For many years when I was younger, I struggled to find help for overeating problems. For a long time, I was overly influenced by “anti-diet” gurus such as Geneen Roth, Carol Munter, and Jane Hirschmann. Following the advice of these experts never helped me to become more peaceful about food, and my persistent efforts to utilize their recommended strategies actually made things worse for me.
One of their hypotheses is that surrounding yourself with your favorite foods will reduce anxiety about scarcity and enable you to mindfully eat small portions and be satisfied. Now at midlife and after literally hundreds of attempts to prove this true, I can safely conclude with certainty that this method is not the best for my biology and emotional well-being.
For years, I blamed myself for this, thinking I wasn’t doing the “overcoming overeating” strategy correctly or feeling ashamed that it didn’t work for me when it supposedly made so much sense. I thought if only I could become more evolved as an “attuned eater,” I would become a success story using the methods recommended by books such as “Breaking Free from Emotional Eating” (by Geneen Roth) and “Overcoming Overeating” (by Jane Hirschmann and Carol Munter). However, something else occurred. As I began to practice yoga regularly, I arrived at my own truth, one that is different than I expected. With my increased age and wisdom, I now realize that it is much better for me to limit certain foods that upset my brain chemistry. If I rarely eat these foods, I don’t feel deprived, I feel sane, sensible, and NORMAL.
I now believe that some foods are addictive to the human brain, mostly because these foods are so artificial and so junky, they bypass the normal mechanism of satiety that occurs with less processed foods. I’m not alone in believing this – science is on my side. The former head of the U.S. FDA, Dr. David Kessler, says that giant food companies have teams of scientists dedicated to creating combinations of sugar, salt, and fat that are irresistible to many people’s brains.
Food companies do this because they want you to buy and eat more of their Frankenfoods.
I conclude that people come in two varieties, those who have brains vulnerable to chemically addictive food, and those who have brains that are not vulnerable. I suspect that more Americans fall into the first category, and I know that I do. For those in the latter category, you can fill your kitchen with trigger foods and the resulting feeling of calmness about abundance may reduce your desire to overeat. This happened for some friends of mine and they are very pleased. For everyone else, consuming chemically addictive foods is a disaster. People who advise “all things in moderation” are not taking into consideration the biology of addiction.
After many years of being stressed about food, I no longer feel ashamed that I avoid trigger foods. I consider some foods to be in the same category as dangerously addictive drugs. I don’t do cocaine recreationally, so I don’t need food as recreation, either.
If you have tried to follow the advice of anti-diet gurus and it hasn’t helped you, consider doing it my way instead. I am much happier and calmer and I reversed a frustrating weight gain trend. If you have difficulty deciding the best health strategies for your unique self, yoga is one of the best methods I’ve ever discovered to help with this sort of self-discovery. Try it!
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