DEALING WITH AN ADDICTION TO FOOD AND CHANGING EATING HABITS

For some people, eating is an addiction.

People can be addicted to many things: smoking cigarettes, alcohol, illegal drugs like crack and heroin, over the counter painkillers, gambling and other things.

The thing that makes a food addiction different from the others is: you just can’t quit food altogether like you would alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, etc, if you are successful in beating your addiction.

The problem with food is you have to manage your addiction, yet at the same time, still eat nutritious food to live for the rest of your life.

Its not like with a crack addict where you would say “Well, you use too much crack. You have to realign your thinking so that you just use a little bit of crack, and the right kinds of crack.” That would be preposterous.

But thats what we have to do in regards to a food addiction. The poor eating habits are part of our lifestyles. Things that we are taught as youngsters by our families. Things that are ingrained in us. Things that are part of our culture.

How many of us, when growing up heard mom or grandma say, “You better eat all of your food, there are starving kids in China.”

So we clean our plates even once we have passed the point of being satisfied. And we overeat.

The reality is this: if I am full, and there are still a few bites of food on my plate, there is nothing I can do about the starving kids in China. I can’t box up my leftovers and send them to an orphanage of starving kids halfway across the world. So why put those extra calories on my hips or butt?

Our culture encourages us to overeat. One of our favorite holidays is Thanksgiving. We accept that we are expected to gorge ourselves way beyond the point of being satisfied because that is what we are expected to do.

Even in socializing, if you go on a date, a meal is almost always included. Or conducting business over lunch. If you go to the movies, were you really hungry and want the popcorn, or did you just buy it and eat it because thats what you do when you go to the movies?

Restaurants don’t help much either. Sure some of them have healthier options on the menu. But portion size is ridiculous. Most meals served in restaurants are 2 to 3 times bigger than what we should actually eat.

And its celebrated through the media. Shows like “Man vs. Food” and “Diners, drive-ins and dives” celebrate the overabundance of food. ESPN broadcasts the national hot dog eating contest every year. The winner usually eats upwards of 50 hot dogs, plus buns.

So how do you change eating habits? Thats a tough one. You are attempting to reverse your attitude towards meals, family, culture, holidays, business norms, and socialization that have been a part of our lifestyle since we were infants.

I’m not going to pretend to know the answer. Heck, after what I ate over Memorial Day weekend?!

I guess it comes down to being conscious of what we eat. Eating slower is a start. Usually our stomachs become full before it can send a message to our brain saying we are full. By eating slower, you give time for that message to get to your brain.

Hidden calories can be a killer too. A full fat salad dressing may contain 15-20 fat grams. It totally defeats the purpose of having the salad. Mayo on the sandwich, cream cheese on the bagel, butter on the popcorn, all hidden calories.

Soda is a tough one too. If you are drinking regular soda, a can of coke is about 150 calories. You drink one can of coke 23 days in a row, that is a pound of fat’s worth of calories. Do you drink on the weekend? A light beer has about 100 calories. Drink 7 or 8 of those every Saturday night and we start to see where beer bellies come from.

I certainly am no expert on the subject. I am just a guy dealing with a food addiction who is trying to be more conscious of what I eat, how much of it I eat, what time I am eating and why I am eating. Thats a start.

Just my random thoughts today on food, food addiction and society’s standards and norms when it comes to food.

THE GOOD NEWS

The good news is: its never too late to start an exercise program and you are never too far gone to reverse the damage done by years of inactivity, poor eating habits, drinking, age, smoking, etc.

The reality is that physiologically, our bodies don’t want to be overweight. Our bodies have an ideal weight already in mind, and it wants to be at that weight. To get to it is not a matter of magic or voodoo, its simply a matter of math.

Because I have been overweight my entire life, I have actually come to understand basic nutrition pretty well, probably better than most thin people, mainly because many have never had to think about what they were eating.

All the food we eat can be divided into three categories: carbohydrates, proteins and fats. Carbohydrates are a broad term for foods that include fruits, vegetables, breads, pastas, cereals, potatoes, etc. Proteins are things like meats, fish, eggs. Some foods like nuts and beans contain both proteins and carbohydrates. Fats can be found in both animal and vegetable foods. Examples are the fat thats found on the edge of and marled within a piece of meat, steak for example. Fish and nuts also contain fats. In your refrigerator and pantry, things like mayonnaise, butter, vegetable, and olive oil are all sources of fats.

Here is where the math comes in: a gram of carbohydrate and protein contain 4 calories. A gram of fat contains 9 calories. Calories are a unit of measurement of energy that your body burns. You are burning calories all day long just by being alive: breathing, your heart pumping blood, being conscious, etc. burns a certain number of calories, even when you are at rest. When you exercise, your muscles need calories to burn to work and move. Your body kind of has like a little furnace in it, always burning calories. When you are exercising, your body is burning more calories and the furnace, if you will, burns hotter.
A pound of fat contains 3500 calories. When your body takes in more calories than it burns up, it converts the excess calories into fat and stores it in your body for use at a later time. This is leftover from our caveman days when humans might go days in between meals. To prevent the body from starving to death when food was scarce, our body stored fat in fat cells, kind of like a  camel’s hump. But instead of a hump, we store it around our bellies, on our love handles, in our butts and even internally, around our organs.

So, if in a day, we take in (eat) more calories than we burn, our bodies will store those extra calories in our fat cells. The fat cells swell, and we get fat. If we take in less calories than we burn, our bodies will turn to those fat cells and start burning those calories, and we lose weight.

But at the same time, we can’t just stop eating. If our body senses it is being deprived of food, it will go into shut down mode and become very protective of our fat cells. It will hold on to them because the body does not want to starve to death.

So we have to continue to eat. Lets say in a day, your body takes in 2100 calories, but it only burns 2000. Thats an excess of 100 calories that will be converted to fat. If this happens every day for 35 days, you will gain a pound of fat. The opposite, however is also true. If we take in 2100 calories, but burn 2200, a deficit of 100 calories, our body will take those extra calories from the fat cells and burn it, and if you do that every day for 35 days, you will lose a pound of fat.

So the math is quite simple, burn more calories than you take in, and you will lose weight. That is where the exercise comes in. When you exercise, you are stoking the fires of your calorie burning furnace, making it burn more calories that if you were at rest. I know this is a simplified way of looking at it, but it holds true.

In addition to creating a caloric deficit, and therefore causing you to lose fat, exercise has other positive effects.

One positive effect is you will notice your energy level increase. You won’t feel tired all the time. You will feel more alert. You will begin to perform better at work, you’ll have energy to play with the kids when you get home from work.

Because you will notice yourself looking slimmer, more muscular and more attractive, your attitude and self-esteem will improve. You will feel better about yourself and more in control of your life.

If you suffer from painful joints: knees and hips especially or seem to have back problems, those will alleviate to a degree because your joints are now carrying less weight around and the muscles supporting them will grow stronger.

Circulation to your arms and legs will improve. For the past few years, I would occasionally wake up to excrutiatingly painful cramps, mostly in my quads (the big muscle in your thigh), that were due to poor circulation. I used to get them about once a month. Since I started my exercise program 5 months ago, I have not experienced this once.

Your digestive system will improve. Not to get gross here, but you will notice more regular bowel movements. Remember, your digestive tract is a series of muscles and even it gets put to work when you exercise.

The list of benefits goes on. You might also experience your blood pressure and cholesterol numbers returning closer to the normal range. Your skin may become healthier and acne or blemishes lessen. You may even notice that your sexual appetite and performance improve as well.

All of this, and more, could be yours at the cost of 30 minutes of exercise every day. Yes, I know its tough getting started. It takes 21 days to establish a positive habit. Once you start doing it, it will become less and less a burden. You will actually begin to look forward to it. I promise you. It is happened to me.

GETTING STARTED

For almost my whole life, I have been overweight. In my opinion, there are two types of overweight people. Those who have always been overweight, and those who were thin and fit when they were younger and then became overweight, either due to having children, having a sedentary job, slowing metabolism due to age or other factors.
As New Year’s 2011 approached, I considered possible New Year’s Resolutions. Like most people, I had been largely unsuccessful with New Year’s resolutions in the past. I wanted to be sure if I established one, to come up with something I could stick to, something that would result in self-improvement, yet something achieveable.
I decided not to resolve a diet right away, which I feared would be destined for failure, you know, the kind people make where they say “I’m not going to eat pizza or ice cream any more. I knew that there would be times I would want pizza or I would be at a birthday party and there would be cake and ice cream. So rather than take something away from my life, I decided I would add something to it.
My resolution was simple: exercise a minimum of 30 minutes a day. I realize this is broad and generalistic. That was kind of by design. I wanted to have fun and variety with it.
The toughest part of course, is getting started. It was winter in Cleveland, so outdoor activities are a little tougher. Luckily, my town has a Civic Center with a small weight room, stationary bikes, treadmills, indoor track, pool, and racquetball court.
My routine started simply with walking on the track or treadmill. I had allowed myself to get out of shape enough that there wasn’t much more I could do than walk. There were some days where I would shovel snow in the driveway by hand, and I counted that as my exercise.
Inevitably there were days that I just did not feel like exercising. There were days that self-doubt creeped into my thoughts. But I had faith in my simple plan. I had faith that if I established the habits of a fit person, and kept at it, and followed through with 30 minutes a day, that I would inevitably see positive results.
On the days that I didn’t feel like it, I forced myself to get to the civic center anyway, just walk for 30 minutes and get out. On days that I was motivated, I might do more: 45 minutes or an hour or longer.
On the days I was not motivated, I reminded myself that continuation of the streak (the commitment to exercise EVERY day, no matter what) superceded the self-destructive thoughts I might have like: Will the 30 minute walk I would take day really mean anything? or Would it really hurt if I missed ONE day? The important thing was the establishment of the habit, not the outcome of one particular day’s exercise.
So, in concluding today’s blog, my recommendation is to commit yourself to 30 minutes of exercise EVERY day. Not just the days you feel like it or are motivated, but do it every day, even when you are not motivated. Those are the days that your commitment is most important. Find an activity that you like, something that you can do in your current health state. Be careful not to overdo it at first, as soreness and injury could impede you from going back the next day. Living in an instant gratification society, we tend to want to solve the problem in one day. It took a long time for you to get overweight and out of shape. It will take a long time to reverse that and reach your long term goal, whether that be a certain number of pounds, a dress or pants size, lower your cholesterol or improve your blood pressure.
So far the results I have realized, aside from the 40 pounds and 2 pants sizes lost, are a better attitude and outlook on life, more energy and something to look forward to every day. I feel like I have a sense of control and accomplishment. I am nowhere near my ultimate long term goal. But I have faith that I will get there, through thirty minutes of exercise EVERY day.

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