Escaping the Overeating Rut

Your daily routine shapes your life.  For most of us, we are running like rats on the treadmill of existence, living weary lives, going nowhere and never having enough time to get there. The rat race needs to lose a rat. Get off the rat treadmill and design your own. Design it for increasing challenge. Work towards having a great routine.

Take some time to write out your present routine, then write out your ultimate routine. See yourself living it; feel the pleasure and the joy of the accomplishment.

The secret of life is that there is no secret. It's all learning. No magic pill will change your life. You have to do it one step at a time, one day at a time, one moment at a time. You are rebuilding a life on a new foundation. Investing the time, work and energy to reshape your thinking and life will become much less painful. Your soul will rise up as though on the wings of an eagle.

Now, let's look at some overeating patterns and some easy changes that will have a big effect.

Overeating Has a Pattern
It is grocery shopping day for Susan. She buys a few treats telling herself "I won't overeat." When she gets home, she's in the grocery bag for her favorite delicacy—warm cinnamon buns. She should have had one, but she had three. She eats a light dinner because she's not hungry, then spends the night watching TV and makes endless raids on the refrigerator. By the end of the night, she is completely stuffed.

A week later Susan is on a backpacking trip to the mountains. She feels free of food addiction. She is eating sensibly and feels that she has overcome the problem. But she is disappointed when she returns to her usual surroundings.

A drug addict will feel no desire to use drugs when in the hospital or in prison, only to experience the full power of addiction on returning to the streets. Entering their familiar environment, they quickly slide into their old routine. In the same way, compulsive eaters usually struggle the most with food addiction in the home because they have established triggers through years of repeated behaviors: chocolate for depression, potato chips for loneliness, pizza for entertainment, cookies for boredom, ice cream for hopelessness, coffee for tiredness. When our routine is controlled by a series of triggers, we feel out of control, no longer master of our life, but a slave of the stomach god. Like a cruel dictator, it growls and we jump to serve its every whim with quiet submission. Time for a rebellion.

Draw a page into three columns. For a few days, write out when you ate, what you ate, what you were thinking about, and why you ate it. Examine the triggers and decide how to control them.

Creating a Routine
When we change our routine, we feel out of balance until the body and mind adjust to the new routine. Once you have the routine you like, it is just a matter of maintaining it. It is like riding a bicycle: once you start, it is easy to keep it going.

Even the smallest changes in routine can mean a huge difference in how you will feel 15 years from now. Eating just a little less, exercising a little more, stretching, lowering body tension, praying ten minutes a day and thinking encouraging thoughts all have an cumulative benefit.

When you reach old age, you will reap the cumulative effect of your lifestyle. You can be running the Iron Man, being an inspiration to everyone you meet, or a miserable old grouch, a joyless, hollow soul, bankrupt of life. For many, the final destination of their daily routine is sickness and misery. Here are some simple ideas to help you avoid it.

Get Focused in the Morning
Write what you want to accomplish the night before, and see yourself achieving it easily. Create enthusiasm to accomplish the work. Spend a few moments in prayer. A short period of stretching exercise or a short walk will also help get you focused.

Worst First
When I worked installing aluminum siding on houses, we always left the worst till the last. I would look up at the eaves through three stories high and think, "I am going to hate doing that." When I finally got to doing the work, it was hell and I hated every moment.

We try to avoid facing confrontations, problems, hard work and our addictions, but when we do, it feeds into our worries and fears. Face your fears and problems head on. Do the worst first. You will win. You will feel good that you faced it. Then the rest is the easy stuff.

When you are making changes, decide which things are the most important to change first. When you work, do the worst first and get it out of the way. If it is a conflict, face it as quickly as possible. If it's a problem, decide what you can do, then do it. The more a problem is causing you worry, the more important it is to resolve what you can do and start doing it.

Face the worst tasks first. Work on high priority problems and goals first. Do what can be easily done that will have the biggest impact. See the end result and desire it. Focus on what you can do. Don't waste time dwelling on your failures and problems. If it is a decision, get it down on paper, look at all the factors, make a decision, and then refuse to worry.

Face fear head on. You can do it! Make a stand. It may take everything you’ve got. Your knees may be shaking. Emotions may be screaming and every thought shouting "I can't." Tearful eyes see nothing but a long list of past failures. Ears echo with mocking voices. Meanwhile, you feel as courageous as a wet dew worm. But don't give in. The hardest steel faces the hottest furnace. You will come out the other side tempered, refined and purified. You have nothing to lose but the dross in your life.

Shop With Discipline
What you buy you eat. Don't buy foods that tempt you to overeat. If you buy only healthy food, you will eat healthy food. Shop with discipline. Just going shopping will not work. You have to prepare yourself to face walls of temptations and smells. Plan what you are going to buy, and be ready to resist buying anything else. See yourself shopping, ignoring temptations, coming back with healthy food and making a fruit salad. Expect shopping day to be tough. Remember to feel good about getting past the candy bars and bake shop. A small amount of discipline in this area can have a big effect on diet.

Arriving Home
The weakest time for most people on a diet is getting home after a hard day. We may be tired and irritable from the stress of travel. The phone rings, your spouse complains about the bills, the kids are screaming and the dog is barking. All we want is to loosen up and unwind; instead we enter a battlefield. It is easy to let our guard down, grab something out of the fridge without thinking and overeat.

Coming home from work, we want comfort. There are ways of getting comfort that are more beneficial than grabbing the fastest available food. Relax with a peppermint tea, unwind, take a shower, spend some time in prayer, do some stretching, take a short walk. Develop healthy ways of recharging your battery.

It is good to prepare your mind for getting home. Decide to be at peace and not let things bother you. Decide what you are going to eat, see yourself eating it and feeling good about it.

TV
TV is a food trigger. The refrigerator is close, and food commercials are running 200 images per hour into our cerebral cortex. Ever become bored during commercial time? The path of least resistance leads to the refrigerator. You need to put a few obstacles in the way. If food commercials are a trigger, watch nature shows or commercial-free TV. If you are just grabbing anything out of the refrigerator, make something healthy like cut veggies and leave them in the fridge. If boredom during the commercials is a trigger to eat, get some hand-weights and do some exercises, play an instrument, read a book, do some stretching, anything but walking to the kitchen.

Escaping the Table
Hanging out at the dinner table is a sure way to overeat. Have an activity that you want to do after the meal. Start to visualize yourself enjoying that activity as you are finishing eating. If it is going for a short walk, imagine yourself enjoying the fresh air and sunshine. Imagine looking at the birds and feeling refreshed. When you imagine an enjoyable walk, you will easily move from eating, to get ready for the walk. Whatever you have chosen for your next activity, imagine yourself enjoying it.

Avoiding the Triggers
Most of us are overeating for a hundred different reasons. We are eating due to stress, irritation and frustration. It may be worry or overwork. We eat because our stomach feels ‘blah’. We are eating out of habit and with no real direction or thoughts about what we are doing with our face in the fridge. Here are some strategies to stop the unhealthy triggers from controlling our life. Psychology calls these techniques avoidance strategies. They are used when we get the urge to eat. The urge will pass, but we need to do something else until it does.

• Imagine a stop sign, and say, "No, I am not letting myself get away with it."

• Breathe a deep breath, hold for a few seconds, then breathe out slowly and relax.

• Brush your teeth.

• Drink two glasses of water.

• Eat an apple.

• Do 20 sit-ups.

Seat Exercises
A couch potato’s dream: exercise without leaving the sofa. Find a sitting position that is comfortable for you. Now, stick out your leg in a horizontal position and stretch your big toe out as far as it will go. Hold for 30 seconds or so. Now relax your leg and let the tension flow out of it. Stick out your leg in a horizontal position again and twist your foot as far left as it will go and pull your toes toward you. Relax after thirty seconds. Extend your leg again and twist your foot to the right and pull your toes toward you. Do the same action with the other foot. If your arms are stiff from typing or working at a desk, stretch both arms above your head as far as they will go. Stretch your fingers upward. Breathe deeply and relax. Hold this position for 30 seconds to 2 minutes.

You can tighten any muscle group for three seconds: biceps, triceps, even your butt muscles. Tighten for three seconds then release. Cover the entire body in a systematic manner. Legs, back, stomach, arms, and don't forget the jaw. Tighten your shoulders by shrugging, then relax. Extend your jaw as far as it will go and hold for a few seconds. Stretch your neck up and tense your neck muscles. Concentrate on your face muscles. Tighten them by squinting your eyes, and tightly contracting your forehead and mouth. It will look as if you have just eaten a lemon.

Any exercise or effort will distract you from eating, and give you a workout to boot.

Walk
Walk the block for invigoration. That mini-blast of oxygen will vanquish tiredness and mental exhaustion. Leave your worries behind and be in the moment. Look at the birds. Be thankful. Let go, breathe deeply and relax. 

Calisthenics
Great for stress release. Helps dissipate excess nervous energy built up by obsessive thinking or stress. Stretching cleans out the lymphatic system, conditions the tendons and joints, and stimulates the organs. Focus on being relaxed, thinking encouraging thoughts and being at peace.

Play an Instrument
Easily done if you are at home. Playing an instrument changes the focus of your thoughts and can burn excess energy. If you sing or play happy songs, it will help break the mood of depression and worry. Keep your thoughts encouraging as you play.

Read
Can give mental stimulation or relaxation. Reading short stories, a devotional, or just a few verses of the Bible can encourage you and lift a bad mood.

Prayer
In the humility of being on our knees, we draw on the highest strength: the strength of faith. The greatest tool to challenge mood. It can be done while walking, exercising, or at any time. It is calming before sleep, reduces anger and dissolves pride. Prayer reduces stress better than a tranquilizer. It combats fear, worry and distorted thinking. Kneeling on a cushion while leaning over a chair or a bed is a comfortable position. You can put a towel or a blanket over your head to give you a feeling of seclusion.

Clean Up
Your house or office reflects your attitude. Dirty dishes and piles of paper say one thing: this person is unorganized. Organizing is an investment in the future. You reach for something, and it is there. Many people who are depressed and worried let their house and personal hygiene go. Cleaning and getting organized is the opposite mode. It feels good to have your house clean and your life organized. Cleaning can be stress reducing. You can enjoy it. Use a ten-minute break to organize or clean. Do not get frantic trying to get it done. This is "time out" cleaning where the goal is to enjoy it by feeling good about what you have done.

These are only a few ideas of many that you can do to put an end to unhealthy triggers. Rather than stand in front of the refrigerator, fighting painful battles, take a mini-break. They are the pauses that refresh, peaceful moments in the storm. Time for you to recharge so you have the mental staying power of an Ever-Ready Bunnyã.

  Write your bad food hit list 
  

The above was an excerpt from Eating in Freedom!  The only book you will ever need on weight loss and food addiction. 

Learn how to fight cravings. Lose weight through self-encouragement, overcome obsessive thinking and rebuild self-discipline to form resolute unshakable decisions.  Written by a former overeater!

Click here to download it immediately!