Intuitive Eating:

A revolutionary non-diet program to stop overeating,

end your battle with food and find freedom from dieting
forever. A workbook that works with tips to increase
your health.
Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS INTUITIVE EATING?.......................................................................................4

CHAPTER 1. EATING DISORDERS.............................................................................................................5

WHAT IS AN EATING DISORDER?.................................................................................................................5

BINGE EATING.........................................................................................................................................5
FOOD ADDICTION.....................................................................................................................................6
EMOTIONAL EATING..................................................................................................................................7
IDENTIFY YOUR TRIGGERS..................................................................................................................................8
DEAL WITH YOUR EMOTIONS.............................................................................................................................8
OVEREATING AND UNDER-EATING................................................................................................................9
ANOREXIA NERVOSA...............................................................................................................................11
BULIMIA NERVOSA.................................................................................................................................12

CHAPTER 2. THE A-C-C-E-P-T METHOD TO RE-DESIGN YOUR LIFE.........................................................15

CHAPTER 3. TRACKING & JOURNALING................................................................................................21

CHAPTER 4. 11. MAINSTREAM THERAPIES AND TREATMENTS.............................................................26

WHAT TRIGGERS YOU?....................................................................................................................................29

CHAPTER 5. DISTRACTING YOURSELF...................................................................................................33

DISTRACTING ALTERNATIVES TO EATING.............................................................................................................33

CHAPTER 6. HOW TO SUCCEED AT INTUITIVE EATING AND AVOID COMMON MISTAKES.....................36

CHAPTER 7. THE IMPACT OF EMOTIONS ON YOUR WEIGHT, FOOD, AND HOW YOU EAT IT.................41

CHAPTER 8. MAJOR BENEFITS OF INTUITIVE EATING BESIDES LOOKING GOOD....................................46

HOW TO DISTINGUISH REAL HUNGER FROM CRAVINGS...................................................................................46

CHAPTER 9. HOW TO BEGIN MINDFUL EATING?...................................................................................50

WORKSHEET..........................................................................................................................................51
FRUIT SNACK MINDFUL MEDITATION............................................................................................................52

CHAPTER 10. IMPORTANT THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR EMOTIONAL BRAIN.................................53

UNEXPECTED HAZARDS OF MODERN LIFE.....................................................................................................58

OVERCOMING THE DIET MENTALITY...........................................................................................................59
DIETS DON’T WORK.......................................................................................................................................60
WHY DIETS DON’T WORK...............................................................................................................................61
BEGINNING STEPS TO TAKE.......................................................................................................................62
1. GET OFF THE DIETS....................................................................................................................................62
2. GET OFF THE SCALE....................................................................................................................................63
3. SET ONE GOAL (BESIDES WEIGHT LOSS) TO GET YOU STARTED..........................................................................63
DEVELOPING REALISTIC CONFIDENCE...........................................................................................................65

CHAPTER 11. EMOTIONAL HUNGER VERSUS PHYSICAL HUNGER..........................................................69

CHAPTER 12. SUSTAINABLE WAYS TO PRACTICE INTUITIVE EATING .....................................................74

CHAPTER 13. SEE THE FOOD INDUSTRY FOR WHAT IT IS.......................................................................77

CHAPTER 14. EXPLORING TREATMENT OPTIONS FOR BINGE EATING DISORDER ..................................78

CHAPTER 15. HANDS-ON STRATEGIES TO PREVENT AND OVERCOME BINGE EATING ...........................80

CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................................82

CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................................88
 Introduction: What Is Intuitive Eating?
Once you decide to be a little more health conscious, you are faced with a question constantly.
That is "What should I eat?" Instead of stressing yourself out and pushing yourself an inch closer
to eating the stress out, you can try a different kind of approach. That's what intuitive eating is
for.

This is an excellent tool that encourages you to eat healthy. It can even help you end binging. It
is not restricting.

You see, we all have an intuitive voice within us. And this voice can guide us to the right choices
and the right portion sizes in food. What happens when we are bombarded with information
about bad foods, good foods, bad portions, good portions, etc? We tamp down this intuitive
voice. But it does not mean we cannot get it back. We can reconnect with this voice. We can
reactivate our internal sense of fullness and hunger.

In a nutshell, intuitive eating is a different approach to dieting per se. It aims to help us foster a
healthy relationship with our minds, bodies and food. It ultimately helps us become the master of
our own bodies.

Intuitive eating teaches us to realize the difference between our emotional and physical feelings.
We don't have to constantly worry about food, if you're eating a fattening food or not. The
constant food worry ends here.

By getting a sense of our bodies, we learn to respond properly to the cues our inner bodies are
sending us. The thing is we are all born with a natural intuition. We all know how to eat
intuitively.

The challenge is uncovering the intuition because it is more likely tamped down by years and
years, pile after pile of information from the media and the culture we are born into including
dozens of influences, of food and diet myths.

There are no rigid healthy eating rules. Intuitive eating can be a challenge because it will ask you
to dump what you have been fed all these years. To reactive your intuitive eating voice, you must
forget all about what you know and have long known about food. You have to trust yourself.
What awaits you is an unbelievable sense of freedom and satisfaction.
 Chapter 1. Eating Disorders

What is an Eating Disorder?

The term eating disorder is used to describe an illness that is characterized by abnormal eating
behavior and habits. These behaviors, in turn, cause severe changes and distress to the shape and
weight of the body. A lot of people have misunderstood eating disorder to be an illness related to
foods and lifestyle choices completely.

More than just disrupting your daily activities, this illness can affect your emotional and mental
health. For instance, there could be times you find yourself feeling unduly anxious about your
calorie intake or embarrassed about your weight. This may cause you to isolate from people, just
for expressing their concerns about your health. The incident may generally lead to depression as
a further symptom.

Generally, the more the illness is allowed to linger and not addressed, the more significant the
damage caused, like affecting your digestion, the skin, bones, reducing teeth and gum strength,
and even the heart performance.

There are different eating disorders out there that should not be taken lightly. They require
attention and professional help. If you know someone who suffers from any of the known eating
disorders, you should encourage them to seek medical care and give them emotional support that
they need. Also, you need to be aware of the signs and symptoms of these disorders so that you
know whether you are still on the health side or on the verge of suffering from them.

Binge Eating
This leads to eating enormous amounts of food even after the individual has had the feeling of a
full stomach. Most people who suffer from binge eating try to hide it from friends and family,
leading them to isolate themselves in many instances.

This is a similar eating disorder to Bulimia - with frequent loss of control overeating, but unlike
Bulimia, there is no compensatory behavior afterward. From time to time everyone overeats, and
so detecting this illness is somewhat complicated. However, when it becomes too often and
frequent, not necessarily for hunger, it is a sign that it's not normal.

As a result, a lot of binge eating disorder patients end up obese. They are also at high risk of
developing conditions that have to do with the cardio. Most of the times, binge eating disorder is
usually accompanied or preceded by feelings of shame; also, intense feelings of emotions such as
distress, embarrassment, and guilt. If not properly addressed, it further influences the progress of
the condition. Binge eating by itself is not necessarily bad but becomes a disorder when the
individual loses control overeating.

Other than emotions, there are kinds of foods you consume that help in triggering binge
episodes. This is true of carbohydrates. Foods high in fats and carbohydrates, according to
scientists can trigger the release of the serotonin hormone in the brain, which in turn induces
pleasurable emotions and feelings. And binge eaters always tend to gravitate towards such.
Symptoms of this eating disorder include:
 A tendency to overeat because of loss of control

 Feelings of shame and guilt after overeating

 Binge eating without any compensatory behavior

 Consuming more food than intended

 Secretive about overeating

Food Addiction
Some people are addicted to food. They crave certain types of food and give in. They are not
able to stop even when they are already full if they like the taste of the food. Overeaters and food
addicts use food to achieve feelings of satisfaction. They often try to stop their food addiction,
but just like other types of addicts, they often experience a relapse. Also, just like drug and
alcohol addiction, food addiction can interfere with your life and put a strain on your
relationships.

More often than not, people who binge eat or eat compulsively suffer from stress disorders and
negative body image. Their stress can even stem from the disease itself. When you overeat, you
may blame yourself for your actions, and this can make you stressed out afterward. When you
are ashamed of your behavior, and you try to hide it from other people, you may become stressed
out too. Again, your problems with overeating can make you more prone to overeating. It
becomes a never-ending cycle.

Those who binge eat also tend to dislike the way they look. Their negative body image causes
them to feel the need to eat less. Because they always worry about their physical appearance and
the way other people think of them, they become stressed out. Also, their constant worry of
eating more than they are supposed to make them stressed out even further. Such feelings of
stress cause them to binge eat or feed their souls.
Then, there are others who just give up on themselves. They think that they are already fat, so
why should they attempt to change their eating habits? They believe that it is hopeless for them
to lose weight and be healthier. Some of them do not even exert effort only because, in their
minds, their case is dropped already.

Emotional Eating
This is eating to fill emotional needs. Some people resort to eating whenever they feel stressed or
sad. They think that if they eat the food they crave for during their time of stress, they will feel
better. But most of the time, they feel even worse because they then become feel guilty for eating
more than they should.

Eating emotionally is unhealthy. Besides it being a cause for being overweight, it doesn’t let you
address your right problem.

You may feel a little better while eating but when you finished your food, does it guarantee you
that you will never feel stressed again? I mean, feeling stressed or sad or frustrated happens to
anyone. I understand some people think it a little too often than others. You should deal with it
the right way. You could use other diversions like watching movies or reading books, or you
could ask for professional help on how to properly handle stress. If you continue this unhealthy
habit, it could lead to obesity if you aren’t already there. But it’s never too late for you to change
this pattern.

When you’re emotionally hungry, you crave for specific comfort foods. Most of the time, these
are unhealthy foods like junk foods or high-calorie foods like pizza and burger.

You don’t get to pay attention and with what and how you eat. You don’t thoroughly enjoy
eating, you just eat and eat, and it takes time to feel full because it isn’t your stomach that is
hungry, it is your feelings.

Emotional hunger is sudden and often uncontrollable. You just feel it instantly, and you become
powerless over it. Most people just give it to this craving right away.

Many of us do not make the connection between eating and our emotions. Understanding what
drives us to indulge in emotional eating is a key factor to changing this unhealthy habit. A
familiar myth we all have to disregard is about emotional eating being prompted by negative
feelings like; stress, anxiety, anger or grief. Yes, people tend to eat bored, lonely, sad, stressed up
or anxious. But, we all agree that at some point in life we have celebrated the good news with
food. A child who grew up being given candy when they achieved something will continue doing
so even when they grow up. This practice becomes their way of rewarding others too. Positive
feeling contributes significantly to emotional eating; like on Valentine day, romantic desserts,
popcorn and a bag of chips when watching a movie.

 About emotional eating, you have to remember that you are human, meaning that you’re a
passionate being. You have feelings, such as happiness, sadness, anger, and fear among others.
This makes you prone to emotional eating, wherein you eat according to how you feel. More
often than not, people eat to comfort themselves in times of despair or sorrow. You have to get
rid of this habit and replace it with something healthier.

For example, whenever you are feeling down, you should go out for a jog. Being outdoors lets
you breathe in fresh air. Jogging is an excellent way to raise your heart rate and exercise your
body. Both of these are good for you because they relax you and make you feel good. More
importantly, they keep you away from your refrigerator and prevent you from reaching for a tub
of ice cream. When you eat comfort foods, you feel good at first. Eventually, however, you start
to regret your actions because you know that your body and health will pay for it in the end.

Furthermore, you have to get rid of your toxic and unhelpful nutritional beliefs. Do not be like
those people who think that food is an enemy. Food is not your enemy. If you become fat, it is
not the food’s fault. It is your fault. If you harbor these beliefs, you will have an unhealthy
relationship with food. So, you must change the way you think about food.

Identify Your Triggers

Although it is commonly known that emotional overeating is triggered by emotions; there are
more specific factors that serve as triggers. Recognizing your personal triggers can greatly help
you overcome emotional Causes and Symptoms of Emotional Eating

Emotional Eating is the process in which someone consumes a large amount of food, usually
food that is unhealthy such as "junk foods," so that they could somehow feel better. In short,
people afflicted with Emotional Eating Disorder use food as a means to alleviate the pain or
loneliness that they are feeling.

Deal with Your Emotions

If your negative emotions are not dealt with in some way, you will continue on in an emotional
eating frenzy. Even your positive emotions must have a creative outlet. Find other ways to
celebrate a milestone or event besides eating. Going bowling or to see a movie is a celebration as
well. Stay away from the popcorn unless you have saved room for it.

Denying that your emotions are an issue is not healthy, and, neither is ignoring your emotions.
Ignoring a problem does not make it non-existent. It is fine to acknowledge those emotions. You
can say, “I feel angry right now.” You can say, “I am depressed today.” Be honest about your
emotions, but do not let them dictate you by going on a binge or lashing out at someone.

If your emotions are extremely out of control, seeing a counselor might be helpful. Not everyone
who has emotional issues needs a counselor or therapy, but there is certainly nothing wrong with
going for that type of help if it is needed. Whatever is needed to get you healthier is exactly what
should be done if possible.

In some societies, people have not been taught to deal with what is difficult or challenging.
While this might seem pleasant, it is hardly helpful. Many children and adults have not been
taught to allow themselves to feel and work through the unpleasant emotions.

If you are angry, acknowledge the anger. Feel it, but do not let it spin out of control. If you are
sad, go through the experience, but do not stay there. If you are depressed, allow yourself to feel
the emotion, then, deal with it. Is there a legitimate reason to feel depressed such as a loss or
major change in life? If not, then it could be an issue that requires medical help. Mindfulness
does not encourage denying the emotion. You are encouraged to face it and deal with it.

If you are stressed out, look at the cause of the stress. If something can be eliminated from your
life, then remove it. If it is a situation that you are unable to walk away from, then you must have
a strategy to deal with the situation. Counselors are a good source for those types of strategies. In
the meantime, you can still practice mindful eating so that the issue does not spill over into your
eating habits any more than it already has.

Overeating and Under-Eating

Both over and under-eating is a significant problem for many individuals. Society leads us to
believe that being skinny is the only acceptable "norm" which causes many people to diet
excessively and this mainly affects young girls and women.

This leads to what we call under-eating, as people then tend to cut down on certain foods or even
a variety of foods, with the primary goal being to lose weight or to maintain the low body weight
which they are happy with.

However, we need to remember that we cannot all look the same (or be that skinny) as each
person is different, our body shapes are different, and our body's needs are very different. Thus,
you need to do what is best for you and your optimum level of health.

The same applies to overeating, as we seem to spend more and more time at work and less time
cooking healthy meals. The result of this is that the fast food industry is making more money
than ever before. A lot of people tend to grab fast foods, as this is the more convenient and more
accessible route to follow.

This is also where overeating comes into play, as people may work out on the road or miss a
meal here and there, which results in overeating when they do get to enjoy a meal. It is
exceptionally effortless to overeat when one eats too fast.

Although we are not mentioning that we should not eat any fast food at all, the fact remains that
fast foods are not necessarily the healthiest meal and unfortunately too much fast food can lead
to weight and health issues also.

We need to continue cooking and eating healthy mindful meals and cut the fast-food habit down
to a mindful eating "treat" which one may look forward to. Eating everything in moderation is
the key to happy and healthy life. Overeating is a common problem. However, it is a
straightforward concept. Some people think that they overheat due to a weak willpower. They
believe that they cannot control their appetite, and it is why they cannot lose any weight. The
truth is that they do not have a problem with their willpower. They are merely overeaters who do
not eat when they eat. What does this mean?

When you do not eat when you eat, you are not wholly present during your meal. You are not
fully aware of how it tastes or how it nourishes your body. Your brain misses out on a vital phase
of nutritional experience, which involves satisfaction and taste. Your mind either thinks that it
did not eat enough or it did not eat at all. So, you think that you are hungry and you eat more
than you are supposed to. If you want to avoid overeating, see to it that you increase your
presence and awareness during mealtime.

Also, there is this misconception that when you eat quickly, you boost your metabolism. The
truth is that eating slowly helps you boost your metabolism. When you eat fast, you put stress on
your body. Keep in mind that humans are just not biologically designed for high-speed eating. If
you eat quickly, you put your body into a physiologic stress response. This, in turn, causes
decreased nutrient assimilation, digestion, and calorie burning rate. Conversely, it causes
increased appetite and nutrient excretion.

When you slow down, you improve your nutritional metabolism. You also get to taste your food
better, which heightens your satisfaction. You need to increase your pleasure in eating to enjoy it
more. You do not have to eat more of the food. You just have to take some time to appreciate its
taste, presentation, and overall quality. Pleasure catalyzes a relaxation response as well as fuels
assimilation and digestion. What’s more, you get the chance to chew your food more carefully.
You can make sure that you can digest it properly.
 Anorexia Nervosa
Anorexia nervosa is a psychological wellbeing disease as. Individuals with this issue have a
serious distraction with sustenance and self-perception. They don't eat, count calories too much,
or generally eat awfully little to look after wellbeing. Regardless of being underweight, they
frequently have tension concerning the conviction that they are overweight and keep on trying to
shed pounds. While the condition is more typical in young ladies, it is currently accepted to
influence more young men and Women than beforehand thought. Measurements demonstrate
that anorexia frequently begins between 13-30 years old.

Its symptoms include excessive weight loss, avoidance of eating enough to retain a healthy
weight, a wrong perception of one’s looks and anxiety towards gaining weight and becoming
obese. Often the patient begins subjecting him/herself to excessive diets, resulting in rapid loss of
weight. But often patients continue refusing to eat even when their weight is below normal.
Because of a distorted perception of their looks, anorexics think they still aren’t as thin as they
should be and continue dieting. Their anxiety not to become obese drives them to excessive
exercise, the use of purgatives and minimal consumption of food. Slowly, this pattern acquires
the characteristics of fixation and often approaches the point of the possibility of starving.

Even though these are not always related to the disorder, we present some of the signs that
appear in cases of anorexia:
Mental Signs

• Mental fixation overeating and one’s weight

• A distorted perception of one’s looks

• Self-esteem defined by one’s weight and appearance

• Highly self-judgmental attitude and perfectionism

Psychological signs

• Clinical depression

• Low idea of one’s self

• Mood swings
Social Signs

• Avoiding contact with friends

• Worsening of relationship with family

• Productivity and engaging with work or assessments facing severe decline (however, because
of perfectionism this isn’t always the case)
Signs in Behavior

• Excessive exercise or training

• Refusal to eat and obsession with calories intake

• Secretive behavior concerning food and weight

• Self-harm, tendencies towards suicide, excessive use of drugs

In men, anorexia often manifests together with psychological issues and often follows a time
period during which they have been obese. Male anorexics also often have a distorted perception
of the way they look.

In women, the signs of anorexia appear in relation to a general state of unhappiness regarding
their own body and an obsession with becoming as thin as possible. Female anorexics often
demonstrate patterns of excessive perfectionism.

Aside from the mental symptoms, anorexia’s bodily signs in those of young age are related to
their growth and development. A person’s daily life is greatly affected; their interest in activities
they used to enjoy obviously deteriorates. A number of sufferers also demonstrate the signs of
clinical depression.

Even though anorexia is defined as “lack of appetite,” anorexics often don’t lose their appetite.
They enjoy eating and do feel hunger, but they don’t think about eating like everybody else,
which can be observed in a great number of different behaviors. To provide examples, they are
prone to lying regarding their food consumption, providing excuses for refusing to eat, claiming
they have already eaten when they haven’t, and concealing how much weight they have really
lost, and so on.

If malnourishment or the possibility of starvation has begun to affect your body, medical
measures will have to be taken. Doctors treat conditions that are the result of anorexia nervosa
such as osteoporosis, a heart condition, or clinical depression. As you begin to recover, a doctor
will carry on monitoring your health and maintain you at a healthy weight.
 Bulimia Nervosa
Bulimia is an eating disorder identified by consistent bouts of overeating which are directly
followed by vomiting, the use of diuretics and purgatives or enemas. In the majority of cases,
bulimia sufferers hide their actions because they feel guilty of gluttony. Bulimics understand that
their eating behavior isn’t normal. Bulimia nervosa constitutes a very risky condition since the
signs of the problem aren’t obvious and a diagnosis is very difficult to make.

Bulimics don’t necessarily have weight issues. They sometimes have normal weight. The
obsessive wish to lose weight, triggered by mental or emotional issues, doesn’t allow them
control of their bulimic episodes. If they throw up the same amount of food as they have
consumed, their bodies suffer from malnourishment which can result in significant loss of
weight, yet this isn’t always the case.

Bulimia nervosa manifests itself most among women between the ages of fifteen and thirty. The
last stage of bulimia nervosa is the demonstration of major clinical depression, which can result
in the sufferer committing suicide.

One may make many attempts to lose weight by subjecting oneself to severe diets. The bulimic’s
weight ranges around normal and can be five kilos more or less between times of excessive
eating and times of dieting. Individuals suffering from bulimia nervosa are often anxiously
worried, depressed or demonstrate mood swings. Bulimia in a great number of cases works
together with anorexia and it is often difficult to identify which of them is the more prevalent.

Here are several signs that can assist you in identifying someone who might have developed
bulimia nervosa:

 Bad teeth, from stomach acids during vomiting;

 Visiting the toilet after eating (to secretly throw up);

 Wounded fingers, due to being pushed into the throat for vomiting;

 Weakness, exhaustion or fainting;

 Dehydration;

 Malfunctions of the heart;

 Sore mouth and throat;

 Disruption or disorders in the menstrual period;

  Frequently eating too much, particularly fattening foods;

Dealing with bulimia nervosa

 First, understand the existence of the problem.

 Discuss the issue with someone, without expecting them to judge you.

 Stay away from individuals who can only talk about food and diets.

 Understand that you can assume control over your eating habits.

 Ask for the help of professional or discuss it with a psychologist.

 Get advice concerning the disorder.

 Remember that your weight is healthy, particularly when you feel the need to get rid
of food you have consumed.

 Create a plan to cope with emotional problems and depression.

 Seek positive role models whom you can relate to, to assist you in increasing your
self-esteem. Remember that projected mass media thin models or actors often
represent unhealthy lifestyles.

 Acquire regular eating habits and do not subject yourself to diets.

 Chapter 2. The A-C-C-E-P-T Method to Re-Design Your Life
The A-C-C-E-P-T Method is a thought-restructuring system designed to enable you think
positively and decision-make appropriately. Once you begin the process of sweeping away the
cobwebs of old thinking patterns, you may feel the urge to “redesign” your life. Think of it like
this: it’s time to update your thought patterns, much like you’d want to give an old house a new
look. Using the acronym A-C-C-E-P-T as a blueprint, you can recreate your life:

A - Accept. Until we are able to admit we have a problem and can accept that we need support,
we’re stuck in denial. Instead of remaining powerless, ask the Power of your Higher Self for
strength and direction. Some people call this spiritual and universal power “God.” Others believe
it is their conscience. Others do not relate to those concepts, but understand there is a part of
them which believes they can overcome. I have a client who calls it his, “Wise Self.” In my
opinion, it doesn’t matter what name you give it: just call on it in times of need, and be listening
and open to its higher guidance and direction.

The surest way out of addictive behavior is to let someone in. While I think it’s wonderful to ask
a family member or friend into your circle, the #1 problem I see when treating addictions is that
clients resist telling their story to people outside their comfort zone. This is a real predicament,
because we don’t always listen to the advice of family and friends-they are just “too close.” And,
we know (or hope) that they will keep loving us in spite of our weaknesses. It is trusting in our
comfort-zones which have gotten us to the point of addiction in the first place, so staying in them
is not going to help us climb out of them. This is where community comes in.

C - Create your life. The most powerful words that were ever uttered to me were these: “You are
the creator of your life. You are the architect of your own life.” The first part of my life was
spent trying to please other people, and be who I was told I should be. You know what?

I didn’t get very far, or produce very much, and I certainly wasn’t very happy being who others
told me I should be. To be genuinely happy, you must be yourself, 100% yourself. Once you
have worked through the expectations of what other people want from you, and thrown that
aside, you are in the unique position to begin living, really living.

To expect society, your cultural heritage, your parents, your company or your boss, your family
or your partner to fulfill your life’s purpose and destiny for you is to deny that you have that
power. You may not feel like you’re capable of starting life anew. You may not feel like you can
rebuild and create something miraculous and amazing. But you also know that our feelings don’t
always tell us the truth. In fact, by reading this workbook, you have taken an important step in
the right direction: you are becoming more self-aware every minute. There is a term in
psychology called, “Internal Locus of Control.” It describes people who understand that the
power to create the outcome of their lives is internal, and not external. Then there are those who
have an “External Locus of Control.” These are the people who feel victimized and out of
control. They feel life is circumstantial, it is environmental. Studies have shown that people with
an Internal Locus of Control are by far happier and healthier than those who see themselves as
victims of circumstance. The difference between these two outlooks is that people with
internalized direction are people of action. They do not wait for someone to tell them which way
to go. They are willing to take calculated risks, and to head towards their dreams, even if they are
not sure exactly how it’s going to unfold. They simply trust that when they get to the next fork in
the road, they will know which way to turn. There is no other way to describe this state than to
say these people have faith in themselves. They trust their ability to make decisions.

Here is a non-clinical definition of intelligence that really appeals to me: “Intelligence is the
ability to respond well to change.” Intelligent people do not fear change; instead, they leverage it
to their advantage. They don’t stick their heads in the sand and pretend. They see it coming and
prepare for it. They say to themselves, “I never thought I’d be here, but here I am. How can I
make the best of this situation?” That is an intelligent bird. When we give control to the
automatic, addictive thoughts, we are accepting defeat; we are going down without a fight, which
is why clients with addictions suffer with self-esteem issues. Clients express to me that there’s a
part of them which keeps telling them, hounding them that they can overcome the behavior,
while a separate part of them believes that they are locked into an unbreakable pattern. In
psychological terms, this is known as polarity of personality. All people do not suffer with
addictive or compulsive behavior, but I assure you, we all share these two polarities of thought.
Gestalt Therapy is founded on this understanding: all of us struggle inwardly with “doing the
right thing.” Hollywood has depicted this inward polarity as the devil sitting on one shoulder and
an angel sitting on another shoulder, both whispering into your ear. To re-create your life, you
have to be willing and determined to decide the course of your own destiny.

Life wasn’t meant to be perfect. If you have perfectionist tendencies, let me remind you of
something: Life is messy. In relationships, on the job, mistakes happen, because it is part of
being human. Think of how a child learns: by its mistakes! You learned not to touch fire because
you put your hand on something hot. Humans learn what to do by first learning what not do. In
your quest for recovery should you have a slip and return to the addiction, go ahead and feel
guilty for a few minutes, but then get over it. It’s been my professional experience that it is the
clients who stay mired and stuck in guilt and shame that relapse. That is, they completely stop
trying and throw in the towel, due to a simple lapse. Please remember: a lapse is not a relapse.
You’re only defeated when you stop trying. I heard a minister wisely advise one time, “Never
stop starting.” When you have a lapse, remind yourself, “It’s part of the recovery process. I have
not failed if I start again. I’ll just start over.”

T - Thanks-Giving. All of us have something to be grateful for. Some of us have health, some
have wealth, some have family, some have friends, some have fulfilling careers, some have
comforting and loyal pets, some have faith in God…whatever you have, celebrate it. It was
Oprah Winfrey who said, “You can have it all, you just can’t have it all at once.” Maybe
someday you will have it all, and I hope you do. Until then, make it a daily ritual to practice
being grateful for whatever small things you already have. Acknowledging the small things in
our lives which are going well for us (even if it’s as simple as a delicious cup of coffee) reminds
us that life is not all bad. When we practice the power of gratitude, life seems to take on a more
realistic and balanced perspective. If you make it a practice to celebrate the high points of your
day, your attitude will improve, and people will enjoy your company more. Overall, a grateful
person is a happy person.
Self-Intervention Exercises:
 A-C-C-E-P-T
1. Accept Higher Insight

Write a statement of what you think your Higher Self or Wise-Self might say to you today about
your recovery:

2. Creating Community

Write a statement that expresses what ideal community recovery support would look like for
you, and why:

Write a statement expressing what you don’t want in a community support program, and why:

Write a statement expressing what action steps you could take to find community support:

I could (list actions):

3. Create Your Life

A. What could you work on now that would make the biggest difference in your life? (Coping
skills, medical intervention, communications within relationships, etc.):

B. For your life to be ideal, what are a few things that have to be different?

C. What would you try now if you knew you couldn’t fail?

4. Everyone Stumbles

When you have a lapse, what is your action plan? (Removing Triggers, Urge Surf, Emergency
Coping List, Chair Exercise/Reparenting, etc.)

A. Rate your level of willingness to find support in a lapse (0-10, 0=will not and 10=certain I
will):

B. What are a few pro-active steps you could take to avoid being triggered?

5. Positive

A. What do you hope happens, or what are your expectations? What is the logical next step in
your growth?

B. What post-traumatic growth can you identify that has taken place in your life as a result of
your problem? (Example: “My problem has taught me to…”)
C. What specific self-intervention exercises will you practice to further your post-traumatic
growth? (Positive affirmations, body awareness exercises, mind-awareness exercises)

6. Thanks-Giving

A. What strengths do you possess?

B. What resources do you have in your environment which could assist you in attaining your
recovery goals?

C. Who would you like to thank for the contribution they’ve made in your life? List them below,
and how they have helped you:

Write any other thoughts about your process here:

 Chapter 3. Tracking & journaling
MOST RECOVERY PROGRAMMES require you to do some form of tracking or journaling.
Whether it’s keeping a log of your eating habits or capturing thought patterns and emotions, you
are likely to have to run one, or several, trackers and journals during your recovery process. As
tracking and journaling feature in so many recovery methods — self-help or otherwise — it’s
important you know how to track and journal effectively. Trackers and journals are powerful
recovery tools, but they can also be very time-consuming — and, if you get it wrong, possibly
even counterproductive to your recovery. It’s therefore a good idea to be clear from the outset on
how tracking and journaling are meant to help you, and what pitfalls to look out for.
The Role Of Tracking & Journaling In Recovery

Tracking and journaling help you become aware of patterns in your thought processes, emotions
and behaviours you may not notice otherwise. This is why they are such an important component
of behaviour-based recovery methods such as cognitive behavioural therapy, though many other
recovery approaches also make extensive use of journaling and tracking. By writing down what
you are doing and feeling at a given moment, you are creating a record you can later review and
analyse, either on your own or with a coach or therapist. This is incredibly important, as you are
unlikely to develop a deeper understanding of your binge patterns and eating behaviours purely
by thinking about them. Seeing the facts written down often creates clarity that wasn’t there
before.
At the same time, the act of tracking and journaling itself can have a positive impact on your
behaviour. Spending time to capture your emotions (no matter how briefly) and review your
progress can make you less impulsive and more considered.
Tracking vs Journaling

Tracking is primarily concerned with capturing data around a specific set of pre-defined
behaviours that are important to your recovery. Trackers answer questions such as: Did you
binge today? How many times have you meditated in the past week? How much money did you
spend on food this month? There’s no need to write hundreds of words; often a simple tick or
yes/no will do. Journaling, on the other hand, tends to revolve around more open-ended
questions and therefore requires more extensive writing. It answers questions such as: How are
you feeling today? What are your hopes and fears? How do you believe your recovery is going?
Why do you think you ended up binging yesterday?
Of course, it’s not always this clear-cut. In general, however, journaling is focused more on
helping you to discover behaviours and thoughts patterns that are helpful or harmful to you,
while tracking is more about logging and quantifying behaviours you have already identified.
Why Paper Is Best
I highly recommend you use pen and paper to track your progress, as opposed to apps or a digital
or online journal. There is something very powerful about the physical act of writing by hand,
and many respected binge eating recovery programmes (particularly CBT-based ones) make a
point of recommending handwriting. I have certainly found writing in a physical journal helps
me tap into a different part of my brain and forces me to pay closer attention to what it is I am
tracking or writing. It is far too easy to update a habit tracking app with a few mindless taps and
without much reflection.
Using a paper-based system also stops you from constantly checking your tracker or
spending too much time pouring over your recovery journal. Remember, as binge eaters we have
a tendency to overthink food and our eating habits, and tracking apps and online journals that are
easily available on our phones can fuel this tendency. Before you know it, you’ve installed
fifteen different apps and are spending hours fiddling around with the settings and reviewing
progress charts and habit chains. Having a simple paper-based journal at home keeps you
focused on the task at hand: To track your progress, reflect on what is and isn’t working, and
keep a record of your achievements.

There are also data protection and privacy concerns to consider. Although the risk is small, it
is possible that data from your apps and online journal could be hacked and become public. You
simply won’t face that same risk with paper.
Choosing A Journal

The type of journal you use is totally up to you. Go with whatever feels right. My only
recommendation is that you pick only one journal and try to stick with it throughout your
recovery process. I recommend this because some binge eaters have a tendency to start journal
after journal, get a few pages in and then throw it away the minute they suffer a setback or have a
binge, and start a new one again. It’s as if they cannot bear the thought of having ‘messed up’
their journal. They crave the blank page and the feeling of starting afresh.
I’ve certainly been guilty of this, and I’ve had to work hard to fight this impulse. But fight it
you must. If you keep abandoning your journal the moment something doesn’t go to plan, you
will never get the insight that’s needed to make real progress. That’s why it’s so important to
commit to only one journal and keep writing in it, no matter what happens. (Obviously, if you
run out of space, buy a new one.)

If you are on a recovery programme that requires you to track your food habits throughout
the day — and you don’t want to carry a notebook with you all the time — I recommend you
create log sheets that you can fold up and put in your purse. Simply fill them in during the day
and file them away in a ring binder or put them in an envelope at home at the end of the day.
working With Trackers
Many recovery programmes require you to do some form of tracking (such as keeping track of
how often you binge) and will have specific suggestions for what you are meant to be logging in
your journal. However, if you are working with a programme that either doesn’t require tracking
or doesn’t have specific suggestions for what you’re supposed to keep track of, then I have some
ideas for you to try out. Equally, if you are simply keen to try out different tracking styles to see
if they might help your recovery, read on.
As always, bear in mind that starting a particular style of tracking doesn’t mean you’ll have
to continue with it forever. Give it a decent amount of time (I’d say at least thirty days) and if it’s
not working for you move on to something else. There are so many tracking styles out there
there’s no point spending time on something that’s not working for you.
Set Clear Boundaries

The most important lesson I learned over twenty years of binge eating and numerous recovery
attempts — as well as numerous journals and trackers — is that your recovery journal and
trackers need to be about more than food. Recovery from binge eating is much more than an
absence of binges. It requires change across different mental, physical and emotional aspects of
your life, and your journaling and tracking need to reflect this. If all you ever do is track how
much you’ve binged, write down what you’ve eaten and spend hours free-writing about your
relationship with food, you are only addressing part of the problem.
In fact, my experience tells me spending lots of time logging, tracking and writing about
food is not healthy for binge eaters who are already struggling with obsessive thoughts around
food and eating. That’s why you need to set some boundaries.

For the time being, my recommendation is this: If you want to track your food habits and
binges in some form, limit yourself to tracking only two food-related behaviours at a time. Don’t
set up countless trackers keeping score of every minor aspect of what you eat.
Ideas For Tracking Your Progress

For now, here are some ideas to get you started with tracking your food-related recovery
progress. As you’ll see, there are advantages and disadvantages to each tracking style — and not
all of them might be suitable for you right now. Make sure you are honest with yourself about
what kinds of trackers are likely to be helpful to you — and which ones might affect you
negatively. Some of the blunter binge trackers (such as counting the number of your binges) can
be triggering for some people. If in doubt, steer clear.
● Tracking your binges
   

How does it work? As the name suggests, you count how often you binge. This can
be done with a simple tracker or checklist in your recovery journal. Over time, you
will be able to see if you are binging more or less on average as well as any
patterns around specific days or times of the month.
 Pros: Straightforward and easy to do. Gives you clear, unambiguous data on your
binge frequency.
Cons: Very negative. Focused solely on something going wrong. Tracking process
itself can be upsetting and potentially triggering. Not recommended in the early
stages of recovery or if you know you struggle to move on after a binge or get very
emotional.
● Tracking binge-free days
   

How does it work? Instead of tracking when you binge, you keep track of how often
you manage not to binge, typically by filling out a tracker in your journal at the
end of the day. If you are not at a stage where you have entire binge-free days, this
marker can be adapted to track binge-free mornings, evenings, weekends or
similar.
Pros: Focuses on a positive achievement, while still giving you clear data and being
easy and straightforward. Could be used together with rewards you create for
yourself to help motivate you.
Cons: Not suitable if you have a tendency to think in terms of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ days,
as a binge early on in the day might encourage you to ‘write off’ the whole day and
binge even more.
● Tracking your binge spend
   

How does it work? Every time you spend money on binge food, you log it in your
journal or an app on your smartphone. (This is one time where phone-based
tracking beats paper.) You then review your total spend once a month. This allows
you to see just how much money your binges are costing as well as giving you an
indication of whether you are spending more or less over time.
Pros: Minimises triggering by allowing you to keep a tab on your binging without
having to focus on the actual binges themselves. Ability to track retrospectively by
looking at your bank statement means data accuracy isn’t dependent on whether
you’ve managed to track in the heat of the moment. Seeing how much you spend
on binges can be highly motivating.
Cons: Only captures food bought specifically for binging purposes. It can be time-
consuming (if not impossible) to separate out food that was bought in general
from food that you ended up binging on.
● Tracking your total food spend
   

How does it work? This is a variation of the binge spend tracker, but instead of
tracking food you bought specifically to binge on you track all your food expenses
for the month — including your normal family grocery shop, going out for a meal
or having a coffee with a friend. You can do this in whichever form you like, using
either your journal or an app.
Pros: Easy to do. No need to figure out retrospectively whether something you
bought ended up in a binge or was part of your normal food expenses. Can be a
useful early alarm system if you have a tendency to overeat and over-snack in the
 run up to a binge — if your food spend starts going up, you know to be on the
alert. As with the binge spend tracker, seeing how much of your disposable
income goes on food can be very motivating in and of itself.
Cons: Data isn’t very accurate and can easily be distorted (e.g. if you go out for a
fancy restaurant meal one month or deliberately buy super-cheap foods to binge
on).
What Not To Track

●    Counting calories

●    Tracking macros
●    Using any kind of food tracking app (e.g. MyFitnessPal)
●    Tracking bad or forbidden foods
●    Keeping a detailed food diary
Remember, it’s very easy for binge eaters to overthink their food choices and spend vast
amounts of their day agonising over what they have eaten. Do not play into this by constantly
tracking and reviewing what you have eaten.
 Chapter 4. 11. Mainstream therapies and treatments
Cognitive analytic therapy (CAT)
CAT has many similarities with cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT, explored in detail in pp.
152–6) in that they are both highly focused, brief therapies that use a collaborative approach.
CAT uses a more interpersonal methodology in that the client and practitioner will identify
issues together, and more importance is placed on the interactions within the therapeutic
relationship.
CAT encourages the client to take up the observer stance in their own life, instead of being
helplessly embroiled in their behaviour, incapable of seeing the wood for the trees. They are
encouraged to observe, experience, recognize and name the patterns of thought, feelings and
behaviour that they live with and to share this with the practitioner.
As a consequence of this shared understanding, the client can dispassionately see what is
working and what is not and thus change their ensconced behaviours and attitudes and make
more constructive choices.
Approximately twenty hourly sessions are needed for CAT, with several follow-up sessions
once the therapy has been completed. These sessions can be highly creative, involving journals,
self-reflection, writing and movement. These sessions consist of several phases, namely:
 The formulation phase: Information is gathered about the client’s life experience and
personal history, including successes and failures.
 The reformulation letter phase: A written synopsis is created of the shared
understanding of the issues explored in therapy. This also looks at the changes
undertaken by the client and how they are coping. This active stage involves the
client and practitioner working together, mapping out and identifying patterns of
relating, feeling and acting. By monitoring together what works and what maintains
destructive patterns, they are then in a position to know how to revise these patterns
into formats that are constructive.
 The ending phase: Terminating this intense collaborative exercise can be daunting,
so the final sessions are dedicated to acknowledging that the work has come to an
end. Both parties will write a ‘goodbye letter’ to mark the completion of their
therapeutic relationship.
I find that this refreshingly contemporary form of therapy can be highly effective for sufferers of
eating disorders: instead of becoming mired in the past, it enables a client to focus on the here
and now.
An individual can work with the practitioner to change their state of mind in the present
moment. This is largely encouraged by the example set by the therapist to be upfront and honest.
This high degree of openness and collaboration is an intrinsic factor in the success of this form of
treatment.
 The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines endorse CAT for
sufferers of anorexia in particular; however, there is clear evidence that it also helps sufferers of
bulimia.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)

Cognitive behavioural therapy explores the unhealthy thoughts and emotions underlying an
eating disorder. It works upon the premise that how we think influences how we feel, which
ultimately affects how we behave. CBT is one of the most successful treatments for anorexia
and bulimia, as well as for other eating disorders and mental health problems. It is often used
in conjunction with relaxation techniques and enables the sufferer to explore their behaviour
on a day-to-day basis.
The therapist will help the client to identify what are known as cognitive distortions, or
thinking errors, which lead to irrational thoughts. There are a wide variety of distortions, such as
personalizing information or black-and-white thinking. A typical example of this all-or-nothing
approach would be a client starting each day by thinking: ‘Today I must eat like a normal person
and will not binge or purge, otherwise I will be a failure.’
The therapist would help them to rethink this statement to make it more rational rather than
setting themself up for failure. It might be changed to: ‘Today I will try my best to eat like a
normal person, but if I lapse in any way I will forgive myself and remain focused on recovery.’
Sufferers are encouraged to keep a journal or food diary to enable them to examine the triggers
of their destructive eating behaviours. These are known as ‘activating events’. Examples of
activating events could range from stress caused by having to work overtime to disappointment
due to a cancelled arrangement to anger over a friend’s disloyalty.
The sufferer then explores their beliefs around the activating event that has triggered their
negative eating pattern. For example, it could be a fundamental belief that people take advantage
of them and expect them to work overtime because they are unworthy. Or they will reason that
because they don’t matter, people don’t care about cancelling arrangements at short notice. Or
they might think that their lack of worthiness means that others will not consider their feelings
and will be disloyal.
These warped and erroneous beliefs bring in their wake some very daunting emotions, which
in turn generate destructive behaviours as the sufferer tries to avoid or suppress their feelings.
These behaviours could be self-punishment exercises like starvation, excessive exercising or
self-harming, or compensatory behaviours to make up for their hurt feelings, such as comfort
eating and bingeing.
With the support of the therapist, the sufferer is encouraged to challenge their dysfunctional
thought processes by providing evidence to support their views. Having disputed their false
premises, they can then experiment with implementing healthier, more realistic beliefs.
As a consequence of more constructive beliefs, they will generate more positive and
empowering feelings. The sufferer will then be able to break the vicious cycle of self-destructive
behaviour and start to tap into a more virtuous cycle, since they no longer experience the
compulsion to suppress painful emotions.
A food diary is an excellent method for helping the sufferer to trace patterns of behaviour back
to particular triggers, as it encourages them to stop to think about why they behaved in a certain
way. In addition, as they become more thoughtful and self-aware, the food diary acts as an
incentive, since they can visibly see that they have reduced bingeing, purging, laxative use or
self-starvation over several weeks.
If you are suffering from problem eating, use a form like the one below to monitor your eating
behaviour. Photocopy the blank form on page 156 and use it as a food diary over the next two
weeks to see if you can identify patterns of events that trigger thoughts, emotions and behaviour
that affect your food intake. By reflecting on your state of mind when these triggers/activating
events occur, you will be able to develop a high degree of self-awareness. This will enable you to
intercept the negative thoughts and challenge them. You will then be able to implement new
strategies to induce more constructive behaviours.
A sample entry might look as follows (‘B’ stands for binged and ‘V’ stands for vomited):

Food journal
B = Binge; V = Vomited; L = Laxatives; D = Diuretics; E = Excessive exercise

Counselling and psychotherapy

Regardless of the particular type of counselling, of which there are hundreds, the key factor
that they all have in common is the importance of the quality of the therapeutic relationship.
Counsellors are trained in specific approaches and some use just one approach, for example,
psychoanalysis, while others use a combination, which is known as an eclectic or integrative
approach.
Counselling provides an opportunity for an individual to explore deeply private aspects of
their life in a safe and confidential environment with a trained practitioner. It is imperative that
the client feels totally accepted, respected and valued to enable them to trust their counsellor.
They must not feel judged in any way, as this would inhibit the client in exploring their true
feelings.
It is the counsellor’s role to facilitate the client in mobilizing their own resources so that they
can deal with their difficulties effectively. A skilled practitioner will be able to empathize with
the client’s perspective, and being understood in this way enables the client to explore their
options in a non-defensive manner.
Some forms of counselling are more directive (i.e. counsellor-led) than others, but all types
seek to encourage the client in finding their own solutions. Through communicating and feeling
that their thoughts are being heard, the client begins to accept themself, validates their own
emotions and learns new ways of expressing powerful feelings such as anger, fear or sorrow in
constructive ways rather than through the abuse of food intake.
Clients suffering from eating disorders can often feel ashamed about their behaviour and have
frequently been judged in a pejorative fashion by others. Within the safety of the therapeutic
alliance, the client can address their concerns without needing to worry if they are pleasing or
disappointing the counsellor. This can be a unique experience for an individual who has been
oppressed by others who pressurize them to be or look a certain way.
The counsellor is present in the capacity of a facilitator rather than as a party with a vested
interest in the outcome, which is often the case with family and friends. The nature of this
relationship offers the client far greater freedom to express themself and discover their true
being, which is very liberating for sufferers of eating disorders.
It is difficult to estimate the number of sessions needed to support a client who is recovering
from an eating disorder. Counsellors using the human givens approach tend to work in a short-
term manner, whereas those using a person-centred approach may require many more sessions.
Other key factors are the nature and personality of the client and the duration of the illness. The
less ensconced the negative habits, the easier it is to relearn constructive ones.

What triggers you?

The root of your emotional triggers can be found in your basic human needs.

We all have a need for love and compassion, social connection and feeling supported, peace and
a connection with nature, creativity and a sense of control, and spiritual harmony.

When any of these things are lacking, when we feel lonely or unloved, when we feel powerless
or unappreciated, when our consciousness is constricted, or our creativity is circumscribed, we
experience negative emotions.

These negative emotions are not a sign that there is something wrong with us; they are not
indicative of disease. They are a natural part of the human condition.

Pain is our body’s way of talking to us. Emotional pain is our brain’s way of talking to us.

As important as it is to listen to our body when we experience pain — so that we may take steps
to alleviate the condition that is causing the pain and prevent physical damage to our bodies — it
is just as important to listen to the message of our negative emotions and take action to alleviate
their cause.

When we have the urge to eat when we are not hungry or feel impelled to eat foods which we've
decided we’d avoid, or to continue to eat after we are full we are usually doing this to attempt to
calm our emotions.
By paying attention to them, we can begin — if we don’t already know — to learn the cause of
our upset and also learn what works best to soothe ourselves when this particular upset occurs.

For example, we may feel the urge to eat something comforting, such as chocolate chip cookies,
in the evening after “rough day at work” even though we have had dinner and we are not hungry.

It would appear that work is a trigger for us, but we should try to be more specific.

What is it about our day that stressed us? Was it a feeling of overwhelm, was our boss
unappreciative? Perhaps we just overdid it?

It’s good to be specific because if we can recognize our triggers we can often avoid them.

In this case, maybe we worked through our afternoon break without stopping. Then, in the
evening, we paid the price for that in the form of the urge to engage in emotional eating.

If we had taken our afternoon break, and perhaps had an appropriate stack, or herbal tea, or just
relaxed, we may not have been so vulnerable to emotional eating in the evening.

Also, if we make a habit of ferreting out our emotional triggers, we will learn not only how to
avoid them, but what alternatives to food would best soothe us when they arise again.

So in the present case, we realize that working through our afternoon break without stopping
exhausted us, not just physically, but emotionally, and will try to avoid doing that in future.

We know that making chocolate chip cookies as an evening snack is not in our eating plan, and
therefore comes from our primitive brain, so we ignore it.

We say to ourselves, "I don't need food, and I don't want to eat. What am I really hungry for?”™

We could stop there, but we might find ourselves in a loop that lasts the rest of the evening,
where intrusive thoughts about delicious cookies keep arising only to be dismissed.

That’s not bad, at least we won’t eat them, but better would be if we could soothe our primitive
brain’s survival drives and enjoy our evening.

We have now reached the question in the EEESY™ mantra.

What are we really hungry for?

You'll find out what you really want in your life.

For now though, we're just looking for something along the lines of, what would be a better
choice than eating — what's good enough?
What could we choose as a suitable alternative to food?

Well, given that our trigger was to push ourself too hard and overdo it, a nurturing or relaxing
choice would be appropriate.

Relaxing in a hot bath of Epsom salts, and lighting a scented candle might do the trick.

We’d feel nurtured; our stressed muscles would relax, and the scent of the candle would replace
the thought of the smell of baking cookies.

Your particular emotional triggers will likely be under four broad categories: self-esteem; social,
including relationship and family; financial, including work, debt or budget issues; and spiritual.

Although you may experience emotional triggering from all of these categories, it’s likely that
one will be paramount.

In fact, you can probably state without much reflection which area of your life is most likely to
cause the negative feelings which impel you to eat.

There are other, more subtle ones which you’ll be able to explore later, but there’s likely one
over-riding problem that is most consistent in causing you pain.

We’ll assume for now that there’s nothing you can do to change the situation causing the trigger
— although we will be dealing with that in Part 3 — and instead explore how you can relieve
your emotional stress and calm your primitive brain.

Note that your modern brain, your prefrontal cortex, cannot communicate directly with your
lower brain -- in the case of emotional distress and emotional eating, this would be your
amygdala --there is nevertheless a prefrontal – amygdala interaction which you can control
consciously.

By deliberately choosing to engage in activities which both distract you from the messages
arising in your amygdala and which soothe you and which will calm it down, you can maintain
control of your eating rather than relinquishing control to your primitive brain.

You are controlling your emotions, rather than being controlled by them.

If you are unable to ascertain exactly what it is that is triggering you, that’s okay too.

It’s possible that you are experiencing emotional overwhelm to such an extent that your
prefrontal cortex cannot cope with it and apply its ability to reason to the problem of your
distress. All you know is that you are upset, and need something to eat.
When this occurs, rather than attempting to soothe yourself proactively, you may wish instead to
simply distract yourself until you are rested, calmer and feel a bit better.

You can then, if you wish, choose to engage in an activity that is more directly soothing and
heals your emotional state rather than just distracts you from the urge to eat.

Remember that, even though these activities may seem like a waste of time it is better to engage
in them than eat.

To succumb to emotional eating is to risk creating a negative cycle of emotional distress,

emotional eating, and further emotional distress occasioned by the overconsumption of food and
its attendant negative results which are not restricted in the physical — weight gain, health
problems — but also include self-esteem issues such as self-incrimination, guilt, and negative
body image.

You wind up creating stress internally for the sole purpose of causing you to succumb to food
cravings.
 Chapter 5. Distracting Yourself

Distracting Alternatives to Eating

Recognizing that your urge to eat in a way which is contrary to your diet plan is your primitive
brain giving voice to its survival drives, and then choosing to ignore it will necessarily mean that
you refrain from emotional eating.

But if that’s all you do you risk being in an endless loop where you have the urge to eat, realize
that it is your primitive brain and not you which wishes to eat, and ignore it repeated over and
over again.

You don’t eat, which is good, but it’s not a pleasant way to pass the time and if that’s all you do
there is a risk that you will eventually grow weary of it and eat something just to shut it up.

To avoid that unfortunate scenario you can choose, once you recognized the voice of your
primitive brain, and made the decision to ignore it, to distract yourself with some other activity
than eating and thus obtain some peace.

We all know what it feels like to be so involved with something that we forget to eat. We miss a
meal or two or more without even realizing that we are hungry.

Distracting ourselves, when we have the urge to engage in emotional eating works on much the
same principle. We forget about eating because we’re distracted by something sufficiently
engaging to retain our attention.

The key to distracting activities is that they be relatively passive and easy to implement. They
must be readily available, take no particular effort or expenditure of energy, and the activities
which you enjoy or at least find reasonably palatable.

They should also be activities to which a default out of habit, rather than new activities which
you do rarely, or which you do because you think you should.

In other words, it’s okay for you to distract yourself by reading fiction if that’s something you
habitually do as a distraction or escape. But you shouldn’t attempt to distract yourself with War
and Peace, or Moby Dick, if you don’t ordinarily read literature.

An important caveat: be wary of engaging in a distracting activity which you tend to do while
eating. For example, if you tend to numb out watching television with a plate of cookies,
watching television may not be an ideal distraction for you.
If you can’t find any distraction in the list below which you don’t associate with eating, and can’t
come up with any similar activities of your own that don’t involve food, then you should look for
soothing alternatives instead.

It’s likely, however, you will be able to find a distracting alternative which you don’t associate
with eating.

Remember, these distracting activities are fallbacks for when you don’t have the energy to
engage in better options.

You may never need to use them, but give yourself permission to if you can’t muster up the
strength or motivation to use the better options presented later.

There’s a good chance that you won’t need passive distractions from thoughts of food once
you’ve learned to use EEESY™ to soothe and quiet your primitive brain, and as you progress
with it you almost certainly won’t.

But in the meantime give yourself permission to veg out if that’s all you can manage.

Distracting activities

1. Watching television. This is the first on the list as, for many people, it meets all of the
requirements noted above. It takes no effort, is readily available, and it’s something we typically
resort to take our minds off things.

It’s completely passive, and can be quite enjoyable particularly with the wide range of viewing
options currently availåble.

Although we often associate television watching with eating here’s a trick that may help you
resist food cravings while watching TV: watch something incompatible with eating, something
that will put you off food, like a horror movie or documentary about disease. It’s also good if you
can watch something without commercials which often advertise food.

If this is a distracting activity which appeals to you, it’s a good idea to ensure you have
programming available which you like.

If you need a distraction while you are already watching TV — and this is bound to happen —
choose one from the remainder of the list.
2. Reading. There is no such thing as a trashy novel, if it can transport you to a fictional world
far from the cares and worries of the real one.
There are worse habits to have than reaching for a romance novel on a Friday night — when you
are too tired from a busy work week to do anything requiring more effort — and escaping
through fiction rather than food.
3. Playing video games. You may not have a regular Halo night, but if you enjoy playing video
games there’s nothing wrong with using them as a distraction.
4. Internet activities. This could include surfing the Internet, participating in virtual worlds such
as Second Life, engaging in online forums, or other online activities.

Yes, you’re wasting time, but as long as you’re not eating when you’re online it can be a
compelling and thus beneficial distraction from food.
 Chapter 6. How to Succeed at Intuitive Eating and Avoid
Common Mistakes
re you ready to begin your journey to intuitive eating? The process is straight forward but takes
some practice to adapt to your body and needs. Set goals for yourself: learn to read your body’s
signals and communication. Review your schedule to make sure you have enough time during
the day to eat if you feel hungry, and set aside room for exercise, relaxation, and meditation. This
section will focus on errors and common mistakes that can hinder your progress in maintaining a
healthy success with mindful eating.
Avoid Skipping Meals
This is good advice for anyone. Skipping meals is sometimes inevitable, especially if your
schedule doesn’t allow much time to take a break. If you expect this to happen and can prepare
ahead, get up early to start breakfast early. Pay attention to your level of hunger in the morning,
to determine how much you want to eat. Bring a light snack to work or school, just in case there
is an opportunity to satisfy your hunger, should you feel this way and need to prolong or skip
lunch. Whether you eat small or large meals, ensure that you have something nutritious and tasty,
just in case. Even the best-planned schedules can change at the last minute, and being prepared
can alleviate a lot of unnecessary stress.
Not Drinking Enough Water
Hunger can be a symptom of dehydration. If you feel hungry, drink water first. Being hydrated is
one of the most important ways to stay healthy. It can also regulate your hunger signals so that
when you feel like eating, it is a response to hunger and not for other reasons. If drinking water
during the day doesn’t appeal to you, try adding lemon, lime or cucumber. Sparkling water can
be another alternative. Herbal teas are great during colder months, to ensure you are hydrated.
Fruit contains a lot of water and natural sugar, which can provide a boost in energy in between
meals if needed. Coffee is acceptable in moderation, though alternate drinking coffee with water,
as it can have a dehydrating effect.
Setting Unrealistic Goals
Many of us set goals when we diet, and often, they can be unrealistic. Magazines, advertisements
and diet programs promote quick fixes and sure-fire ways to lose weight fast, but this is only
good in the interim. In extreme cases, where weight loss is necessary for health reasons, a
medical professional or nutritionist may provide a specific guideline for eating. Even within this
plan, mindful eating can be practiced, by noticing how the food you eat impacts you and when
you eat. Choosing healthy foods can be counter-productive if we eat when we’re not hungry or
too much when we are, therefore not listening to our signals.
Focus on one goal at a time, if necessary, to avoid discouragement and disappointment. In other
words, don’t expect to lose a lot of weight, reduce your anxiety and lower your sugar levels all at
once, though if you eat relatively healthy and exercise, even moderately, you’ll likely see
positive results within a few weeks. The key is not to expect overnight transformations that you
can post on social media for a shocking response. Even the most successful people, when it
comes to losing one hundred pounds or becoming athletic, must dedicate months, even years, to
achieving their goals. When the goal is reached, maintenance is still needed and must continue.
Mindfulness can instill that level of maintenance from the very beginning so that it becomes part
of your everyday way of living.

Obstacles to Intuitive Eating: Emotional Response to Food and Changing Habits

We all have habits that are difficult to break or change, and it’s not something that can be
achieved overnight. Recognizing a negative habit is a start to making an improvement, as it
shows we are aware of it. Habit forming traits often happen as a response to something else in
our life. For example, we may overeat when we feel emotionally upset or as a way to make
ourselves feel better when we have a challenging experience. This can happen when someone is
grieving or feeling a sense of loss. Food can often take the place of that loss in order to cope.
When you are going through a difficult time, it’s important to not blame yourself, especially for
eating habits. Realize that it is temporary, and in time, when you are ready, you can change the
way you think about eating. The key is awareness. A helpful approach is a meditation, to give
yourself that space to reflect, without judgment, and set realistic goals.
Avoid Multi-Tasking When You Eat
Meeting a deadline, chatting online or in person, and getting work done are all activities that
many people try to accomplish during a meal. This happens most often during lunch break, as a
“working lunch” or as a way to save time and alleviate the stress of having to complete the work
after lunch, though the opposite will occur. As you try managing both tasks, your eating habits
and connecting with your body’s signals will interfere. This breaks the connection between your
food and you. It is during this multi-tasking that you may feel more anxious to rush back to work
from lunch, or in a more social and conversational atmosphere, lose that sensation you
experience when you enjoy your meal alone and without distraction. Even if you are pressed for
time, leaving a minimum of twenty minutes to enjoy a meal is a good start. Put down the files,
leave the computer screen and go for a walk in a quiet and serene place. Meals, whenever you
choose to enjoy them and when you can find adequate time and space for them, should take
center stage, and all other events put on pause until you are finished.
If you enjoy eating with co-workers, family, and friends, make it an enjoyable event. Keep it
positive and fun. If a working lunch is what you want to do, find that enjoyment in your food
when you can and chew, savor every mouthful. Keep multi-tasking to a minimum, if you have to
keep tasks in motion during your break. Your team may notice how you slow down to eat and
enjoy the taste of your food. It may be appropriate to talk about the food and appreciate what you
have. This may encourage others to see how you approach intuitive eating and could motivate
them as well!

What is Emotional Eating? How to Identify and Cope With Emotional Eating Habits
Emotional eating can best be defined as a response to eating as a means of coping with stress and
difficult situations in life. This can become chronic, in order to fill in a void or gap in our life that
we have challenges dealing with. In some cases, where this becomes a recurring and extreme,
eating disorders may result. For most people, it’s a sign that we are responding to stress, grief
and other feelings with food, even when we do not experience hunger. This results in a pattern of
binge-eating or over-eating and in some cases, going without food for a while, until hunger
pangs become unbearable, causing us to overeat. In extreme cases, bulimia or anorexia are
examples of eating disorders that cause us to avoid food (anorexia) or bounce between eating too
much, then forcing yourself to eliminate food and lose weight (bulimia).
Food can represent more than nourishment. It is seen as a reward, a coping mechanism or
comfort. The term “comfort food” signifies the needs for food as a way to deal with a hardship,
such as a relationship break up, losing a job or a sense of failure when an expectation isn’t met.
It’s counterproductive in the long-term, but it makes us feel good right away. Movies and
television shows will sometimes show a character binging on a tub of ice cream after breaking up
with their partner. This is an emotional response to a difficult experience.

Growing up, we learn to associate food with different aspects of our life. A lollipop or ice cream
cone as a reward for good behavior or an extra slice of cake for helping with chores. It can also
be restrictive, even punitive when portions or types of food are limited if we were pressured to
lose weight and eat a certain way. There may be positive intentions to both, but ultimately, we
learn from childhood to see food as a tool to reward, punish or comfort. It’s not an easy pattern
to reverse, though it can be done by acknowledging these traits have been ingrained into us at a
young age and recognizing the response to food when we experience one of these in adulthood:
A reward as an adult may entail having an extra slice of cake to reward good eating habits
during the first week of a diet
A punishment may be restricting what you eat over the next month, to make up or “correct” a
binge or period of time where you ate foods considered forbidden by following a diet
Choosing to eat to cope with the grief of loss, stress or frustration from occurrences in life

What is the first sign of emotional eating? Cravings! These are common and we experience them
daily. Cravings occur even when you are not hungry, as a response to an event. For example, if
you feel stressed at work, you may crave chocolate or a bag of chips. The flavor may be
appealing, as well as the texture or taste. It may seem nonincidental at first, to satisfy a craving
with a small piece of chocolate, though because the response to stress is food related, it will
continue and become habit forming. The initial sensation to tasting a piece of milk chocolate
after handling a difficult client on the job may feel euphoric and then you’ll want another piece,
followed by another. A pattern emerges that becomes a link between your emotions and food.
The portions may also grow, as you soothe your woes, but in the end, there is no solution, and
eating habits become difficult to maintain.
How can you avoid the pitfalls of emotional eating? Take into consideration your mood when
you reach for the next snack. Where are you currently? At work, home, at an event or in a
situation that causes a certain feeling? Most importantly, determine if you are actually hungry, by
using the scale between one to ten. If you rate your hunger closer to ten, it may be a good idea to
eat, though make sure you find a calm place without stress before you begin your meal.
Experiencing hunger means it’s a good time to eat, but only with as little pressure and emotional
impact as possible. If you are in a busy environment, find another space to decompress and relax.
Practice deep breathing and decide where to enjoy your meal.

When you crave food, ask yourself what you are feeling. Are you angry, sad or stressed? If you
are experiencing an intense emotion or in a state of frustration, hold off on eating until you can
bring yourself into a calm space, away from any surroundings that are contributing to these
emotions. It can take less time than you think and can be as easy as leaving the office or
workspace and going outdoors to walk in a nearby park. If that option is not available, choose a
quiet place in your workplace with minimal distractions. Sometimes this can be difficult to find
if your space is very busy and hectic. Even a few moments in a bathroom or an empty room for
five minutes can make a big difference. When you feel calmer, you may notice those cravings
subside. It’s ok if they don’t, as stressful situations are not easy to diffuse. A few minutes can
make the difference between reacting to your emotions with food and choosing another means to
acknowledge and remedy the situation with mediation and a few moments of solitude.

Food is a good distraction. To identify your emotional connection to food means to acknowledge
it mindfully, instead of making an excuse for it. It’s common and easy to excuse eating simply,
to soothe a bad day or situation. Some emotions can be traced back to childhood or a significant
experience that triggers a response with food. In these cases, it may take longer to delve deep
within our mind to find that reason for the response. Mindfulness helps us by taking a scan of our
body and thoughts in that very moment and finding the root of that emotion. Are we feeling a
quicker heartbeat or shallow breathing or something in our stomach? If someone upsets or insults
you, food can quiet the injury temporarily, but it will only arise later when you realize that that
source of conflict and emotion was not handled, but rather, avoided with food.

Pitfalls of Traditional Dieting And How to Avoid It?

Diets don’t recognize hunger as the solution but rather the problem: ignore your body and follow
the meal plans and restrictions. While many diets currently offer variations and plenty of options,
they are very similar in avoiding your body’s natural signals and responses to hunger and food.
Adherence to diets also work with a reward system of success that does not connect to your
emotion and body but rather how many inches or weight you lose. Social media groups often
encourage followers to post before and after pictures, which is meant to help other people see
results and stick with the diet. Unfortunately, the opposite reaction or result occurs: People may
see an unattainable goal or one that takes an awful lot of effort to achieve. Losing weight is only
part of the battle, as most people who follow a diet, even if successful, gain all or most of the lost
pounds back. Keeping the weight off often means continuing the diet indefinitely, or risk gaining
more again. Exercise is also a means to keep up the success of a diet and often seen as a
necessary chore, rather than an enjoyment of movement in of itself. This creates a cycle of
success and failure, as dieters fall off of the food plan and either overdo the exercise to
compensate or fall behind, only to start all over again or quit.
How many diets have you tried? If you attempted one diet, chances are, you have tried several.
The first diet is almost never successful in the long run and once this is done, you may stop
altogether or start a new one. It’s a pattern that many people repeat with the goal of life-long
weight loss, maintenance, and good health. Focusing only on the foods we eat, restricting them
without paying any attention to what our bodies are telling us, without noticing our emotional
state and hunger level is where diets inevitably fail. Intuitive eating establishes a long-term
pattern of natural eating habits in tune with our mind and body’s signals. By paying attention to
our emotions and reactions in the moment, every time we crave food, we will be able to stop the
impulsive reaction to eat when we are not hungry and restore and establish a healthy eating
pattern that will last a lifetime.

Avoid Extreme Changes to the Way You Eat

We may learn about a new diet, cleansing fast or similar get-thin-fast fad, along with testimonies
of how successful it is. This is common for many diets and juice fasts, but they will change over
time. Avoid them and focus on what your needs are. If you are tempted to try a diet, realize that
it’s an emotional response to getting a result quickly. The most popular reason for dieting is
weight loss, and there is no one way that fits everyone. Even with success, there is a limit to how
long a diet will achieve the result. The ability to measure your body’s needs, assess your hunger
will be sabotaged with diets that don’t connect to your individual requirements, and for this
reason, its best to avoid them completely.
Diets cause stress and force us to adhere to a restrictive plan, increasing pressure to see results
within a relatively short time frame. It is a culture that has lasted for generations, with each new
way of eating promising better results than the last. The way of dieting aims to place you in a
box of options, limiting what you can choose, whether it’s by portion size, calories,
carbohydrates or when we are allowed to eat. If we meet certain milestones, we may feel more
motivated to continue, or take a break and “treat” ourselves with a “cheat” meal or similarly
restricted food. This will result in increased pressure to jump back into the diet with even more
focus and restriction. We ignore the signals our body sends us, such as hunger pangs when we
should eat, and feel punished if we don’t see results right away.
 Chapter 7. The Impact of Emotions on Your Weight, Food, and
How You Eat It
Worries go down better with soup.

– Jewish proverb

Weight problems often have little to do with the food you’re eating and more to do with how
you feel. We’ve all experienced food cravings. When we see something upsetting on television,
feel angry or bored, or have had a rough day, we soothe ourselves with something sweet,
crunchy, or creamy. Whether you turn to ice cream, candy, crackers, or chips, you know what
it’s like to use food to heal a painful emotion. Then there is the bingeing hangover – the feelings
of disgust, judgment, and shame in regard to what you just splurged on, that make you feel even
worse than before you put that first morsel into your mouth.

Emotions strongly impact our eating and our cravings. When we release some of the stress,
guilt, and drama in our lives, we find more balance in our eating – we are drawn to foods that are
better for us, eat only when hungry, and stop eating when full. We find true joy and peace in
eating and food, as the Creator intended.

Emotional imbalances can be 85 to 95 percent of our eating and weight struggles. We

unknowingly hold on to our emotions at a subconscious level where they can affect our eating
without our realizing it. Emotions can cause pain and discomfort in many ways, including food
cravings and eating disorders. The emotions trapped in your subconscious can actually take up
space in your body. The result can be pain, eating disorders, and being overweight or
underweight, among other problems.

Your cravings can provide clues about what your body needs. If you are drawn to cheese
crackers or cheese puffs, your body might need more dairy products. Cravings for potato chips
can signal a desire for salt to boost the power of your adrenal glands. The smooth, creamy
texture of ice cream might remind you of childhood days when you were comforted by your
mother and the fizz and sweetness of soda pop might remind you of the special, fun treat soda
was when you went on a family trip. It is almost impossible to separate a food craving from an
underlying emotion.

Stress Can Make You Fat and Sick

 General stress coupled with emotional stress is associated with innumerable problems
including being overweight and underweight. And eating food that is not right for you causes
you more stress! Accumulated stress overloads the body and is the beginning of all disease.

Vi and Bob’s Story

My husband retired from a very busy law practice at age seventy. I thought we would be
having more fun after he retired, but Bob was too tired to do much. Every morning Bob would
eat his usual cereal and toast piled with jam for breakfast, get up from the table, and have to go
lie back down for an hour or two. He would have to nap after lunch, also. Bob’s doctor said he
just needed to lose weight due to his high blood pressure and constant fatigue.

I had had some health problems several years ago and Lana really helped me get healthy. I
loved the food plan she gave me as part of my treatment program. I found out that many of the
foods I ate all the time were causing me problems. When I started eating the food on my plan, I
had a lot more energy and no more digestive problems.

Bob supports me in my natural healing and health ideas, but he eats as he pleases. He loves
bread, cheese, and ice cream. When he finally agreed to have a food plan tested, guess what
foods were causing him to be so tired? You guessed it: bread, cheese, and ice cream. The yeast in
bread was bothering him and so were dairy products.

Through testing Bob’s Food Codes, we found some alternatives to dairy products and natural
yeast bread that tested good for Bob. He replaced dairy with coconut milk and almond milk. He
loves coconut-milk ice cream even more than he loved dairy ice cream and has a small bowl now
and then. We found that sourdough bread was a good food for Bob. Lana brought us a loaf of her
homemade sourdough bread and Bob was in heaven. He stopped eating cheese for several weeks,
and in testing a new food plan later we found that he can now eat a certain kind of cheese with
no problems. Using the Food Codes plan has made Bob much more aware of his food choices
and it has helped me to know what to cook for us both.

Bob lost his tiredness, and he lost fifteen pounds when he started eating the foods that are
good for him, and he gained his energy back. We are going on a long-dreamed-about trip and we
will be gone for several months. I am glad to have a husband who has energy to travel and have
fun with.

Food can be such a pleasurable experience. We really love to eat. You might not have
thought of food as a stressor before, but here is some food for thought: The last two decades have
produced a large amount of research that linked stress to obesity and diseases such as diabetes,
autoimmune diseases, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and many other conditions and diseases.
Increased fat-storing, abdominal obesity, low metabolism, high blood sugar, and hormone
problems are all linked to stress. To understand how to be slim and trim or how to heal and be
well, it is important to first understand the body and the stress process that wears the body down.

It’s probably hard for you to remember the last time you had forty-eight hours of peace with
time for meditation or just relaxing and feeling happy and content; but it’s probably easy to
remember the last time you experienced something stressful like rushing to get ready for work
and get your kids off to school, a deadline at work, or an argument with someone. Stress is a
natural reaction in humans and animals. The key word is reaction. Each person reacts differently
to that which they perceive as stress. Some people are very sensitive to changes in the energy
around them. What is a grievous stressor to one person, might not bother another person at all.

Psychologist Richard Lazarus refers to stress as any event in which environmental demands,
internal demands, or both tax or exceed an individual’s adaptive resources. If your life seems
calm and normal, you might think your psychological stress is low, but dieting, overexercising,
insomnia, infections, poor dental hygiene, environmental toxins, and even the political situation,
can be causing you subconscious stress.

Your body can handle acute or short-term stress quite well and recover from it, but you are
not built to handle the chronic, unrelenting stress so rampant in our society today. Dr. Peter
Levine said that our stress response is designed to last about forty-five seconds, not twenty-four
hours, or day after day. Constant stress causes the body to be “turned on” all the time, and not in
a good way. The sympathetic nervous system, which stimulates bodily functions, goes haywire
and the adrenal system gets stuck in the “fight, flight, or freeze” response. These systems stay
turned on like a car alarm constantly blaring in the background.

The adrenal glands are small, triangular endocrine glands that sit on top of the kidneys,
waiting patiently to be called to duty. Their major role is to release hormones like cortisol and
adrenaline in response to stress.

Stress activates or depresses several functions in the body. Digestion is halted. The
hypothalamus gland signals the adrenal system, and the sympathetic nervous system shoots
impulses through the body. The heart beats faster, muscles tense, eyes dilate, and the mouth gets
dry. This reaction has been named the fight or flight response. The body can’t tell the difference
between being chased by a tiger or getting stuck in traffic; it just senses stress and kicks into
gear.
 Beyond fight and flight there is a third reaction to stress: freeze. Your body can stop you
right in your tracks like a deer in the headlights. An overwhelming trauma can instantly stun you
with a wave of hopelessness when it appears you have no chance for conquest or escape. Your
blood pressure quickly drops when you freeze, and you can fall or faint. The parasympathetic
branch of the nervous system, which calms you down to rest and digest, clamps down and takes
over from the freeze response.

Any way your body deals with stress, whether it be fight, flight, or freeze, halts your
digestive system. Stress can make you sick and fat, and the food you eat might be doing no good
for you at all.

Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch.

– Orson Wells

Stress can be real and tangible, or imagined. Imagined stress causes worry. Your body reacts
to worry in the same way it does to actual stressful situations.

There is good stress and bad stress. Good stress, called eustress, is caused by things like
buying a new house, getting married, and going to a party.

What about guilt? Ever beat yourself up for how you look or what you eat? Ever compare
yourself to others and feel ugly? Thinking negatively about your appearance, eating patterns, or
weight adds an additional load of stress and sends you scurrying for a glass of wine or a jumbo
order of nachos.

Conditions in our environment can be stressful on the body, too, such as the changing of the
season. Heat and cold can create stress, whether you’re indoors or out. Your body has different
requirements for food in the hot summertime than it does in the cold of winter. Your body
probably needs light, cooling foods in the summer, like fruits, vegetables, and raw foods, and
requires less food than at other times of the year. If you live where the winters are cold, your
body needs complex or concentrated foods that create heat in the winter, like meats, grains, and
beans. And you might need to eat more food in the winter than in the summer.

Your body’s nutritional requirements change with any number of different kinds of stresses
in your life. Studies have shown that diet helps or hinders your stress load depending on the type
of nutrition you take in. Food that has been healthy for you in the past can become unhealthy for
you, and vice versa. This can be due to changes in your body from reactions to stress, health
conditions, aging, and a list of other factors that can be summed up in one word: anything. And
your life is constantly changing. It’s different than it was five years ago, and probably five
months ago or even five days ago.

Stress affects your entire energetic being and bringing your energy back into balance can
require a particular food. The only way to determine what your body needs to enjoy balance is to
ask it using the Food Codes method.

Robyn’s Story

The Food Codes food plan has helped me to feel more energized and clearheaded. Using my
good foods I felt more energized and alert. The food plan also helped to support my body while
it was in the process of healing. I had just started Body Code sessions with Lana to address a
chronic stress issue, and I feel the food plan helped my body heal and recover faster. I felt a
tangible improvement in my condition after about two-and-a-half weeks.

Having this knowledge empowers us to take control of our own healing. It’s amazing to have
this tool available to us. It allows us to tailor our food intake to exactly what our bodies need at
the moment. It takes a lot of the guesswork out of figuring out what our bodies need to heal and
become stronger. Thank you, Lana, for developing this amazing tool!

Energy and Balance

A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.

– Barbara Jonson

The Food Codes use the energy of food to balance the energetic body you live in. Einstein
said that everything is energy. We learned in science class that everything in nature is vibrating
energy. The atoms and molecules of every kind of substance vibrate with energy frequencies.
The desk you sit at appears solid but is actually vibrating with energy, though it is moving at
such a low speed that it appears to be totally solid. Sound has such a high vibration that we can’t
see it, and some frequencies of sound vibrate at such a high speed that we can’t hear them.

The earth has a magnetic, vibrating energy field. Your body is also made up of vibrating
energy frequencies. Every organ and gland has its own particular frequency of vibration. The
term energy field is used to describe the energy around an object. Your body is pure energy and
has an electromagnetic energy field. The energy field of your body can be detected and measured
from several feet away.
 The parts of your body are interconnected in very complex ways right down to the subatomic
level. For thousands of years scientists and healers have told us of this incredible connection
between our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions. Just as you have unique
fingerprints, your energetic vibration is also unique to you.

When your body is vibrating at its optimal frequency and you are balanced physically,
mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, you are healthy. When your body is not balanced
energetically it is not as healthy and cannot function harmoniously. The Food Codes will help
you feel stronger, wiser, and more powerful about your food choices. That can only improve
your stress level!
 Chapter 8. Major Benefits of Intuitive Eating Besides Looking
Good
It is obvious you look good when you are healthy, which is the state intuitive eating helps you
achieve, but that is not all that you enjoy. Once you get into the habit of intuitive eating, making
it your lifestyle, there are many more benefits that accrue to you. However, before we get there,
it is important to ensure you know how to distinguish real hunger from cravings.

How to Distinguish Real Hunger from Cravings

Probably you are into the habit of reaching out for snacks when you are idle or bored, and it is
possible you eat a lot when you are annoyed with someone or upset about something. Those,
right there, are wrong reasons for eating, and because you are so used to using food in that
manner, you might find it difficult to tell when the urge to eat is out of a physical need by your
body, or other extraneous reasons.  
 If you are ashamed of yourself every time you eat, then, chances are you are
reaching out to food when you are not genuinely hungry.
 If you find yourself eating too quickly and not finding the need to chew, chances
are that your physical body is not the one demanding to be fed.
 If you have felt like eating only after a stressful situation, chances are there is an
emotional need seeking to be attended to but disguising itself as hunger.
 If you have been feeling like eating too often even after you have had major
meals, chances are that what you are consuming is not for the benefit of your
physical body.
 If after a meal you experience the stuffed feeling, it is likely you have exceeded
the amount your physical body requires, or you probably ate when you were
actually not hungry in the real sense of the word.
 If you think you are hungry and the first instinct is to go for some vegetables,
nuts or fruits, you are very likely, experiencing genuine hunger. On the contrary,
if you think you are hungry and the first thing that comes to mind is ice-cream,
chocolate, doughnuts or confectionaries, you are very likely just bored or in
need for consolation of sorts. The latter foods mostly satisfy cravings and no
matter how much of them you eat, the sense of hunger is not likely to disappear.
Once you have learnt to understand the language of your body and get used to responding to it
appropriately, eating intuitively will become a part of your everyday life. In the process you will
enjoy:
(1)Enhanced digestion

The key points you need to remember as far as intuitive eating is concerned are:

(i)The importance of eating when you are genuinely hungry

(ii)The importance of eating until the hunger is gone – till you are
satisfied. This part excludes eating until you feel stuffed.

As long as you are observing those two fundamental points, your digestive system will not be
overloaded with amounts of sugar, fat and salt it finds difficult to process and dispose of.

One of the biggest victims when you overstuff your body with food or keep eating without a
break is the liver, because it has to keep working at filtering toxins from those foods and to
digest the fat. Of course your stomach will also be on an overdrive, because every time you eat
something, it has to pump out more enzymes as well as acids to work on it. In short, once you are
practicing intuitive eating, your body has some time to rest before the next genuine hunger
strikes.

Intuitive eating keeps you from problems of digestion that emanate from loading freshly
consumed food onto partially digested food. When you subject your digestive system to such a
scenario, it gets confused as what digestive stage it should be subjected the food to. No wonder
people who eat haphazardly and without regard to genuine hunger keep complaining about
constipation, indigestion and such other digestion related problems.
(2)Reduced incidences of stress

It has been noted that intuitive eaters do not suffer as much emotional stress as people making a
conscious effort to diet and lose weight. Owing to the freedom intuitive eaters enjoy and the luck
of pressure regarding what, how much and when to eat, they are usually in a good mood free of
stress. They are usually emotionally healthier than their counterpart dieters who are generally
plagued with anxiety and depression. In fact, a good number of people from the latter group
engage perennially in negative self-talk, and that only jeopardizes their chance of success in their
dieting program.
On the contrary, when these same dieters switch to intuitive eating, they are less tense and
anxious, and soon their psychological welfare significantly improves. There are various reasons
why dieters experience stress as opposed to people who eat intuitively, but one of the main ones
is the fact that they allow themselves to relax and enjoy the meal, rather than concentrating on
analyzing the make-up of the food and its weight in terms of calories. Every time you are
warning yourself to stop reaching out for this food item solely to fight body weight, it is a sure
way of building stress. Minus such caveats, you are so relieved that your body no longer craves
what you have sworn not to give it; because there is nothing like that, anyway.
(3)Reduction and stabilization of weight
For you as an intuitive eater, you have no fear of failing, because you do not have a set target for
your weight. So, you have nothing to be disappointed about any day. Instead, you have left your
body to dictate what it needs, and you feed it accordingly. In any case, when you dictate a set
amount of food for morning or lunch, for instance, and the challenges of the body probably vary
from day to day, is it not probable that you will end up overstuffing your body sometimes while
starving it at other times?

Because in intuitive eating you heed your body’s language and feed it only what it requires, your
body ends up settling at an optimal weight. It has actually been noted that people practicing
intuitive eating often have favorable BMIs.

There is also the aspect of intuitive eating being responsible for a stress-free environment while
direct dieting contributes to a rise in stress level. Biologically, it has been observed that the
hormone, cortisol, which is associated with stress, is also responsible for weight gain. In short,
people who get on regulated weight-loss programs end up involuntarily jeopardizing their
chances of success by the stressful environment they find themselves in.
(4)Strengthening self esteem

There are few things as bad as setting a goal, as you do in dieting, and failing miserably. Of
course, simply having that in mind can be a source of anxiety, and every time you think about
failing you contemplate eating less. Suppose you are eating less when your body genuinely
needed more, what message do you think you will be passing to it? The body will understand
you to mean there is scarcity of food, and therefore it had better not utilize everything you gave it
before.

Can you see how that can sabotage your efforts at losing weight? Your body slows down its
metabolism and hoards some calories it would, otherwise have burnt, and when you gain weight
despite your efforts to eat less, you get frustrated and probably deem yourself a failure. Hence
your self esteem drops and you are in a bad place emotionally.  What do people suffering
emotionally do? They reach out for comfort foods, among other unhealthy habits. What about
when you eat at will like in intuitive eating and yet you keep losing unhealthy weight? Your self
esteem rises, you become a happier you, and you even gain more friends. Happy people with a
positive outlook to life attract similar friends. In the social arena, this is how the law of attraction
works.
(5)Enhanced body awareness
Once you become used to intuitive eating, listening to your body becomes automatic. You will
even read your body when it is low in, say, iron, and be in a position to remedy the situation
without the need to see a physician for more technical and expensive interventions. 

In short, in intuitive eating, you do not only read your body’s signs of hunger and satiety, you
also read its signs in totality. For that reason, you are able to address each sign in the most
relevant way, as opposed to cases where people turn to food to suppress the signs extraneous to
hunger. Intuitive eaters are not going to serve a bowl of food just because they feel exhausted
even after resting all day. They will very likely appreciate that the composition of meals they
have eaten for sometime has been short on vegetables and other sources of iron, and to remedy
that they are going respond with lots of vegetable salads. Most likely, the body itself is going to
yearn for those foods and will not let you leave the butchery or meat store without a piece of
liver.

This is an advantage conventional dieters do not enjoy, as they are not intent on listening to their
bodies. That is the reason weight loss is not necessarily tantamount to good health. You can
consume the same amount of calories with an intuitive eater and be lethargic while the intuitive
eater remains energetic because of heeding the body’s call of relevant foods. With the intuitive
eater, the name calorie does not feature anywhere.  It is all about – how do I feel?
 Chapter 9. How to Begin Mindful Eating?
The first step towards adopting any habit is to substitute it slowly over time. That is why it is essential that
you begin slowly. Start practicing mindful eating with one meal at a time. Pick a meal time with which you are most
comfortable. It can be breakfast, lunch, or dinner. You can even try it out with a snack if you want to take tiny steps.
Once you chose the meal which you are comfortable with, select the day you want to start the mindful eating
practice. If you feel that weekends are a good fit for you, then try mindful eating on the weekends. Once you master
the weekends, you can then select to eat mindfully one meal each day throughout the week.
The worksheet will provide you with something to do while you eat. So that, you don’t feel the
itch to do something while you eat or distract yourself by watching television or scrolling on the
phone. If you eat with a partner or children, educate them about mindful eating and urge them to
participate. Having a partner will help you to be more accountable and it often helps to support
the change.
Please follow these steps:
 Sit down at the dining table to eat or somewhere where you like to eat.
 Get rid of all the distractions while you are sitting down to eat. Turn off the
television, music, videos, phone etc.
 Do not talk while you eat or distract yourself in any other form.
 Restrain yourself from talking to a friend, planning your next few hours, thinking
about things.
 Put your thoughts to rest and don’t think about anything else for the time being.
 Free yourself from any emotions that you might be experiencing. If you are angry,
sad, or happy, try to let the feeling pass and then sit to eat.
 If you feel stressed or emotional, take a walk to clear your head and commit to not
think about it while you sit to eat.
 Place the plate on the table and before you take the first bite, observe the plate.
 Observe what is on the plate, what is the colour of the food, what do you think would
the taste be like, where did the food come from, what is the nutritional content that it
might contain. Observe it for at least 2 minutes.
 Close your eyes to smell the food and let the brain and the body be ready to eat.
 Before you eat, feel grateful that you get to eat the meal in front of you. Appreciate
the food plate and feel blessed for a moment.
 Pick up the spoon and take the first bite. When you take the first bite, try to feel the
touch of the food to your tongue. The burst of flavour in your mouth and all the
different things you can taste and feel. It is best to close your eyes to feel the first
bite.
  Chew the food at least 30 times before you swallow it. Put the spoon down and enjoy
the first bite. Don’t think about anything while you eat. Look at the plate in between
bites and try to centre the thought to the current moment.
 Refrain from drinking water while you eat as it slows down the digestion. I will also
advise that you don’t drink wine or any alcoholic beverage with the food.
 Take the second bite and chew the food slowly.
 During the entire time, you eat, relish the food and concentrate on eating. It may
seem like you don’t need to pay any attention to how you eat the food, but it does.
 If you feel like taking the second helping, wait for at least 10-20 minutes and if you
still feel like you want to eat more then, do so. Our brаinѕ need time to rеgiѕtеr thе
ѕаtiеtу or fullnеѕѕ induсеd by our fооd. Thiѕ process tаkеѕ аррrоximаtеlу 20 minutеѕ,
a time ѕраn in which some оf uѕ mау have аlrеаdу еаtеn too much in a hurry.

After you finish eating, sit there for a minute and evaluate how you felt. Also, this would be a
perfect time to practice the worksheet no.2.

Worksheet
How mindful are you while you eat?
1. How do you feel now, after you have finished the meal?
2. Can you recall what was on your plate?
3. What did you think about while you ate the food?
4. What tasted the best?
5. Define how did the food smell like?
6. What was the texture of the food?
7. Who prepared your meal and where do you think the food came from?
8. Did you engage in any other activity while you ate?
9. Did you regret multitasking while you ate?
1. Do you feel hungry, full, bloated, or fulfilled now?
The aim of the worksheet is to help you assess your mindfulness. You should use this worksheet
for the first 2 weeks. It will help you see your trouble areas and will also help you to mark your
progress. Give up using the worksheet after the first 2 weeks when you already form a habit of
mindful eating.

Set aside a minimum of 1 hour for each meal. If you are preparing the meal, you need to set aside
more time depending upon what you cook. Avoid practicing mindful eating at the office at the
beginning of your mindful eating practice. People at the office might intervene you while eating
and they might not be sensitive towards your choice of eating mindfully.

For a few weeks, try mindful eating for one meal a day and then gradually move to eat two meals
a day.

Fruit snack mindful meditation

However, if committing to one meal for mindful eating seems like a big step, then please do this
small activity. I call it the mindful fruit meditation.

Take any fruit that is fresh and available in the season. It can be an orange, an apple, a grape,
strawberry or any fruit you like.

Sit down with your legs crossed on the floor or the bed, in the chair or wherever you feel
comfortable. You can keep a pen and paper by your side.

Look at the selected fruit piece and try to evaluate its texture, smell, colour, and taste.

Bring it close to your mouth and close your eyes.

Place the fruit on your tongue with your eyes closed. Try to feel the texture of the fruit with your
tongue.

Don’t chew it, roll it around, and try to imagine it’s taste.

Try to hear the sound of the first bite.

Then chew the fruit and feel the abundant flavours of the fruit. Is the texture crunchy, soft, or
mushy?

Keep chewing it slowly and then swallow it.

Open your eyes and try to remember the taste, texture, smell, sound, and the feeling of eating the
fruit.

Write down your experience on the paper and if you like it, try eating a meal mindfully.

Many people experience the fruit in a new way like they had never eaten it before. Some find the
experience quite overwhelming and feel that they have awakened their sense of taste for the first
time. It is up to you, with which method you wish to start. Once you start practicing mindful
eating, you will never want to eat mindlessly again. Let’s now learn about the barriers to mindful
eating.
 Chapter 10. Important Things to Know About Your Emotional
Brain
It is a Powerful Rapid-Response System
The emotional brain is first in line after the brainstem to receive most incoming sensory
information. Since it’s adapted to dealing with spontaneous life-or-death challenges in an
unforgiving environment, its reaction speed is far greater than that of the cortex.

Because it is more essential to immediate survival, it has the power to override the cortex
altogether if it is triggered enough. In situations where pausing to think could be what gets you
killed, this is a good thing. A practical consideration here is that the emotional brain can begin to
react to incoming information and lock out the cortex before the cortex even has a chance to get
in the game.

Being confronted with highly appealing food is not a life-or-death event, but it can cause
intense reactivity in the emotional system just the same. Anything that triggers the emotional
brain—the sight, smell, mention, or mere thought of certain foods—can activate the mechanisms
that begin to lock out the cortex.

For successful food management in the modern world, you must minimize those
circumstances in which your emotional brain can start to spin up and take over before your
cortex can save the day.
It Prioritizes the Present
Life in the wild is all about surviving the moment and helping one’s offspring to do the same, so
the emotional brain is anchored in the present. It does not readily learn from delayed
consequences nor does it readily embrace delayed gratification; these inputs are too far removed
in time to motivate it to a meaningful degree.

It reacts the most to whatever is most immediate, which is why you’re drawn so powerfully
to a trigger food rather than to the less tangible results of the more distant future. The tortured
debate in your head might sound like, This is going to be so great—I can’t wait! vs., I always end
up hating myself after I eat like this. Why isn’t that enough to make me stop wanting to do it??

It’s worth noting that while the emotional brain is not motivated by future results, it is the
emotional brain that will experience them when the time comes. That’s where you experience the
suffering created by short-sighted, impulsive choices.

It is also where you bask in victory and contentment when things turn out well.
 Because of the limitations described above, though, the emotional brain can’t prioritize
future results when making decisions; in a way, it can’t see where it’s going. Only the cortex can
fully comprehend the future, so only the cortex can determine which choices will make the
emotional brain the happiest both now and in the future.
It Develops Strong Biases
When you have found something enjoyable, that item or experience gets filed in the “like it and
want more of it” category, perhaps intensely so. You’ll give that experience the benefit of the
doubt going forward, classifying it as a good thing because you enjoyed it in the past.

Because it’s nice to figure something out and not have to decide about it again, you’ll want
to keep that mindset. You will, therefore, tend to minimize, rationalize, deny, or simply ignore
new evidence that contradicts your initial evaluation.

Consider what happens once you’ve identified a favorite food, for example. Let’s say this
food makes you all happy just thinking about it, and you get it as much as you possibly can. Now
you find out that this favorite food has some ingredients you find worrisome. Logically, you’d
walk away, but this isn’t logical. You love the food, so you reassure yourself with
rationalizations like, “They wouldn’t sell it if it was bad for us,” or “I eat a lot of other things that
are healthier so it all balances out,” or “This is just normal--everybody eats this.”

If you heard about the same questionable ingredients in a food you hadn’t yet tried, you
might feel just fine passing it up. Since it’s a food you already love, however, the mental
contortions begin. You keep the food in your life and just try a little harder not to think about it.
Feelings overpower facts. 1

How about when you begin to notice that whenever you have certain much-loved foods, you
usually end up stuffed, miserable, and hating yourself afterward? Logically, you’d easily walk
away from anything that predictably makes you feel miserable and loathsome. Who wouldn’t? In
this case, you wouldn’t. Your emotional brain has fixated on these foods as something it wants,
based strictly on how enjoyable you hope the foods will be while you’re eating them. You’ll be
hard pressed to come up with enough evidence to get your emotional brain to reconsider this
position because again, feelings overpower facts.

The emotional brain’s tendency to adopt stubborn biases shows up in many ways above and
beyond food issues. Addiction, for example, has to do in part with the emotional brain
2

categorizing something as very desirable, then doggedly pursuing it even in the absence of the
expected reward. In other words, you’re doing something that’s not giving you all you were
hoping for, but you feel compelled to keep at it because it really seems like the reward should
come if you just try hard enough.

The emotional brain will cling to an established bias like this in the face of many, many
experiences that fail to bear it out. The tendency is to keep believing rather than destroying that
particular mental structure and building something new. This is why we keep turning to food
despite ourselves.

Phobias, on the other hand, are in part about the emotional brain categorizing something as a
threat, and then doggedly avoiding it even in the absence of the expected harm. The emotional
brain will cling to the fear despite things repeatedly turning out just fine, as feelings overrule
facts yet again.

Aversions are far less intense than phobias, but can be another example of the emotional
brain categorizing something negatively despite information that suggests otherwise.

Many people feel resistant to the idea of nutritious food and regular exercise, for instance,
despite the fact that both routinely create enjoyable results. In this case, the emotional brain is
convinced that these practices are burdensome rather than rewarding simply because the rewards
don’t come quickly enough and worse, because some effort is required up front. The emotional
brain maintains this bias despite experience to the contrary that with just a little more time, these
choices create much more happiness and satisfaction than do most other alternatives.
It Has a Long Memory
The emotional brain usually prefers the familiar—“the devil you know”—to the unknown, even
if the familiar has obvious drawbacks. This is why you may feel resistant to trying healthier
patterns even though you know you need them—you resist them because they are different. It is
also why you may abandon those patterns at some future point even if they’ve been working well
for you—some part of you yearns to just relax back into the familiar, despite the fact that it
caused the problems that spurred you into change in the first place. A brief glimpse into nervous
system function will explain why we have these tendencies.

Whenever you think or do anything, it is made possible by the transmission of electrical

signals in your nervous system. These signals move from one nerve cell (neuron) to the next,
activating the bodily systems necessary to execute whatever action you have decided to take.

Much like a footpath in the woods that becomes easier to find with repeated use, neural
pathways become more robust with practice. The stronger the neural pathway, the more easily
3

and efficiently you can perform that particular action. This is why practice makes perfect, but it’s
also why old habits die hard.
 Your overeating patterns have been practiced thousands of times over many years, creating
neural superhighways to enable their operation.

When you go on to create new neural pathways for more fulfilling patterns, the old
pathways fall into disuse, but don’t disappear. The old pathways remain—well-built but inactive
—right alongside the newer ones which support better outcomes, but which are still under
construction.

In day-to-day life, this means that when you stop intentionally choosing the newer path,
you’ll automatically default back to the old one that you know so well.

You can do this so smoothly that you don’t even realize it, perhaps “finding” yourself doing
something like eating out of a bag of cookies, pulling up to a drive-through, or finishing the kids’
leftovers. The shift into the old pattern can be that seamless, and it happens in an instant.

You may dream of a time when you can completely forget about the old, painful days of the
addiction but the truth is that the neural pathways for it will always remain in place. This is why
the risk of relapse generally lasts to some degree for a lifetime. You should exercise extreme
caution whenever you notice yourself thinking something like, I should be able to do this safely
now.

This is not to say that all you have to look forward to is struggling through the remainder of
your life, one white-knuckled day at a time. Those new neural pathways, if you’ve built them to
the right places, will actually enable you to calm down and enjoy your life more than ever
before.

Nor is it the case that perfect performance is necessary for you to succeed. Momentary
lapses are to be expected, but should also be taken seriously. A lapse—any behavior that you
didn’t plan on, couldn’t control, or ultimately made you at all unhappy—is a serious warning that
if you’re not more cautious going forward, things are likely to get worse.

A lapse with food compares to driving a car and wandering out of your lane until you hit the
rumble strips along the edge. Nothing truly bad happens, but you’ve been put on notice that
disaster got closer than usual. Ignore the warning at your own risk.

You’re likely to have lapses—hopefully, mostly small ones—for the rest of your life. Just
heed them as the warning signs that they are and learn as much as you can from them. Properly
examined, each one makes you stronger. Over time, you’ll have them less often and recover from
them more quickly, but odds are that they’ll still pop up periodically. The best response is to just
keep learning and moving forward.
It is Poorly Matched to Today’s World
There is a profound difference between what enhances survival in the wild and what enhances it
in modern life. As a result, our wellbeing is now threatened by the same behavioral tendencies
that have protected us for most of our history.

Our preference for sweets is a perfect example—it works out well in the wild, leading us to
essential nutrients. In the modern world, however, that same taste preference leads us to
overindulgence in products that accelerate numerous disease and addictive processes.

The dilemma is how to channel the power of the emotional brain so that it can once again
drive positive outcomes rather than harmful ones, despite being in an unnatural environment that
constantly supplies it with misinformation.

This is an easier task to face when you remember what the emotional brain does for you,
despite its unique quirks and vulnerabilities.
It is Still Why Life is Worth Living
Have you ever loved someone or felt the warmth of knowing someone loves you? Do you have a
hobby or interest that you look forward to doing, which engages you so much that you lose track
of time while you’re doing it? Have you ever felt the thrill of an unexpected and wonderful
surprise? Have you ever felt an upwelling of confidence from overcoming a challenge you
weren’t sure you could manage? Have you ever had a moment which felt absolutely perfect?

These experiences and all like them come to you courtesy of your emotional brain, because
it is where your feelings develop. It’s not simply a source of joy and happiness, of course; all of
the pain in life happens there too, including the guilt, shame and regret of uncontrolled
overeating.

Many people, upon learning that a specific part of the brain drives their compulsive eating,
express an urgent desire to have that part surgically removed. Even if that were possible, it would
mean that you’d never again have any of the feelings that make for a fully dimensional life.
Imagine a life in which everything feels like nothing—do you really want that?

The task, then, is to appreciate what your emotional brain makes possible for you while
learning to use it and take care of it more effectively, based on the somewhat odd requirements
of today’s world. When you do, you’ll find that your emotional brain will be the source of more
peace, joy, and true contentment than ever before.
 Unexpected Hazards of Modern Life
Modern life offers an abundance of opportunities of many kinds, which actually poses a serious
challenge to the emotional brain. When you understand how this works, you can set up your life
to be much simpler, calmer, more satisfying, and more enjoyable.
The Problem of Too Much
The emotional brain is geared toward rapid judgement of the elements in its world, and rapid
action based on that judgement. In a world of scarce resources and limited opportunities, the “get
what you can whenever you can get it” system works well. There is little need for behavioral
self-regulation in nature simply because there is so little opportunity for excess of any kind.

This is not to say we are incapable of self-regulation. The problem is that our capacity for it
does not reside in the emotional brain, which happens to have the greatest immediate power in
how decisions get made.

Most of us now have constant access to hyperpalatable food. The emotional brain reacts to
this abundance just as it would to the limited opportunities for which it is adapted: by trying to
have it all. It is very unnatural to have food available and have the physical ability to eat more of
it, yet choose to stop eating. The emotional brain simply does not operate this way.

Food is not the only field on which this problem plays out. Given the emotional brain’s
preference for quick reward and for exploiting immediate opportunities in general, it’s not hard
to see how abundance and easy opportunity of any kind has the potential to take a wrong turn.

Consider some other everyday indulgences that carry a known risk of addiction: alcohol use,
drug use, smoking, sex, spending, gambling, and online activities. It’s certainly possible to
pursue any of these without lapsing into self-destructiveness and many people do, but a great
many also fail in the attempt. Loss of personal control in such instances shows you an emotional
brain unintentionally self-destructing as it applies the “get all you can” strategy to a situation in
which it is possible to get too much. “Enough” is not an emotional brain concept. The emotional
brain, left to its own devices, is unable to stop until the negative consequences of excess make it
too painful to continue, or until there is simply no more opportunity.
The Powerful, Defenseless Emotional Brain
The cortex can easily provide the self-regulation that makes it possible for the emotional brain to
live happily and healthily in a world of too much.

The problem is that the emotional brain is intensely activated by opportunity, and can be
triggered into an internal power grab that locks out the cortex. If this happens, the emotional
brain is left unguided where it can’t protect itself. Chaos, frustration, and regret are the
predictable result.

The need for frequent, deliberate self-management is quite new to us as a species, yet its
importance is intensifying more with each passing year. The requirement for it now is
dramatically higher than it was just 40 to 50 years ago, let alone for all of human history prior to
that. It is perhaps understandable that it’s been hard for most of us to keep up with what it takes
to survive in our very different world of the present.

At the time of this writing, reality TV is a well-established genre, including a subset devoted
to survival in the wild with minimal support. These programs show how valuable our basic
drives still are once we’re back in a setting that fits them. Cast members do exactly what we all
want to do: they eat everything they can find and rest whenever they can. Their setting involves
few opportunities for food and rest, so this promotes survival.

In our setting with endless opportunity for both, the same choices are ruining millions of
lives.
Self-Management for Life
It is vital to understand the mismatch between how our brains work and what is required by the
conditions in which we now live. Our core survival drives, left unchecked in conditions of
overabundance, result in behavior that promotes self-destruction rather than survival.

We are well-equipped to handle this mismatch as long as we can keep the cortex engaged.
So, how can we do that? The answer is not in strengthening the cortex so that it can get better at
controlling the impulsive emotional brain, because that isn’t possible.

What does work is to keep the emotional brain calm enough to be receptive to higher-level
strategies. It is when the emotional brain becomes reactive—as with excitement, anticipation,
depression, anxiety, or anger—that it can start to override the cortex. This is why no amount of
logic seems sufficient to overcome an intense desire to eat.

As long as you continue to live in an environment of easy excess, it will be necessary to

remain conscious and intentional about food in your life. This is not a punishment or a burden—
it is simply a factual requirement of how we now live. Your emotional brain will always be on
hot standby, ready to spring into action with those old drives if it is triggered too much. The only
solution is to minimize how much that happens.

Overcoming the Diet Mentality

This book espouses a non-diet approach to weight management that flies in the face of our
conditioning. Dieting seems to be embedded in our culture to the point of being compulsory. Do
you remember the time when you simply ate when you were hungry and didn’t worry about
calories, weight, health, or how you looked? If you’re like me, that was many years ago. And,
it’s not our fault. There are many forces conspiring to keep us unhappy and dissatisfied with the
way we look and the way we eat. One of the biggest forces is the hundreds of diets vying for our
attention and our money.

Review your dieting history. How many have you been on? Are you on one now? The research I
conducted revealed that participants were actively on a diet for an average of 39 percent of their
lives—some starting their diets as young as five years old! And, the negative impact from this
early indoctrination to dieting ranges from being overweight to feeling miserable about
ourselves.

Diets Don’t Work

It is easy to be attracted by promises of amazing results in thirty days, the diet that a friend is
trying, or a claim that you’ll be smarter, stronger, and happier with a particular product. You
intuitively know the results you seek are going to take some time and effort, but you still hold
out hope for the quick fix. The secret hope is you will melt down to your perfect shape or have a
healthier body and it’s all going to happen quickly and easily. But, let’s be honest with each
other. If any of the diets you’ve been on had been successful (however you define that), would
you really be reading this book?

Diets, in particular, have done very little to help people lose weight or curb anyone’s appetite. At
least that’s what the statistics say. America’s obesity rates are among the highest in the world.
Millions of people are on diets, yet two thirds of US adults are overweight or obese and these
numbers and waistlines are continuing to grow (Ogden et al. 2014). There is a multibillion dollar
global weight-loss industry banking on the fact that you’ll need its diet products for a long time.

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles analyzed the results from thirty-one
long-term studies of diets and concluded that even if dieters lose weight initially, the majority of
people on diets gain all of the weight back, plus more. “Yo-yo” dieters, people who lose and gain
weight, especially repeatedly, actually increase their risks for diabetes, hypertension, heart
disease, and metabolic syndrome (Mann et al. 2007). This review of the literature demonstrates
that you are actually better off never having gone on a diet in the first place.
I’ve heard plenty of anecdotal evidence of dismal dieting failures. Stacey, a long-term dieter,
stated, “I have done so many diets since I was fifteen years old, I can tell you how many calories
are in any kind of food.” She went on to validate what the research tells us: “Diets never worked
out. No matter what kind of diet plan I have ever tried, nothing was permanent. I would weigh
myself constantly, and the weight always came back.”

Like Stacey, many dieters are frustrated and have thrown up their hands in disgust. Paula said,
“Because of my diet history, I have reached a point where I do not even feel capable of dieting.
All the platitudes in the world cannot motivate me at this point. I have tried just about every diet
possible and that is not a way for me to live. I am one of those people that hear the word ‘diet’
and immediately start eating everything in sight.”

Even if you are someone who says you don’t diet, you might be surprised at how influenced you
are by the diet mentality. You say you aren’t on a diet, but you secretly dread the times when
your food options are not within your control, you examine food carefully before you eat it, you
label foods as “good” and “bad,” or you have a lot of shoulds and shouldn’ts when it comes to
eating. You may say you just want to eat healthily, but you deny yourself the pleasure of eating if
it doesn’t fall into the “good” category. (Note: There is a difference between the diet mentality
and mindfully deciding you don’t want to eat certain foods after an examination of their taste and
effect on your body.) Because of their omnipresence, dieting thoughts and images are ingrained
in us all.

Take a moment right now and check in with yourself. Even though this book takes a clearly
“non-diet” approach, you might unconsciously be hoping it’s the next new diet plan that will
actually work. Be honest with yourself. The “dieting mind” is very clever.

Why Diets Don’t Work

So, why don’t diets work? First, diets overly restrict the kinds of food or how much food you can
eat, so you would never be able to continue to eat this way in the long term. Eating a limited
variety of food or consuming deathly low calorie counts will help you lose weight while you’re
on the diet, but when you go off of it and start eating as you normally do (which you will), you
gain the weight back.

Third, what happens when you tell yourself you can’t have something to eat? You want it!
Right? And when you finally have it, you’ll have a lot of it. Oftentimes you’ll eat your forbidden
food alone and in secret while no one is watching. You’ll gobble it down as fast as you can so
nobody sees you. You’ll have to have a lot of it because you tell yourself you’re never going to
have it again.

My friend Lynn wouldn’t allow herself to have candy and sweets at home, so she would steal
those goodies from the desk drawers of her coworkers. Of course, it was kind of a joke because
all of her coworkers knew she was doing it. They gladly stocked their drawers for her stealing
pleasure. Janice, a twenty-five-year-old athlete, would only sneak cookies and sweets at work
because her athletic husband tried to keep her on a very strict calorie and carb count. Both of
these women were not going to be denied, but they didn’t really get to enjoy their treats,
indulging alone and in secret.

Fourth, when you’re relying solely on an outside source (such as a diet) to tell you what to eat,
you’re not paying attention to the wisdom of your own body. Until you begin to listen to and
trust your inner wisdom (instead of a diet) about what, when, why, and how much you eat, it is
unlikely you will be able to change the way you eat. The body has amazing sensors for what
food is healthy, what food is poison to the system, how much food it needs to consume, and what
nutrition it needs. Animals in the wild live and eat by instinctive internal wisdom and forage the
fields and forests for the food that will meet their nutritional requirements. No one had to give
them a nutrition class, and yet they are very capable of knowing what to eat. We are no less
intuitive than animals, but most humans have cut themselves off from the body’s natural
guidance.

This brings me to the last and maybe most important point: diets tend to take the joy out of food.
On a diet, the only joy is found when you cheat—and you will! My philosophy is that food is a
wonderful part of our lives, to be enjoyed and savored. A non-diet approach to weight
management is one that celebrates the pleasure found in culinary delights of all kinds. When you
truly savor your food, you are slowing down to taste the moment and the juiciness of life.

Beginning Steps to Take

Under your nose, in your belly, on your tongue, in your eyes, and in your mind you have the
knowledge you need to be wisely instructed about what, when, why, and how much to eat.
Instead of eating to fix or deny your feelings, you will learn to respond to difficult times with
kindness and courage. You will uncover the thoughts and beliefs that keep sabotaging your
efforts to eat better and be healthier so that YOU are in the driver’s seat when you make
decisions about how to eat and live. Along with the transformation in how you relate to food,
you can discover an admiration for your body (no matter what size you are) that supports your
efforts to take better care of it.

Before you go any farther, here are a few things I’d like you to consider that will help you turn
your focus inward.

1. Get Off the Diets

If you aren’t on one, great. Only by not dieting can you give yourself a chance to discover your
internal sources of guidance.

However, if your doctor has you on a specific regimen for a medical issue, by all means continue
on it. The skills you learn will help you feel better about, succeed at, and enjoy the diet that you
need to be on.

2. Get Off the Scale

Despite any slight to significant anxiety this creates for you, I hope you give yourself the
opportunity to discover what staying off the scale can teach you. Not relying on an external
measurement to monitor your weight helps you begin your journey inward. This is the first step
toward listening to your internal signals to guide how you eat. Besides, you can gauge getting
heavier or lighter by paying attention to how your body looks and feels or how tight or loose
your pants fit.

Has getting on the scale ever helped you lose weight? Or are you ever happy with the number on
the scale? I’ve asked these questions to many people and the answer is usually a resounding no.
Getting off the scale lets you stop creating one time a day that you purposely feel disappointed
with yourself.

Personally, my game with the scale was to set a weight that I wanted to but couldn’t realistically
meet. Years went by and then a miracle happened. I finally, and incredibly, reached my goal. I
was so happy—for about two seconds (literally)—before I decided I needed to be five pounds
lighter! A long time ago, I left the scale with my ex-husband, and I’ve been a lot happier ever
since.

One issue that makes not weighing yourself difficult is a trip to the doctor, since the first thing
you are asked to do is get on the scale. Having dealt with this for years, here is what I suggest:
tell the nurse you will get on the scale but you don’t want to know how much you weigh. Even if
you look, oftentimes the weight is in kilograms. Unless you’re better than me at converting
kilograms into pounds, you won’t know your weight anyway. I admit I’ve even been a bit of a
rebel in the past and just declined to get on the scale, but I’ve been informed by a doctor that
recording your weight at each visit is required by insurance and Medicaid. It’s probably better to
be friendly and let them weigh you.

3. Set One Goal (Besides Weight Loss) to Get You Started

However, for the time being I would like you to take the focus off of a number on the scale. A
number is only an external validation of who you are and how you want to feel. So, I’d like to
encourage you to go a little upstream from the goal of weight loss. In other words, how would
you like to be acting or thinking differently that would ultimately result in you losing weight?

Take a moment to stop and close your eyes while you take a couple of deep breaths. See what
answers arise. Some answers I often hear are “I’d like to eat slower,” “I’d like to stop eating
before I’m full,” “I’d like to stop eating in front of the computer and while I’m reading,” and “I’d
like to stop eating the last bites of food on my children’s plates.”

If nothing occurred to you this time, keep checking in as you continue reading.
 Developing Realistic Confidence
Now! Drum roll, please, for the question every motivation-eliciting pep talk includes: what is the
difference between those who succeed in accomplishing a goal, such as urge surfing, and those
who do not? I don’t want to presume I have the answer to this complex question. So let’s slow
down and wonder together: What thwarts action? What would potential remedies include?

Imagine that one of your long-standing goals is to run a marathon, twenty-six miles. What steps
are necessary to get to the physical fitness level you need to achieve before you can run a
marathon? According to Olympic athlete and running coach Jeff Galloway, to prep for the
marathon, you begin by running or walking for thirty minutes, twice a week, and you
methodically build your endurance over time. In twenty-nine weeks, you can go from being
unable to run more than three miles to running twenty-six miles. This is not a late-night
infomercial; this is a program thousands of people like you and me have followed to make
marathon running a realistic ambition. In order to build a sense of realistic confidence in a goal,
then, break a task into manageable chunks. To develop a sense of confidence more generally,
regularly challenge yourself.

We are all faced with challenges. Mastery means doing things that make you feel competent and
confident (e.g., Linehan 1993b). Self-efficacy, or your beliefs about your ability, has a major
impact on your life. You build your sense of self-efficacy through mastery. Some people wait
until they feel confident to begin a challenge. What is the alternative? Build competence by
deliberately identifying goals that are both difficult and possible. Ask yourself, “Where is my
goal on the continuum from effortless to unattainable?” Mastery is all about being in the middle
of that spectrum.

Almost any effective program in which you change an existing behavior includes some
reasonable step to engender hope to take the next. Think about Alcoholics Anonymous, whose
motto is “One day at a time,” not “Don’t drink for the rest of your life.” Chances are the latter
sentiment would breed anxiety and thus perhaps lead to drinking, while the former seems
manageable and increases the chances of abstinence. A patient of mine once described
developing mastery as “tricking the brain” by circumventing paths that lead to resistance. I see
taking workable steps as the only way to build optimism, adequately preparing you for change in
the relationship between your emotions and food.

Mastery and Urge Surfing

Urge surfing requires a sense of mastery, and surfing urges builds mastery. Knowing you have
trained enough that you can run a marathon provides a base of realistic confidence in other areas:
“Of course I can ride the urge to order nachos; I’ve ridden many urges to quit running!”
Similarly, repeatedly surfing the urge to order nachos may also establish both a general sense of
self-confidence and the confidence that you can resist the next food pitfall.

When your mind sends you the message “Give up! Why bother?” you can thank your mind for
that thought. Thanking your mind for a thought is observing the thought without judgment, rather
than responding to the thought as though it is a factual alarm. Then, you can cheer yourself on by
reminding yourself of difficult urges you’ve experienced and surfed. Similarly, practicing urge
surfing builds mastery. By repeatedly noticing, labeling, and riding urges, you will build your
sense of confidence in your ability to give yourself more space between urge and action.

Many people who struggle with eating problems make eating the focus of living. You may feel
like you’ve worked really hard to abstain from emotional eating. Perhaps stepping back and
noticing how you excel in other areas will engender renewed realistic confidence that you can
end your emotional eating. We have little incentive to pursue goals if we don’t have a sense we
will accomplish them.

Building mastery in various areas of your life may reduce your vulnerability to intense emotions
and urges. Let’s say your desire to offer the wittiest toast at your brother’s wedding is creating a
lot of stress. Taking a course on public speaking with the goal of mastering your public speaking
skills and conquering your fear may reduce the anxiety you experience. In addition, when you
problem solve and take steps to build your confidence, you may be less likely to turn to food to
cope with your nerves about the speech. And knowing you can sit with discomfort (for example,
surfing the urge to feign laryngitis to avoid giving the toast) may spill over and influence your
sense of mastery to sit with the urge to eat.

Pain with a Purpose

Building mastery muscles requires resistance training. Let’s be frank. Running to increase your
mileage each week is (literally) no walk in the park. Instant gratification is not the game here
(nor will it take you far). Mastery, by definition, will not be instantaneous.

In the short term, mastery requires perseverance. In the long run, mastery will improve your
mood and reduce your vulnerability to negative emotions. Over time, engaging in challenging
actions purposefully will improve self-esteem and reduce feelings of depression. People often
describe feeling more joy from accomplishment than from seeking instant pleasure. You may be
struggling with low self-esteem, questioning your ability to experience a sense of
accomplishment, and eating to manage your nerves. That is, you may change the way you feel by
doing. When thoughts attempt to convince you not to bother with surfing your urges, dealing
with your emotions differently, or improving your musical abilities, notice those thoughts—and
let them go by like so much background noise. By changing your actual behaviors, you will get
unstuck. Eventually, the raucous dissonance in your mind may begin to quiet. Ultimately, you
run the marathon with your legs and not your thoughts. It would be nice if your mind helped you
along the way, but it is not required. Would you be willing to move your body toward what
matters deeply and bring your attention there?

Individuals may travel to a Zen ashram to develop spiritually. They meditate. They also sweep
floors. You spend money, travel to a hillside, sit in silence, and scrub toilets. A couple of years
ago, I had the opportunity to participate in a meditation retreat with Marsha Linehan, the
psychologist who created DBT, in Tucson, Arizona. I envisioned relaxing in the sun, savoring
the vegetarian meals, cultivating mindfulness, and becoming a more patient person in a mere five
days. I did not expect a 5:30 a.m. wake-up, sitting for six hours a day facing a white wall, and
sweeping. All these tasks required mental mastery. After a day of staring at the wall, I broke the
practice of silence and asked Marsha if it would be possible to sit outside facing the cacti. She
said something along the lines of “Life is about what happens when you’re faced with white
walls.” Anticipating only pleasure, or at least pain-free steps toward growth, may hinder our
progress. Thus, the chores we face along the way may be therapeutic. Room service and a
concierge will not change your mood in the same way accomplishments change your experience
and your sense of self.

The Motivation Myth

“You cannot urge surf or train for the marathon until you are motivated.” That statement is a
common myth. Motivation is like winning the lottery; it is tenuous and is no guarantee for an
enriching life. You are probably thinking you know yourself and you work only when motivated.
Do you go to work or do your laundry? Do you feel motivated to do those tasks on a regular
basis? Often, even when we experience a surge of motivation, the inspiration is fleeting. Waiting
to feel different than you do will mean waiting a long time. Deliberately acting, again and again,
will lead to mastery.

Let’s get this straight:

1. Motivation is not a prerequisite for action.
 2. Action leads to action.

3. Motivation would be nice.

Exercise: Developing Mastery Step by Step

1. Plan to do at least one thing each day to build a sense of accomplishment. You may
practice meditation, take a new dance class, read a classic you’ve started and stopped
since college, or urge surf.

2. While engaging in mastery muscle building, be mindful. Notice what you are doing
and stay in the moment with it. Mile three is simply (and perfectly) mile three, not a
countdown to mile twenty-six. You don’t need to analyze your performance. Let go
of judgments. This is a time to increase your range of what you believe is possible.
Cheer yourself on.

3. Gradually increase the difficulty of the goal you pursue over time.

Practicing Nonjudgmental Mastery

Nonjudgmental mastery may sound like a paradox—how are you aware of advancing and
becoming increasingly competent if you don’t judge? Similarly, not judging urges may seem
counterintuitive. Well, facts are the antithesis of judgment. “I ran five miles this week and last
week I ran four miles” is not a judgment, it’s a matter of fact. Observing, “I sat with my
emotions,” is also a statement of fact. Describing facts is not judging, and it can be free of the
psychological side effects of judging. When you label yourself as having had a “bad” run, how
likely are you to either return to the track or notice your mood improve? Similarly, labeling urges
as “bad” will increase your struggle. However, considering, “Is engaging in this urge effective?”
may facilitate positive action.

Mastery is not achieved to get rid of a negative emotional state or prevent a new one. Trying to
force yourself to feel other than you do will maintain feeling X and add feeling Y. You feel sad
and you work on a New York Times crossword puzzle, wishing you could feel better, and then
you feel sad and frustrated. The alternative is noticing you feel sad, accepting the feeling, and
fully engaging in the crossword puzzle for the sake of mastery, not to minimize your sadness.
 Chapter 11. Emotional Hunger Versus Physical Hunger
Right from infancy, we have been taught to identify hunger as the need for nourishment. The
need for food. After all, food keeps us alive. The nutrients from food replace our worn out
tissues. We know the basics of how the digestive system works. We learned we are to eat three
square meals in a day to sustain ourselves. But that isn't even anywhere near the truth. Our
ancestors never ate three meals a day. We weren't designed that way.

Now it's even worse, because we have so much junk food available on demand. There's at least
two or three fast food joints around the corner. We're a society that's gone food crazy! We're
always supersizing this or that. It's nuts!

So allow me at this point to address the difference between TRUE physical hunger, and
emotional hunger. Because it's only when you understand the difference that you'll be able to
better handle yourself the next time you think of hitting that Taco Bell again.
Physical Hunger
True physical hunger is when your body pressingly demands food. It's undeniable. You stomach
feels like an empty black hole. You might get a touch dizzy or light-headed. Sometimes you get
nauseous. You can't really focus on the task at hand. You get so easily irritated, like, "Why does
the air smell like air? What the hell?"

At that moment you know you have to eat something, and the sooner you do it, the better too. In
other words, physical hunger is something you actually feel. There are actually physical effects.
None of it is in your head.

All this is made possible by a hormone called ghrelin.  Ghrelin is secreted by the stomach, brain,
pancreas, and the small intestine. While it's responsible for many things in the human body, for
now, we are only interested in its function as the "hunger hormone."

You see, ghrelin is what tells the brain you know you need to open your piehole and shove some
damn pies in. It increases a person's appetite and food absorption and is responsible for fat
storage in humans.

When we are short of energy in the body, ghrelin is produced in the stomach walls, and then
transmits a signal to the brain to increase appetite and food intake. It also plays a huge role in
body mass.

Ghrelin has an arch nemesis called leptin.  Who knew there was so much drama going on in your
body, right? Anyway, leptin does the opposite of what ghrelin does. What's that? You guessed
it.  It reduces the appetite. Thin people are said to have lower amounts of ghrelin and higher
leptin levels, while the reverse is the case for overweight people.

Those are the basics of physical hunger. So, next time your stomach growls, take it seriously
because it's an emergency!
Emotional Hunger
Emotional hunger is all in your mind. Sometimes you might feel like you have a yawning ache
inside you that nothing else can satisfy. Some might say what you are experiencing is emotional
hunger. It is a very common thing to experience. Either way, emotional hunger can be really hard
to beat, especially when you've indulged in it so much you now emotionally eat on autopilot. But
you can beat it! You know, mind over matter!
On Emotions
It's natural to feel emotions. That's a huge part of our schtick as humans. Emotions matter, and
are important. You need to pay as much attention to them as you would the food you eat, or the
job you do.

That is why we have to be cognisant of our habits and what issues cause us to be dependent on
comfort foods. Once you are able to deal with the issues, give yourself a reality check. As a
human, you have intelligence beyond compare. That level of intelligence gives you the ability to
be a problem solver. But what good is intelligence without emotions? Even Siri has emotions!
The emotions stop us from being totally robotic with needed attributes like empathy,
compassion, love and the like.

Whatever it is you might have suffered emotionally; you can focus positive energy into getting
better. It may just last longer than you want. But you will surely get better.
Emotional Hunger Triggers
Emotional hunger is easy to identify if you know what you are looking for. Have you been told
by a friend or lover that you are too clingy? That you call too much? You have tried not to, but
you can't seem to help yourself. Those are signs you are looking for emotional assurance. Signs
you are afraid to be left alone.

When you act like this, you are more likely to read meanings where there are none. You feel hurt
when people do not act the way you expect them to act or the way you envisioned them reacting.
Once things don't go the way you planned, you go on an emotional decline which causes you to
eat emotionally to satisfy your emotional hunger.

Because it feels like food is the only thing that doesn't judge you.
But it doesn't have to be so!

Overthinking

Emotionally hungry people are of the opinion they know what's in everybody's head, that they
know what everybody is thinking and saying about them. Vying for acceptance among people
and attention based solely out of the conclusions you have jumped to is a recipe for disaster.
Why? When you get disappointed, your emotional belly is triggered, and next thing you know,
you're three-quarters through a 1 litre tub of Ben and Jerry's.

One major characteristic of emotionally hungry people is trying to conform to certain ideologies
or behaviors that have been deemed acceptable by a group of people so as not to be left out or
hanging.
Self-Loathing and Dissatisfaction
More often than not, emotionally hungry people try to look, behave, talk or dress like other
people. Mostly people with high profile social status. These people they want to have what the
emotionally hungry person has tried unsuccessfully to get. A lot of friends, adoring fans, a great
figure, six packs and muscles, a good job, an awesome ability to stick to diets, etc.

Most emotionally hungry people are often heard saying, "How I wish I could be like this person;
she doesn't have to watch what she eats"

"How I wish I could look like that; I could wear whatever I wanted!" The more they wish, the
sadder they become, and the weaker their resolve gets and the more they eat emotionally.

The whole concept of emotional hunger is the need to feel something different from the same old
boring stuff. The need to "feel alive."
Ways People Deal with Emotional Hunger
While some eat emotionally to deal with these feelings, many others engage in more activities
like sports to feel alive, and this in turn satisfies their emotional hunger. This is a great thing!

For others who crave human contact, they have sex - not necessarily to bond with the other
person, but to feel whatever it is they want to feel. For most people, casual sex is completely
acceptable. An emotionally hungry person will see it as more than just fun, though. To them,
casual sex is a form of "nourishment." They avoid serious emotions that make them seem
emotionally inadequate, choosing to go thrill seeking. This is them just trying to feel like they are
good enough.
It's not their fault! In a purely judgmental society where a person can't be fit enough, slim
enough, beautiful enough, or plainly good enough, they feel like they don't fit anywhere. Sex
feels like the easiest way to make ourselves believe we have gotten our emotional hunger
satisfied.
It's Not Enough Though
After some time, that too doesn't work or it feels like it doesn't work as well as it used to. At that
moment we feel like we are getting approval from that one person we are interacting with. We
feel we are good enough. We feel no other person's opinion matters. We feel we are worthy of
another person's attention mixed with the "feel good" hormones secreted by the brain after sex.
We seem satisfied at that moment and every other person's opinion seems inconsequential
because we feel "good." 

If you can relate, then you know chances are you are prone to having more sex partners than is
healthy. Let's not even forget the fact there are enough STDs going around to get you in some
hot water sooner or later.
Sex and Emotional Pain
Although research has found sex eases the pain, sadness, and anger one feels against something;
it's not exactly a long lasting solution to the underlying problem. While you can and should
explore your sexuality in healthy ways, you should not be doing so as a way to cope with
unhealthy emotions. Sadly, this is what the majority of people do. Research shows a majority of
people who engage in random and casual sex are trying to feed an emotional hunger. Trying to
prove they are good enough.

If you feel you can't go through recovering from emotional hunger on your own, you could
always look for a trusted relative, or a friend. If you find despite the support systems you have
available, beating this is a struggle, then don't be afraid or ashamed to seek out professional help.
Drugs and Emotional Hunger
Similar to sex, people turn to drug use as a coping mechanism for emotional hunger. This is very
common in people who are trying to numb their pain. It may be the pain of loss, the pain of a
broken home or even physical pain.

There a lot of short-term fixes people use when they do not know how to satisfy their emotional
hunger. Some are very self-destructive methods, like drug abuse and alcohol. Others feel socially
awkward so they would rather remain in isolation and adapt to their own company instead of
interacting with others and risk being treated wrongly.
When you feel like you have lost all control of yourself. When you lose your ability to moderate
your use of certain substances, or when you notice you are using these substances only to satisfy
your emotional needs, it would be advisable to seek help from a therapist or doctor.

To most emotionally hungry people, the idea of being single or out of a relationship can be really
scary.  To avoid or lose that feeling of loneliness, you will most likely do things that are not good
for your health. Things you feel will be able to fill that gaping emotional hole you are so scared
of.
Emotional Hunger Triggered by Breakups
Most emotionally hungry people in relationships react very badly to an idea of a break up. They
never feel like there is a problem and most times refuse to believe they are the cause of the
problem. These people have a very difficult time accepting rejection.

Since emotionally hungry people often seek acceptance and proximity with people, they usually
do not know how to respect boundaries, because they find it difficult.

Dealing with emotional hunger is wholly about working with your mind, and reprogramming
yourself to deal with issues in a healthier manner. Keep friends who are ready to invest as much
energy into your relationship as you do.

So, we have ascertained that emotional hunger doesn't necessarily have to do with emotional
eating all the time, but it can quickly progress into that if other methods of solace do not work for
you.

Now, let's tackle this head on.

 Chapter 12. Sustainable Ways To Practice Intuitive Eating

After seeing how effective intuitive eating is in maintaining optimal weight and overall
good health, chances are you will wish to embark on it forthwith. While that is what we wish
for, it is important to be aware that there is no journey devoid of challenges. For instance, you
may have people close to you pressing you to join them in their weight loss program. While
you do not want to sound haughty, you need to learn to be firm about the journey to good
health that you want to take. You need to be able to tell your friends and colleagues you
appreciate the need to cut excess weight, but you have discovered a better way; a stress-free
way. They may actually wish to join you instead. 

Nevertheless, you could still face your personal demons, and these you need to have a way of
tackling. 

Here below are some ways to ensure you remain steadfast on the road of intuitive eating:

1.Practice Hara hachi bu

What, for the sake of healthy eating, is that? Well, it is a saying from the Okinawans of Japan
that relates to how you should gauge when to stop eating. What the Okinawans generally mean
by that saying is that you need to stop eating when you are 80% full. It is that 20 minute
disconnect between your mouth and your stomach that the Okinawa principle seems to tie to. 

It is thought that this mindset by the Okinawas has had an impact on their health, as they are
said to be the healthiest group of people on earth. Attaining the age of 100yrs is no big deal for
an Okinawa. In fact, the average man on the island lives to be 78yrs while the average woman
goes up to 86yrs. The point here is: eat enough, not too much. Get satisfied, but not stuffed.  

2.Do not categorize food as either good or bad

After all, isn’t there a saying that too much of whatever it is can be poisonous? The wise
have it, the Bible has it, and even professional psychologists back it up. Avoid going all out to
look for specific foods because they are the ones you deem good, and having such a bad attitude
towards certain foods just because you deem them bad that you almost develop goose pimples
when you see them. That can be really stressful. And what does stress do? The cortisol and its
weight-gain catalyzing role takes over, anxiety builds, and you get distracted from the main goal
of listening to your body. 

Please note that nobody is advocating recklessness. For instance, it is common knowledge
that fibrous foods or whole foods are biologically beneficial to the body and we cannot alter
biology. They help the body keep blood sugar at the right levels and the liver working optimally.
So, yes, go for them.

All successful intuitive eaters do is to emancipate themselves from being too particular about
the food they feed their bodies. The strict dieters take time to distinguish sources of fiber, often
categorizing arrow roots and sweet potatoes as bad because they are carbohydrates. Intuitive
eaters say, this is unprocessed food and my body desires it – on with it. And that way you will
enjoy your freedom, your palate will feel good, and your body will not have cravings. Thus, your
stomach and your taste buds will find a common balance, the result of which will be a happy,
healthy you.

3.Identify hobbies and practice them

An idle mind, someone said, is the devil’s workshop. In our case, the devil is the urge to eat
simply to pass time. In fact, it is when you are idling – not resting but really idle – that you begin
to analyze how many things are not going right in your life. As if anyone’s life was perfect! And
once the negatives begin flowing, the nearest consolation is food. Remember no matter how
nutritious the food is, if your body does not require it when you eat it, you will be messing up
your health. 

That is why you need to find something to do to keep you from emotional eating. How about
taking a walk and taking in nature’s beauty? Not only is it healthy in terms of breathing fresh air,
but a bit of exercise is always welcome. After all, intuitive eating does not preclude you from
doing other healthy things like exercising and keeping the company of positive thinking friends. 

4.Be real with your distractions

 Whoever said something about serving two masters was right. You are bound to upset one. In
our case, the ideal environment for intuitive eating is one where the TV is switched off and you
do not have your laptop open before you. Even going through your phone messages as you eat is
no good. 

Did we speak of getting attuned to your body? You can only do that when your full attention
is on it. It will, then, be very easy for you to register the signs of satiety and to stop right where
the Okinawas would. And when your mind has finally registered the total amount of food that
has gone into your stomach, it will not tell your tummy it has been overstuffed; rather it will give
approval and tell it – you are no longer hungry. 

On the overall, it is the freedom that comes with intuitive eating that becomes your redeemer.
You will know you are on the right track when you no longer wince when someone hands you
junk food at a party, or when you do not despise your friends for eating unhealthy snacks in your
presence. After all, you will be in control, and you will not feel like partaking unless your body
wants the food. Your appetite will be whetted by the state of your body and mind, and not by
what the eyes see. 
 Chapter 13. See the Food Industry for What It Is
It is common knowledge that processed foods contain a number of chemicals and artificial
ingredients that may cause dangerous side effects, but what you should also understand is that
these ingredients can cause processed foods to be about as addictive as narcotics. Processed
foods encourage addictive behavior because they look good, taste good, and leave us coming
back for more due to the way that salt, sugar, fats, and artificial ingredients are manipulated by
food manufacturing companies. The way artificial food feels when we consume and digest it, it’s
texture, and the mere shape of certain processed foods is enough to cause major cravings later
and lead to binge eating; this is also partly due to processed foods invoking feelings of euphoria.
Many people are not consciously aware of their unhealthy eating habits, but there have been
studies suggesting that processed food, sometimes known as “junk food,” affects the brain in a
similar way as cocaine, nicotine, and other poisonous substances that cause addiction and
withdrawals. 
Imagine for a moment that you are in the grocery store and you are eyeing two packages of
Twinkies in the snack aisle. One package depicts the classic cream-filled yellow Twinkies that
your mind and body have grown to love and compulsively consume since childhood. The other
package depicts a new kind of Twinkie, a Twinkie that has been turned green with food coloring
and is a square instead of a cylinder. Because the former is a color that we typically associate
with desserts and the rounder shape makes us assume it has a smoother texture, we believe it will
be more enjoyable than the latter. Furthermore, we are more likely to purchase a processed food
item that is familiar to us because familiarity instills comfort.
This association is one that is carefully tracked by major food companies. Marketing teams use
this information to create alluring storefronts with happy colors like the red and yellow of
McDonald’s and use chemically laden food coloring and artificial ingredients in order to mass
produce food that looks like an old favorite but in fact has very little in common with it’s original
predecessor.
 Chapter 14. Exploring Treatment Options for Binge Eating
Disorder
When you or a loved one has decided to take the first steps toward recovering from binge eating
disorder, it is good to know what treatment is available.  Each case of binge eating disorder is
different depending on the genetics and mental health of the individual involved. Here are
common treatment options for binge eating disorder to explore to see which may be most
effective for you or your loved one.

Medication Based Treatment

Medication based treatment for BED seems to be most effective when the individual may also be
struggling with mental health problems. Antidepressants such as Prozac have been approved in
the treatment of binge eating. This treatment is most successful with those who are also suffering
from a psychological condition such as OCD or depression. Antidepressants used in treating
OCD have been shown to decrease carbohydrate cravings. Appetite suppressants have also been
used to treat binge eating disorders. Drugs such as Sibutramine and Topamax are effective in
suppressing the appetite but each of these sometimes causes side effects that make these drugs
inappropriate for some individuals. Medication by itself is not usually seen as a cure for binge
eating but a way to treat symptoms. While medication can be part of a successful treatment plan,
it is usually accompanied by some sort of counseling or therapy.

Individual Therapy

Psychotherapy is a kind of individual therapy that works on helping the person change his or her
thinking process regarding food. How an individual thinks, processes, and mentally relates to
food would be part of the cognitive process. Therapy that is based on a combination of cognitive
and behavioral therapy is considered by most professionals to be the best treatment option for
those suffering from binge eating. This type of treatment begins by focusing on how an
individual's negative self image or way of thinking affects the way he or she eats. Identifying and
then changing thoughts and attitudes is the foundation of the process. Changing behavior is
accomplished through setting goals and establishing a reward system.

Group Therapy

Group therapy can be very important in the recovery from binge eating. Feeling accepted and
learning that they are not alone is an important part of the recovery process for binge eaters.
There are different types of supports groups that are available for those suffering from this
disorder. Self-help support groups are usually organized by members of the group. It is a peer
based group that offers advice and support for each of the members. Members usually have had
experience with binge eating or are recovered binge eaters. Professionally organized support
groups are often held in hospitals or treatment centers. While self-help groups are often free of
charge, professionally ran groups usually are not. The most successful type of group therapy is
that which is led by a trained professional and is based on psychotherapy techniques.

Overall, the conclusion is that a professionally led course of psychotherapy that includes both
cognitive and behavioral therapy is the most effective means of treatment. Whether it is best to
conduct this therapy in a group or individual setting is dependent on the needs of the individual.
Research has shown that the success rate may be dependent on the individual's specific needs
and the person's level of interpersonal problems. With these options for treatment, recovery is
possible, especially with the aid of professional help.
 Chapter 15. Hands-On Strategies to Prevent and Overcome Binge
Eating
If you struggle with binge eating, you know how easy it is to turn to food whenever there is a
problem in life. Rather than pack on the calories and unwanted pounds, here are some hands-on
behavioral strategies to help break the cycle of binge eating.

Managing Stress

Stress is one of the major trigger factors for binge eaters. When the going gets tough, it's easy to
turn to that refrigerator or take a spin through the drive through to make a big order of fast food.
Rather than make food the solution the next time life's burdens are wearing you down, find other
outlets for your stress. Exercise is one of the best alternatives, keeping you occupied and helping
you to stay in shape as well. You can establish a regular routine that will relieve pressure on a
daily basis. Consider going to a massage therapist or taking up yoga to break the stranglehold of
tension in your life. You can find a release in many alternatives besides food.

Clean Out the Cabinets

Go through your kitchen and get rid of anything that will tempt you to go on another binge. Ban
junk food and sweets in your home. Find healthy substitutes that will not get you in trouble the
next time you have cravings and need to satiate your hunger. Stash bags of veggies in the fridge
that have already been sliced for snacking. Stock up on fruits. Keep a jug of ice water on hand
and have a tall drink any time you are thinking about splurging on snacks. It will help you to feel
full and keep on track.

Learn Portion Control

Control your portions to avoid a calorie overload at any meal. One simple trick is to use a saucer
at each meal. Only eat what will fit on the plate. You can also try eating several, small meals
throughout the day, rather than relying on three, larger meals. Choose healthy options every few
hours to keep hunger at bay and optimize your metabolism.

Get Support from Others

Remember that there are others that are in the same boat. Whether you join a support group, get
involved in an online chat room, or create a circle of friends with a common goal, you can
always find someone to help you avoid binge eating. Make sure you have someone you can call
when you are about to give in. It's always helpful to have a steadfast friend or mentor who will
talk you down when you're ready to go on an eating spree.
Keep Yourself Busy

The last thing you need is too much down time. Go places and do things in your spare time.
Don't allow yourself the opportunity to sit and think about food. Go hiking, take a day trip, or try
a new hobby. Don't let the grass grow beneath your feet and you won't even have time to indulge
in binge eating anymore.

Sometimes one of the best strategies to overcome a habit or disorder is to take action. Try to
implement at least one of these strategies in the next two weeks and see how it can begin to
change your life. Then, incorporate another strategy, until you have gained momentum toward
recovery and positive changes in your life.
 Conclusion
When it comes to overcoming binge eating disorder, no case is identical or recovery going to be
the same journey for everyone.

As you’ve read, maybe you’ve noticed certain behavior patterns within yourself, or others you
know that may reflect binge eating disorder. The next step is to take action and seek treatment.
Recovery is a journey and will not happen overnight, but with a small step of faith, you or your
loved one can make a change to break free from compulsive eating. 

We’ve looked at three of the most common underlying money misconceptions that are probably
getting in the way of a money lifestyle that truly serves you. We’ve looked at some of the hidden
beliefs that may be quietly limiting your ability to use money for what it is: a tool that can help
you achieve your goals and create a life that fits with your values and principles.

Let’s take a more practical look at your actual budget now, but try to keep in mind this bigger
picture. Below we’re going to look at ways to bring your actual spending habits closer in line
with what’s important to you. We’ll look at ways to take the insanity out of spending and get a
greater sense of control and awareness over how you use your money. You can follow the
outline suggested below as often as you like. And since money advice is only good advice if it
actually works for your life, feel free to adapt and adjust it as necessary.
Step One - Take a good hard look:
If you haven’t already, it’s time to look at what you spend in a typical month. You’d be
surprised how few people know exactly what they spend and where. In fact, if you’re hesitant to
even look properly, ask yourself if there’s something you’re trying to avoid looking at too
closely.

You can appraise your monthly spending in a few ways: looking at bank statements and
going through each item carefully, highlighting every expense according to the type (eating,
entertainment, clothing, schooling, debt etc.) is an easy and obvious way to start. You might like
to download a money management app that will allow you to look at your expenses in a variety
of ways – sometimes graphs and pie graphs really drive the point home.

Look at what percentage of your total income you’re spending on each area (i.e. 30% on rent,
10% on food), look at savings and if you can, try to identify any long term trends (i.e. your rent
keeps going up but your salary is staying the same, or you keep going into debt every January
after Christmas).
 It’s just data at this point so try to stay curious and pretend it’s someone else’s spending
you’re looking at. If something feels too scary or depressing to look at, that’s your cue to look
even closer at it…
Step Two - Rate how well this budget is suiting your needs:
As we’ve seen, most money management advice out there has a very simplistic take on
budgets: more money is good, less is bad. But I hope you’ve been convinced now to look at your
budget with higher expectations.

Look at your spending habits in all their glory. Look at that awkward lump of debt you’d
rather not think about. Look at your salary, what you (really!) spend on gym, on internet, on
coffee and snacks, on medical expenses. Whether you did this exercise in full or merely thought
about it, try to remember now what your ultimate values are as a human being, and what your
achievements in life thus far have been.

Now, ask yourself, are your spending habits helping or hindering you in these values and
achievements? Are you spending in alignment with these ideas – or in direct opposition to them?

Look for areas where you bleed a lot of money into things you don’t actually care about. If
you only buy a coffee and a snack every day at work because you’re bored and unfulfilled,
you’re spending inefficiently. If you can identify where you are trying to “buy your emotions,”
then you can cut that spending and think of real ways to address that emotional need – you’ll
help yourself and save that cash all at the same time.

You may notice that wasting a hundred dollars each month on expensive coffee and treats
during lunch hour is just a small thread – but pull on it and you may discover it leads to bigger
lifestyle changes you might be ready for. You may discover that overspending in this area only
happens because you’re bored with your job and need to ask for more challenging projects. This
may be just the impetus to admit that it’s time to ask for a promotion or look for another job. Had
you merely tried the standard budgeting advice (buy a coffee machine for home instead and take
it work in a thermos! Have tea instead, it’s cheaper!) you’ve gone a step further and made
meaningful changes to your lifestyle.

Take a moment to look and see whether your spending habits and attitude to money is doing
its job of helping you achieve your goals.
Step Three - Re-prioritize:
That’s fine. Without changing your total income or your total expenditure, attempt now to
reshuffle and put your resources to their best possible use. Is your lifelong goal of learning to
play the violin more important than wasting hours every evening binge watching series? Then
stop paying for TV each month and funnel that money instead into a fund for violin lessons. If
you value the idea of making meaningful change in the world, or of doing the right thing, cut that
useless gym membership you keep paying for and offer to volunteer at a dog shelter instead. You
still get some exercise, you save money and you do something that’s ultimately worth so much
more to you.

Think creatively here. Don’t assume you “need” something. Ask yourself honestly if you just
want it. Some choices can be difficult of course, and most of us are working with very limited
incomes. But make this easier for yourself by contextualizing: going to the movies every
weekend feels indispensable …but is it more valuable to you than paying down that depressing
debt?

When you use your deepest values as your yardstick, these choices become easier. It may
feel miserable to trim down your food or eating budget, but it may energize you to make those
same cuts if you know that the money you’re saving is going to wards buying a gift for someone
you love, or for the holiday of a lifetime, or your child’s education. The great thing about editing
your budget according to your own values is that you’re not making or saving more money, but
using the money you already have to its best purpose. You’re optimizing. And so you don’t have
to feel miserable forcing yourself to be frugal, because your actions are naturally geared towards
a lifestyle that means something to you. You’re not trimming your budget, you’re enriching your
life. You’re not taking away, but adding.
Step Four - Develop active habits:
All the money epiphanies in the world mean nothing until they’re put into action. The whole
point of looking closely at your spending habits, your money psychology and the misconceptions
fuelling your spending habits is simple: do something about it.

Thankfully, the smallest changes are sometimes the best. Don’t worry about making grand
one-time gestures to fix up your money troubles once and for all. Rather, focus on small, realistic
habits that you can do each and every day. It’s these changes, after all, that will accumulate and
go to making up the bulk of the life you want to create.

Let’s say you commit to dropping expensive dinners with your partner. Many of us just
default to eating as entertainment – but there’s so much more to life than eating! Instead spend
that money on things that you both actually enjoy: buy board games, save up for a hobby you can
both do together or go to interesting talks or workshops. Instead of taking public transport, take
your bike and you save money and get some fitness into your schedule at the same time.
 Here’s a more extreme example. Let’s say you look at your budget and realize that although
you deeply value travelling and learning about new and exciting places, you haven’t actually
been able to afford a real holiday for years. But you fritter away money every year on travelling
to visit distant family members, people who you don’t like much and who don’t seem to like you
either. Not only do these family members add nothing to your life, they actively make you less
happy by adding stress and keeping you from putting that money towards a trip that would
actually make you happy.

Just by looking realistically at your budget, you’ve discovered that you have also been
spending too much time on unfulfilling relationships that are more about obligation than
anything else. Without spending an extra cent, you make it a habit to treat yourself each year to a
weekly vacation somewhere you want to go.
Step Five - Rinse and repeat:
As we’ve seen, happy spending habits are more or less always a work in progress. Make
daily changes to your life and try on new habits for size. Then have another look and ask how
those changes are working for you. Can you change something else? Is there something new
you’ve learnt? Have you learnt how not to do it?
Tips on Surviving a Money Crazy World:
Avoid, wherever you can, the temptation to spend on impulse. If you always give yourself a
“cooling off period,” you’ll minimize emotional spending or buying something just because of
sneaky advertising. For smaller purchases, wait 24 hours, and for bigger purchases, sleep on it
for a few days before committing.

When you’re spending money on something, don’t focus only on the price you see in front of
you. Ask yourself what this item really costs you. How long did you have to work to afford it?
By working that long and exchanging that time for money for this item, did you really get a
“good deal”? Could you use that time or that money on something else, that’s worth more to
you? Is that money actually worth more unspent, i.e. do you really have to buy anything at all?

Fast forward purchases a few years. Many of us throw away huge amounts of junk from our
homes every year, and also keep buying things obsessively, never making the connection
between the two. Are you going to get bored of this item within a few months? Will it really last?
How will it fit into your life? Are you actually just buying next year’s junk?

Don’t go to shopping malls unless you’re feeling calm, rational and in control. This means
avoiding the shops when you’re hungry, sad, bored, angry… You’ll only be extra susceptible to
advertising and pressure to “buy solutions.” You’ll have to work extra hard to resist temptation
and may fall into the trap of feeling that you’re depriving yourself.

Be prepared. It’s so much easier to act wisely when you’re acting according to a plan you’ve
spent time on beforehand. Know how much you can afford to spend on a night out before you
leave. Go shopping with a list and don’t buy anything not on that list. Pack a work lunch the
night before so you’re not tempted to buy something expensive on the spur of the moment when
you get hungry.

Try to see if you can spend your money on lived experiences rather than things. Things get
old. They break. People get bored of them. But happy memories can last a lifetime, and if your
experience teaches you a new skill or gives you a fresh insight on life, even better. Think of
travelling somewhere novel, seeing a show, going to a class to learn something new, challenging
yourself to a marathon or climb, donating to a charity that means something to you, experiencing
beautiful music or performances, going into nature …all of these things have so much more
value compared to something like a phone upgrade or a new piece of furniture for your home.

Carry only small amounts of cash on you, for emergencies. This will deter you from
spending mindlessly. It’s easy to think of a few coins in your wallet as nothing much, but they
add up. Spending on bank cards has the added advantage of letting you track exactly how much
and on what you spend your money.

If you’re trying to develop your professional career, you might like to consider negotiating
for and working towards a higher hourly rate with less total time worked rather than endlessly
angling for more work. In the long term, you’ll value your time more and more. As you upskill
and become more experienced, look for more job flexibility, more benefits and more free time
rather than just a higher salary. Employers are usually a bit happier to negotiate on these anyway,
and they’ll actually have a greater impact on your quality of life.

When making big spending decisions, consider how a choice will mature with time. It may
be that it’s better to spend on X rather than Y in the present moment, but wait ten years and X
just gets worse and worse as a choice. When considering big purchases, spending on education
or paying off debt, ask yourself what will give you the greatest flexibility and control in the
future. Ask which choice gives you more choices later on. Give less weight to choices that can’t
be undone or modified and more weight to those that can.

Don’t be afraid to talk about money. Let go of hang ups and ask for help and advice when
you need it. There’s no shame in having money difficulties or being stuck with debt – but it’s a
real shame if you let hang ups about money prevent you from tackling a serious problem head
on.

Some of our most nonsensical spending habits are closely tied with our worst life habits in
general. Do you have an unhealthy drinking or smoking habit? This is the kind of thing you pay
for over and over again – you pay for the substance itself, you pay with diminished health and
you may even have to pay later on for medicine or treatment for health problems you bring on
yourself. When it comes to any kind of addiction, it’s never worth it. If this is you, the best thing
you can do for yourself is clean up this bad habit. Drop your nasty sugar addiction. Quit
smoking. Cut back on drinking. Vow to stay away from junk food.

Avoid comparing yourself to others. There’s a lot of ego bound up in money, and it’s hard to
break the automatic connection that money = success. If you’re suffering from trying to keep up
with your peers, try to remember that people willfully display the life they want you to see, and
there are invariably problems that you never know about. Keep going towards your own goals. If
someone’s success feels intimidating, try turn that feeling into inspiration – how can you do the
same? What can you learn from them?
Conclusion

In conclusion, you need to remember that adopting a healthier way of life by listening to
your body is not something that can happen overnight. To begin with, it’s going to be a bit
difficult to let go lifelong perceptions of what food is good for you and what is not.
Unfortunately, these ideas have been ingrained in us since what seems like forever. You’ll
also take time to begin to understand what you body can and cannot tolerate properly. And,
what it really, really needs. As for the weight loss issue, you will begin to see a difference.
You only need to be patient for it to happen. That’s because your body will take time to
accept that starvation is not always around the corner, and it doesn’t need to shore up on the
calories in anticipation. 

Give intuitive eating a chance. Your health and happiness depend on it.