I'm a qualified dietitian (not currently practicing) but I hear so many of my friends and colleagues and gym buddies struggling with dieting and feeling restrictive and bouncing between binge eating and dieting. I hate that so many companies feed off our vulnerable state offering quick fix magic weight loss potions that don't work in the long term. I also hate that so many people feel ashamed about eating or do not want to socialize in case they let their dieting willpower slip. I hate it because I was there too, trapped in a world of dieting hell or being ashamed and overweight - and I was trained in this field of nutrition! I figured out a way to change the way I think about food so that it no longer had power over me, it didn't dictate my mood or confidence, restrict my social activities. It was no longer my therapist or nemesis, it was just fuel for my body. I eat whatever I want and my weight is stable and healthy now. I want to help other people who are going through what I went through to be free from dieting hell and lose weight....and keep it off. If I can answer any questions here on this forum, I will try my best to help
I found food freedom, can I help you?
- Thread starter TazMiraz
- Start date
Anncathleen
New member
Can you help me? I fee controlled by food. Here's my deal: I am a runner- I exercise 6x/week with either running/cylcing in addition to weight training. I have just canceled my gym membership d/t budget, so weight training is only with bands until I find another more affordable one. Anyway- I feel obsessed with food. I think and worry about it constantly. I feel I'm addicted to sugar as once I start I really can't stop. I am over-all healthy- but would like to get back to where I was a year or so ago- meaning losing about 7-8# (basically the belly/hip fat). Mostly I would LOVE this food freedom you are discussing. I am ashamed of eating/over eating, I do avoid certain social situations due to a fear of food. I tried a keto diet, but every weekend I just crave (then eat, then feel horrible) ice cream or other sweets. I eat lots of veggies and lean protein, but I want to just eat less and STOP thinking so much about it
aloe1
New member
Thanks Taz for your offer of assistance. I've found myself alternating between eating low calorie and then binging on whatever I could find in the house but not enjoying treats in restaurants or planned from the store in moderation. So I am trying to eat reasonably but not overly strictly and enjoy food - even treats - rather than being ruled by it. So how did you change the way you think about food and gain freedom?
Hi Ann Cathleen and Aloe
Sugar is very addictive. It's been proven in labs with brain scans, and yet its hard to get away from in our current foods. It stimulates our feel-good hormone dopamine, but over time, you need more and more to get that same happy high.
Its great that you exercise. Diet and exercise absolutely go hand-in-hand.
The food we eat is the fuel that makes our body perform. It is like the gas you put in your car.
Food is NOT our best friend, punching bag or pillow to cry into – it’s just fuel.
BUT, we’re not rational animals, we’re emotional and most of us have grown up associating food with enjoyment, social gatherings, rewards or comfort. Food usually accompanies all big social gatherings – birthday cake, Thanksgiving turkey, Sunday brunch.
Food also accompanies our achievements or setbacks - an ice-cream for getting an A on that test, drown your awful day in a glass of chardonnay.
When we overeat for reasons other than real hunger such as emotional reasons, peer pressure or social gatherings the whole balance goes out of whack. I’m sure like me, you have been at a party and your brain says ‘’I’ve just had dinner, but there’s a whole buffet of lovely snacks in front of me and I know I’m not hungry but it tastes so good. And I know I’m not thirsty but this glass of wine makes me feel relaxed and sociable.’’ This is emotional eating.
We have a biological hunger that we’ll call REAL HUNGER where your body genuinely is hungry and gives your brain all the signals to re-fuel, such as a rumbling stomach and low energy and you choose and eat food in a calm and rational way.
Then we have that pesky thing called EMOTIONAL HUNGER, which is when your brain overrides your body owing to emotion such as stress, boredom, sadness, anger or tiredness and craves comfort food and you choose these foods and eat in a frenzied way.
The key is to figure out which one is happening at any given time and then start to find better ways to cope with your emotions and only respond to REAL HUNGER. How you do this is by listening to your body. Write it down if you need to in a food diary. But everytime you reach for something just stop and think - is my tummy rumbling, am I really hungry, am I calm - or has some emotional event just happened (stress, upset, tired etc) and am I craving something specific and eat in a frenzied way and feel guilty after - this is emotional eating.
Now step one is to just listen to you body and observe. DON'T JUDGE! The more you can notice the times you emotionally eat and see what triggers it, the better, so eventually - Step 2 - you can start to find another outlet for your emotions such as a walk or exercise, a funny movie, catching up with a friend or some creative hobby until the emotion subsides or you have worked through it.
When you eat, always eat in a calm environment with no distractions like noise, muisc or tv. Sit down and FOCUS on your food. This helps you to be mindful of what you're eating and helps you (overtime) realise when you're full.
Remember food is not your therapist, it's just fuel. Its not good, bad, evil, guilty etc.
Step 2 = after you have spent a couple of weeks listening to your body, start to aim to eat for HUNGER not emotion more and more. Cook from scratch (at least you know what ingredients go into that!) not processed foods, and overtime your body will prefer to have these foods over sugary ones (I promise this does happen!). That's not to say you should never have anything sugary, but over time of doing steps 1 and 2, you will find that you crave less sugar, so when you do have it, you only need a small amount, like a small sliver of chocolate cake rather than a huge piece. You will be just as satisfied. And throw out all diet food (go for the real deal if you're going to have it - its more satisfying) EAT REAL WHOLE FOODS only.
In my opinion, throw out the scale too and stop counting calories. This kind of eating is based on emotion not a number on a scale.
Write down what are the foods that you’re afraid of losing control around & why? Be honest.
If you’re not already doing so aim to re-establish a regular eating pattern to ‘’fix’’ your metabolism.
This means 5-6 small meals a day: Breakfast Morning snack Lunch Afternoon snack Dinner After dinner snack (optional)
Step 3 -
No food is off limits. BUT you want to give your body the best chance to run effectively and that means using A-grade fuel most of the time over Z-grade fuel. Although you may not feel it yet. Once you start to let yourself eat whatever you want and free yourself from your diet prison, your body will start to choose and crave more healthier A-grade foods naturally, as these foods make you more energized rather than sluggish and bloated.
After a while, you should reintroduce your scary foods back into your cupboards - you can eat them whenever you want but you'll want to eat them only occassionally because they don't make you feel as good as grade A foods.
So right now
- listen to your body and notice what triggers emotional hunger and over couple weeks/months find another way to copy with emotion
- Eat whole foods, cook from scratch and throw out all the processed, boxed or junk food - it's just making your body feel like crap
- Eat regular meals every day (every 4 hours to maintain healthy blood sugar levels) and drink plain water regularly
- Figure out what are your foods that scare you, you feel out of control around and why
- Exercise at least 3 times per week
- Stop judging yourself and start to eat rationally and see food as just fuel - it has no power or emotion or healing abilities - it's just fuel for your body. Some fuels are better than others so aim to eat the A grade fuels more, and your body will naturally crave them more.
Hope this is helpful.
Sugar is very addictive. It's been proven in labs with brain scans, and yet its hard to get away from in our current foods. It stimulates our feel-good hormone dopamine, but over time, you need more and more to get that same happy high.
Its great that you exercise. Diet and exercise absolutely go hand-in-hand.
The food we eat is the fuel that makes our body perform. It is like the gas you put in your car.
Food is NOT our best friend, punching bag or pillow to cry into – it’s just fuel.
BUT, we’re not rational animals, we’re emotional and most of us have grown up associating food with enjoyment, social gatherings, rewards or comfort. Food usually accompanies all big social gatherings – birthday cake, Thanksgiving turkey, Sunday brunch.
Food also accompanies our achievements or setbacks - an ice-cream for getting an A on that test, drown your awful day in a glass of chardonnay.
When we overeat for reasons other than real hunger such as emotional reasons, peer pressure or social gatherings the whole balance goes out of whack. I’m sure like me, you have been at a party and your brain says ‘’I’ve just had dinner, but there’s a whole buffet of lovely snacks in front of me and I know I’m not hungry but it tastes so good. And I know I’m not thirsty but this glass of wine makes me feel relaxed and sociable.’’ This is emotional eating.
We have a biological hunger that we’ll call REAL HUNGER where your body genuinely is hungry and gives your brain all the signals to re-fuel, such as a rumbling stomach and low energy and you choose and eat food in a calm and rational way.
Then we have that pesky thing called EMOTIONAL HUNGER, which is when your brain overrides your body owing to emotion such as stress, boredom, sadness, anger or tiredness and craves comfort food and you choose these foods and eat in a frenzied way.
The key is to figure out which one is happening at any given time and then start to find better ways to cope with your emotions and only respond to REAL HUNGER. How you do this is by listening to your body. Write it down if you need to in a food diary. But everytime you reach for something just stop and think - is my tummy rumbling, am I really hungry, am I calm - or has some emotional event just happened (stress, upset, tired etc) and am I craving something specific and eat in a frenzied way and feel guilty after - this is emotional eating.
Now step one is to just listen to you body and observe. DON'T JUDGE! The more you can notice the times you emotionally eat and see what triggers it, the better, so eventually - Step 2 - you can start to find another outlet for your emotions such as a walk or exercise, a funny movie, catching up with a friend or some creative hobby until the emotion subsides or you have worked through it.
When you eat, always eat in a calm environment with no distractions like noise, muisc or tv. Sit down and FOCUS on your food. This helps you to be mindful of what you're eating and helps you (overtime) realise when you're full.
Remember food is not your therapist, it's just fuel. Its not good, bad, evil, guilty etc.
Step 2 = after you have spent a couple of weeks listening to your body, start to aim to eat for HUNGER not emotion more and more. Cook from scratch (at least you know what ingredients go into that!) not processed foods, and overtime your body will prefer to have these foods over sugary ones (I promise this does happen!). That's not to say you should never have anything sugary, but over time of doing steps 1 and 2, you will find that you crave less sugar, so when you do have it, you only need a small amount, like a small sliver of chocolate cake rather than a huge piece. You will be just as satisfied. And throw out all diet food (go for the real deal if you're going to have it - its more satisfying) EAT REAL WHOLE FOODS only.
In my opinion, throw out the scale too and stop counting calories. This kind of eating is based on emotion not a number on a scale.
Write down what are the foods that you’re afraid of losing control around & why? Be honest.
If you’re not already doing so aim to re-establish a regular eating pattern to ‘’fix’’ your metabolism.
This means 5-6 small meals a day: Breakfast Morning snack Lunch Afternoon snack Dinner After dinner snack (optional)
Step 3 -
No food is off limits. BUT you want to give your body the best chance to run effectively and that means using A-grade fuel most of the time over Z-grade fuel. Although you may not feel it yet. Once you start to let yourself eat whatever you want and free yourself from your diet prison, your body will start to choose and crave more healthier A-grade foods naturally, as these foods make you more energized rather than sluggish and bloated.
After a while, you should reintroduce your scary foods back into your cupboards - you can eat them whenever you want but you'll want to eat them only occassionally because they don't make you feel as good as grade A foods.
So right now
- listen to your body and notice what triggers emotional hunger and over couple weeks/months find another way to copy with emotion
- Eat whole foods, cook from scratch and throw out all the processed, boxed or junk food - it's just making your body feel like crap
- Eat regular meals every day (every 4 hours to maintain healthy blood sugar levels) and drink plain water regularly
- Figure out what are your foods that scare you, you feel out of control around and why
- Exercise at least 3 times per week
- Stop judging yourself and start to eat rationally and see food as just fuel - it has no power or emotion or healing abilities - it's just fuel for your body. Some fuels are better than others so aim to eat the A grade fuels more, and your body will naturally crave them more.
Hope this is helpful.
GoldenLaurels
New member
Could I have your help? When I was younger I was anorexic. It was really bad, but I was able to get out of that situation and gained back the weight (and then some) But I had lost a lot of my muscle and the weight that I gained was basically all fat. I had always been naturally thin so nobody ever taught me how to properly diet and exercise so now I don't know where to start.
I just joined this site hoping to build myself into someone who is healthy, not just by measure of bmi but I am ready to truly recover from my eating disorder. I desperately want to be healthy!
I no longer have a volatile relationship with food but I don't know how to use it in a way to keep me healthy. I always worry that when I start a diet that it is actually unhealthy and I am just too ill informed to realize it. I don't want to accidentally slip back into old habits but I also don't understand the fundamentals of nutrition and exercise. Please help! I would really appreciate it!
I just joined this site hoping to build myself into someone who is healthy, not just by measure of bmi but I am ready to truly recover from my eating disorder. I desperately want to be healthy!
I no longer have a volatile relationship with food but I don't know how to use it in a way to keep me healthy. I always worry that when I start a diet that it is actually unhealthy and I am just too ill informed to realize it. I don't want to accidentally slip back into old habits but I also don't understand the fundamentals of nutrition and exercise. Please help! I would really appreciate it!
Cate
Long term member
Hi, GoldenLaurels. Have you considered seeing a nutritionist? I'm glad you no longer have a volatile relationship with food & any time is a good time to establish healthy eating habits. There are various useful sites online for dietary guidelines. Some of these are-
https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/guidelines/australian-guide-healthy-eating
https://www.choosemyplate.gov/
https://www.nutrition.org.uk/healthyliving/healthydiet/eatwell.html
Cheers, Cate.
https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/guidelines/australian-guide-healthy-eating
https://www.choosemyplate.gov/
https://www.nutrition.org.uk/healthyliving/healthydiet/eatwell.html
Cheers, Cate.
GoldenLaurels
New member
Yes, I have thought about it but I don't make much money and the nutritionists in my area are a bit out of my budget. That's why I was hoping to figure things out on here and through research. Thank you for the resources! They're very helpful! Hopefully I'll be able to save up a bit