Food and Nutrition
Food Triggers -- Taking Charge
By
Sep 28, 2008 - 3:46:55 PM

(HealthNewsDigest.com) - The way you handle food has a lot to do with your background and emotions. By identifying your own personal food triggers you can either eliminate them or find a way around them. You think you’re unique. Boy, are you dead wrong! The problems, questions, and concerns you have about food are shared by many people. Not all problems can be solved 100%. But every problem does have a compromise solution, one that will allow you to go forward, adjust a poor behavior, and help you reach your weight goals.

Instead of working on behavior changes, wouldn’t it be simpler just to never eat chocolate cake again?

While you’re attempting to lose weight, chocolate cake definitely falls into the once-in-a-blue-moon category. Swearing an oath against eating future slices will most likely result in a chocolate cake binge in the not-too-distance future. If you don’t binge, you’ll be resentful, waiting for the day when you can eat chocolate cake again. You’ll go off your diet, eat all the chocolate cake and other foods you gave up while dieting, and before you know it, you’ve gained back your lost weight.

Let’s re-write this scenario. You decide you’ll have a slice of chocolate cake every Saturday night. You also plan to take an extra long bike ride every weekend to help burn off the extra calories. I once had a client that loved bagels with cream cheese. He enjoyed one, once a week, after his morning swim of one mile. On other days, he regularly swam 40 laps each morning, a little over half a mile. He traded the extra activity for a calorie dense choice. Don’t deprive yourself, just plan.

How do I stop family and friends from urging me to eat when I shouldn’t?

Dieting dynamics are interesting. When you’re successfully controlling your weight the people around often react in contradictory ways. Some become your cheerleader, celebrating each victory and reveling in your success. Others try to test your resolve by tempting you with foods you’re trying to limit.

Be firm with family members. Tell them how important it is for you to lose weight and how their support will make your job even easier. Friends, who try to derail your eating plan, may be jealous of your success. Interact with them less often for the time being. Good friends help, they don’t hinder.

Whenever I fight with my husband, I bury my sorrow in bag of potato chips which destroys all my dieting efforts. Any suggestions?

Fights with people we love are tough to deal with and many times we bury our emotions with food. Though we don’t suggest overeating as a response to an emotionally tough time, if you find yourself in that spot, a switch to pretzels or popcorn would be less calorie dense.

If it’s too late and you’ve already eaten the potato chips, let’s do some math. A 6-ounce bag of potato chips has 900 calories. To use up the extra calories eaten, we’d suggest cutting 200 calories a day from your eating plan for the next 3 days and adding 10 to 20 minutes extra activity each day. This will compensate for the “oops!”

I eat the most when I’m sad. How can I stop this?
Eating can be comforting. We often reach for food when we feel sad, lonely, frustrated or overwhelmed. Eating pushes the emotion into the background but not for long. When the feelings return, you eat more. This is a hard cycle to break but you’ve already made a big step by realizing that you eat too much when you are sad.

What makes you happy? Visiting a friend? A long bubble bath? Exercising? Regular exercise releases natural brain chemicals (endorphins) that lift your spirits. Next time you feel sad, try a nonfood option to make you feel better. This is easier to suggest than to do but now that you’ve identified a trigger for overeating you can change the behavior.

Whenever I go to the bakery I wind up buying and eating something I shouldn’t. How do I control this?
Stay out of the bakery. Sounds simple but you may be using those trips as a way to sabotage yourself. Or, the bakery may be the place your grandfather took you for a special treat. Self-sabotage happens more often then you may realize. People fear success more than failure. Succeeding at weight loss can be a pretty scary thing.

If the bakery trip is connected to loving feelings from your past, you need to re-script your memory. The best part of the trip to the bakery, as a child, was the love you felt from your grandfather. The eclair he bought for you didn’t love you. Separating food and love is a delicate maneuver.
© NRH Nutrition Consultants, Inc.

Jo-Ann Heslin, MA, RD, CDN is a registered dietitian and the author of the nutrition counter series for Pocket Books with 12 current titles and sales in excess of 7 million books. The books are widely available at your local or on-line bookseller.

Current titles include:
The Healthy Wholefoods Counter, 2008
The Cholesterol Counter, 7th Ed., 2008
The Diabetes Carbohydrate and Calorie Counter, 3rd Ed., 2007
The Calorie Counter, 4th Ed., 2007
The Compete Food Counter, 2nd Ed., 2006
For more information on Jo-Ann and her books, go to www.TheNutritionExperts.com.

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