourselves. I can give you help along the way.

Grace to you all! Kerry

FOR THOSE DUMBFOUNDED IN JANUARY

Welcome Everyone. Let's face it, most of us went hog wild in the eating department over the holidays even though we knew we should not. Life as we know it is now over. Is it really? It's time to jump right back in there and begin to eat right. Not diet but eat right. Lets begin the year with a new mentality. Lets add the things to our diets that are good (yes healthy food should taste great) instead of making those lists of bad bad bad foods that we can never eat again. Life is about moderation and that thinking just does not work. Thus the high failure rate of diets. Lets start to make small changes to our eating that is for life and learn to eat healthy. The purpose of this blog is for us to work together on small changes that add up to permanent weight loss. We are all different and there are some of us who may need alot of help in a certain area like emotional eating (ladies) but there are some simple changes that can add up to greater health and decreased cravings for those processed carbs. Yahoo, there is hope so dry those tears that keep coming since you stepped on the scale this morning and wondered how you got those extra pounds. I will add some simple steps for you to follow each week and also some thoughts that may help. Send me your questions or what you would like to discuss and we will run with it. The goal is practicality and we do not want to get bogged down and make eating so complicated that we all run for the cookies, ice cream or CHOCOLATE because we are so stressed out. Blessings to all of you who want to join in. Kerry and Cindy