Emotional Eating "Breaking Free From. Emotional Eating Part II."

Reviewing Geneen Roth's Book, Breaking Free of Emotional Eating continues with chapter III titled "Distractive Eating--It Doesn't Count if You're Not Sitting Down. This chapter is basically about how much energy many overweight people put into sneaking food, eating while they are distracted with music, TV..., emotional discussons and so on. The guidelines are introduced about eight weeks into her Breaking Free Program to stop eating while standing or being distracted by anything else. This all makes perfect sense but can simply be summed up with one hypnotic suggestion.

So it's like in the first two chapters full reign to eat whenever you desired is given and now she begins reeling you in with guidelines.

Chapter IV is about When Enough is Enough. The first part of the chapter is about listening to a voice that says, "enough is enough." But quite frankly much of it was confusing other than through all the confusion eventually you'll hear that voice. She went into the "Kids in India are starving," "Clean your plate" beliefs and ended with suggesting that we remember doggie bags in restaurants, practice leaving a few bites on your plate and even practice throwing away some food.

The closest she gets to discussing emotions is to ask yourself while you are eating what you'd rather be doing. Actually I phrased it that way back in the late 70's. She phrases it a little differently but it's basically the same question in what you're looking for in terms of emotional comfort.

Chapter V is about binging. She give you permission to binge and then provides advice such as if someone catches you binging, don't hide it; talk to the food; notice the texture, color, etc...; go to a mirror and touch your face, arms... She includes a section on food allergies which is poorly covered.

Even though she covered some important and interesting points, I'm still not impressed with the approach or the organization of the program. More to come

Not sure you're an emotional eater? Click here and take the quiz.

Want to a cure for emotional binge eating and discover how to identify emotions, embrace them and feel them? You can purchase the, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) emotional eating now for only $14.95. It's a $39.00 value.

Emotional Eating "Breaking Free From. Emotional Eating."

After the first two chapters of Geneen Roth's Breaking Free from Emotional Eating I must say that I am not impressed so far. Her approach is one that worked initially for her personally and that was to stop all dieting and self limiting behavior when it came to food. Simply eat whenever you're hungry.

I take exception to this because in reality (and maybe it's semantics, but I don't really think so) to achieve physical hunger it would require 6 weeks of fasting. In fact if you were to fast for twelve hours or so, you will no longer feel hungry. And fasting for a week-end now and then can be a great thing that actually helps you cleanse your liver.

Nevertheless, when she did this she gained fifteen or so pounds over a few months (I believe) and then got rid of 30 pounds over two years. Great for the result.

I use a similar suggestion in the work that I do and it's like this, "You eat anything you want and are amazed to find that what you really want to eat is far more nutritious and less in quantity than you ever dreamed possible." Who cares about making up for twenty years of dieting by pigging out on as much chocolate or ice cream as you can consume until you're fed up? If you can get turned onto healthy eating by suggestion and find that you can really care less about the candy and ice cream, why plague yourself with gluttony?

Plus if you do eat ice cream and or candy or whatever, wouldn't it be great to "fill up on flavor and taste" and not have to gluttonize yourself into gaining any weight at all--much less fifteen pounds? Ironically, her approach is the same as mine but 180 degrees different--completely opposite. Does that make sense?

So far, not impressed, hopefully there will be some real gems yet to be revealed in dealing with Emotional Eating as the title suggests.

Not sure you're an emotional eater? Click here and take the quiz.

Want to a cure for emotional binge eating and discover how to identify emotions, embrace them and feel them? You can purchase the, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) emotional eating now for only $14.95. It's a $39.00 value.

Emotional Eating "Taming of the Chew Pt V"

Part II of Taming of the Chew by Denise Lamothe, Psy.D., H.H.D. continues with a chapter title Healing the Emotional Self in which she reviews the many emotional hurts we often go through as children and how children assume the blame. She explores the confusion of sexuality and it's impact on one's psyche leading to the Chew running rampant.

For the today person, she provides infomation on building self confidence, setting healthy boundaries (minimize being taken advantage of by others), becoming assertive, and learning to laugh.

The last chapter of Part II is Healing the Spiritual Self in which she suggests things such as:
1. Designing your environment to be pleasing.
2. Living in the Here and Now rather than the guilts of the past.
3. Moving beyond emotional pain in life to learn and benefit from it.
Then I discovered there's a Part III which is a summary of the book. It's about making conscious choices--rather than count calories, be aware of the consequences of the cookie.
Then she suggests many tips to manage stress along with tips for avoiding the binge, i.e. before letting the Chew have it way you will do one of a dozen different activities such as:
1. Calling a friend,
2. Locking yourself in the bathroom with a bubble bath.
3. Take a walk or ride a bike
and the list goes on and on.
She provides a self talk scenario where if you make a mistake and eat too much or binge you can possibly learn from it.
Then I discovered there's a Part IV titled Summing It All Up starting with the importance of making a Committment. She then wraps up her book with several pages of repeating passages from the book as a summary of the important messages.

My take on the book is that it is definitely worth reading. I believe that she could have done much more with the emotions specifically. In the summaries, she basically recycles a lot of techniques that have been used for decades rather than 0ffering a new approach to embrace emotions.

I know it might sound self profiting, but I'd recommend reading my book first and the her book for grounding. While she has covered the emotional hurting that contributes to low self esteem, my book is a lot more effective at tackling emotions which is what mastery of emotional eating is all about. We both agree on the importance of building self esteem and confidence, however, my approach is about learning how to feel good about you even on a "bad hair day." Her book is available through Amazon.com for around $10.00.

My next post will be about Geneen Roth's book titled Breaking Free from Emotional Eating.

Not sure you're an emotional eater? Click here and take the quiz.

Want to a cure for emotional binge eating and discover how to identify emotions, embrace them and feel them? You can purchase the, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) emotional eating now for only $14.95. It's a $39.00 value.

Emotional Eating "Taming of the Chew Part IV"

Part II of Taming of the Chew by Denise Lamothe, Psy.D., H.H.D. begins with Chapter 6 which is a few pages about being responsible for making the necessary changes.

Chapter 7 begins with finding an appreciation for our physical body through moving it as in exercise is fun. She then tackles robotic eating by becoming more aware of when you are eating and appreciative of the food you do eat. She suggests that if your goal is to lose weight have one day a week with nothing more than juice.

In this chapter is also a section on Self Love where she suggests looking in a mirror every day and finding things you like about you. Then go to war (not her words) against the substances which have caused you trouble like alcohol, sugar... But stop beating yourself up for making mistakes and she then suggests some healthy substitutes such as stevia instead of sugar.

She suggests counseling to deal with addictive behaviors such as alcohol. She then provides a rather extensive list of alternative healing approaches such as biofeedback, acupuncture, rolfing, hypnosis, polarity...

In my next post I'll cover the next chapter about Healing the Emotional Self. I'm getting excited about finishing this book because I just received another book titled Breaking Free of Emotional Eating by Geneen Roth.

Not sure you're an emotional eater? Click here and take the quiz.

Want to a cure for emotional binge eating and discover how to identify emotions, embrace them and feel them? You can purchase the, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) emotional eating now for only $14.95. It's a $39.00 value.

Emotionial Eating "Taming of the Chew Part III"

This is the third post about Taming of the Chew by Denise Lamonthe Psy. D., H.H.D.
Chapter IV is Understanding The Social Reasons for Over Eating and begins with self esteem--how we let our self esteem be determined by other's opinions about us, what we think others think of us, measuring up to be the perfect looking man or woman... The result of many being that they are obsessed with their weight, what they eat, and so on. She asks an interesting question, What would we be thinking about if we weren't obsessed with thoughts about food, our appearance, weight...?

She writes about how we focus on what we don't have as opposed to being grateful for what we do have. Even fairy tales affect us in how we think of ourselves.

The book was initially written for women and she goes on to notice how boys are viewed as being more important than girls and how men have more important jobs such as being doctors whereas women become nurses. Of course this is the mind set of the 50's and 60's and thus women had limited options in life. Women were expected to put others' needs before their own.

Chapter 5 is titled Understanding the Spiritual Reasons for Over Eating. Oh, by the way, the Chew is the devious part of us that drives us to overeat. Back to the spiritual reasons. She says basically that when we are out of touch with our spiritual selves, we are more numb and then tend to eat to compensate for the lack of our spiritual connection.

This chapter ends Part I of the book--more to come.

Again, you might disagree with me, but so far I'd say that the book is not laid out very well. She attempts to lay out part I of the book as Physical, Emotional and Spiritual. She mixes in how our self esteem drives us to be compulsive in our needs to diet and be skinny.

I find it more important to focus on the types of eating--habitual and emotional and deal with them directly rather than assume everything is emotionally driven.

In my next post I'll begin to review Part II.

Not sure you're an emotional eater? Click here and take the quiz.

Want to a cure for emotional binge eating and discover how to identify emotions, embrace them and feel them? You can purchase the, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) emotional eating now for only $14.95. It's a $39.00 value.

Emotional Eating "Taming of the Chew Part II"

This is my second post on the book Taming the Chew by Denise Lamothe, Psy.D., H.H.D. If you're wondering what H.H.D. stands for it's a degree for being a Holistic Doctor

Chapter II is titled Understanding Physical Reasons for Over Eating. It starts out with the programming we've received since childhood relating food with emotions or emotional situations. It then goes into substances that are harmful and should be eliminated from the diet such as alcohol, artificial sweeteners, caffeine, diary, and salt.

I agree it's beneficial to minimize most of them, however, I would not make diary one of them. She could just as well tackled gluten. but didn't. True it's probably healthier to eliminate diary, however, to shed weight it's not an important issue unless there's a food addiction or allergy to diary.

Chapter III is titled Understanding the Emotional Reasons for Over Eating and is about our short comings affecting our self esteem, the negative affect of growing up in abusive dysfunctional families, and what she describes as our "sub selves' which is about how we think about our eating behavior and how we handle it.

You might disagree with me, but so far I'd say that the book is not laid out very well--not organized very well. She touches on a lot of things you'll find in my book, but thus far she only touches on them. In my next post I'll review the next chapter or two which should put me at the end of part I of the book--the half way point.

Not sure you're an emotional eater? Click here and take the quiz.

Want to a cure for emotional binge eating and discover how to identify emotions, embrace them and feel them? You can purchase the, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) emotional eating now for only $14.95. It's a $39.00 value.

Emotional Eating "Taming of the Chew"

I ordered three books about overcoming emotional eating and the first to arrive is Taming the Chew by Denise Lamonthe, Psy.D., H.H.D.

In the Introduction she says, "This book is not about being thin. It is about loving yourself just the way you are and eating in ways that feel nurturing.--not compulsive or self destructive. You will lose weight if you implement some of the suggestions on the following pages. If you wish to do so, that is fine--but helping you to lose weight is not my primary goal."

I don't see why you can't do both, discover how to love yourself and also drop all the weight you desire. In other words, have it your way.

So far I've gotten through the Intro and the first chapter. She definitely has a powerful understanding of how some emotional eaters use their excess weight to keep from being successful and steps right into that in the first chapter. Personally I believe that jumping into that issue is a bit premature. It's better described as a specific type of emotional eating as it involves only one emotion. In my book I jump into the issue much later in the book and cover it in far greater detail. But maybe I'm jumping the gun, maybe she revisits the subject later.

More to come.


Not sure you're an emotional eater? Click here and take the quiz.

Want to a cure for emotional binge eating and discover how to identify emotions, embrace them and feel them? You can purchase the, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) emotional eating now for only $14.95. It's a $39.00 value.

Emotional Eating "Stress Management Advice"

The articles about overcoming emotional eating keep coming. The most recent one suggests that to overcome emotional eating you:
First recognize that you are an emotional eater.
Secondly, get some counseling to help deal with your stress level in life.
Thirdly, Use your family to help you choose healthy foods. Take Yoga...
Click here to read the article and post what you think. The beginning of the article is mostly about stressful stress leaving all the good (eustress) stress out of the picture. Don't we emotional eaters also eat when we are happy or on vacation.
I point out these articles for you to read because otherwise you would think the advice is the answer to eliminating emotional eating and if you follow the advice to a "T" and still over eat, then you might believe yourself to be a failure instead of questioning the advice given.
For instance, say you want to Middletown, NY and I give you directions. You follow them and find that you end up in Middletown, NJ instead. It's still Middletown, but the wrong place.
In this case, you'd obviously see that the instructions were wrong, but when it comes to over coming emotional eating, even though you've never been there before, you might think you failed instead of questioning the directions. I hope that made sense.


Not sure you're an emotional eater? Click here and take the quiz.

Want to a cure for emotional binge eating and discover how to identify emotions, embrace them and feel them? You can purchase the, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) emotional eating now for only $14.95. It's a $39.00 value.

Not sure you're an emotional eater? Click here and take the quiz.

Want to a cure for emotional binge eating and discover how to identify emotions, embrace them and feel them? You can purchase the, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) emotional eating now for only $14.95. It's a $39.00 value.

Emotional Eating "Four Easy Steps?"

Emotional eating seems to be a "catch phrase" for all types of advice. Did you know that the "Quickest Way to Lose Weight is by Overcoming Emotional Eating"?
I certainly agree with that. However, in that article four tips are given.
1. Do not have any taboo foods. If you've read my last two posts about food addictions and food allergies, then that advice simply becomes wishful thinking. It's like an alcoholic can not have a sip and if you're addicted to a certain food, a bite is enough to overpower any rational thinking you might ever have. It's wishful thinking vs reality.
2. Figure out what true hunger is. My comment is that this has nothing to do with emotional eating--it's recycled advice that's been given out for decades. In fact it about the fourth time I've read that advice in articles about losing weight.
3. Step three is built on step two and that is to ask yourself how you will feel if you devour the bag of chips that is tempting you. Again, this is recycled advice.
4. Get support such as post on your fridge all the reasons why you want to shed weight or put on your running shoes and go for a jog. Again recycled advice
See for yourself, click here to read the article.

Not sure you're an emotional eater? Click here and take the quiz.

Want to a cure for emotional binge eating and discover how to identify emotions, embrace them and feel them? You can purchase the, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) emotional eating now for only $14.95. It's a $39.00 value.

Emotional Eating "Stress Eating"

If you click here, you'll find a post by a stress eater. This person eats under the stress of change and during times of extreme uncertainty and has fortunately learned how to temper the binges.
But there may be many who do not relate (as one post suggests) as they eat when they are bored or have nothing to do.

It's amazing that for some with emotional eating problems that they eat when they feel there's nothing to do, it's like they must always be busy doing something. It can simply be that they've learned to feel guilty for having nothing to do. This is often from basic programs received since child hood such as:
1. Don't sit around doing nothing--make yourself busy.
2. Doing nothing is wasting time.

Smokers particularly fall prey to this program after they stop smoking. They feel guilty for doing nothing with their hands so they put food into their hands and gain weight.

Noticing the guilt program is important, and then to learn how to embrace the emotion of boredom through experiencing it and leaving food out of the situation.

Click here and take the quiz to see if you're an emotional eater.

Want to a cure for emotional binge eating and discover how to identify emotions, embrace them and feel them? You can purchase the, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) emotional eating now for only $14.95. It's a $39.00 value.

Emotional Eating "Addictions and Food Allergies"

If you click here, you'll find an article, "Where did Your Food Addictions Come From," by Kelly Aziz which is about addictions and emotional eating. While she says a lot about food addictions which I find questionable, her statement about the goal with emotional eating is right on,
"Emotions aren’t something one should fear, we should embrace every one that we feel and experience and that’s just it: we should allow ourselves to feel and experience them. The more we do so, the better we are able to manage them and more able we are to cope in stressful situations in the world. The world will also be a much more interesting place and wonderful place."

What's unknown is actually how one would "embrace" and "experience" the emotions which I would hope her book would enlighten you. And without that information, it would be for naught.

Why I take exception to what she says about addictions is that she generalizes them. It's highly unlikely that any one person would be addicted to as many substances as she suggests is possible and that's because food addictions are actually food allergies.

And food allergies are most often developed simply out of over indulgence of a particlar food over a long period of time--say many months or years--to the point where there is a craving.

Some people crave sugar foods, others crave pastries, others chocolate, others orange juice (yes even something like orange juice), others bread, others peanuts, others chips, others pretzels... It's highly unlikely that one would crave all of them. Sure, one might like all of them, but crave them all--NO it unlikely.

The only to successfully implement any "get thin" program is to identify the particular addictions or allergies and then just as an alcoholic must stop drinking, the chocolate alcoholic or the pretzel alcoholic (yes you might be allergic to several, but not all) must stop the addictive substance for any "get thin program" to work.

Click here and take the quiz to see if you're an emotional eater.

Want to a cure for emotional binge eating and discover how to identify emotions, embrace them and feel them? You can purchase the, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) emotional eating now for only $14.95. It's a $39.00 value.

Emotional Binge Eating "Bulemia"

For admission of Stephanie Pratt's Bulimia problem, click here along with all the warning signs to look for such as depression, irritability, over concern with appearance, social isolation, exercise freak, always worrying about food.

Actually the depression, isolation, exercise preoccupation, food worrying are symptoms of the real issue and that is over concern with appearance. No matter how famous or beautiful one might be the issue is fear of what others think of them. The fear could have been acquired anytime through life--even as early as kindergarten, but may not manifest itself until years later.

The approach is to deal with self consciousness and the first step is to read a book like Psychobyernetics by Maxwell Maltz which is only about fifty cents on Amazon.com. It's an old standby written back in the 70's. Then it's helpful to read Your Erroneous Zones by Wayne Dyer PhD.

Not to say that bulimics can't be bingers and have all the emotional stressors that affect all of us over eaters too which may well be what get's them in trouble in the first place.

Click here and take the quiz to see if you're an emotional eater.

Want to a cure for emotional binge eating? You can purchase the, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) emotional eating now for only $14.95. It's a $39.00 value.

Emotional Eating "Control Stress"

My hometown newspaper, the Asbury Park Press in NJ, carried a story offering advice to help stress eating. Click here to read Eight Ways to Stop Stress From Weighing You Down. Basically it's a collection of advice from experts around the country. Here are four of them.

One expert suggests listening to music you like and or doing things you like.
Another one suggests that we simply recognize that we can't control the economy.
Another suggests talking about your stress with family and friends.
Another suggests using deep breathing to deal with temptation to eat.

The other suggestions are along similar lines of advice and while it's all fine advice in living and dealing with stress, it has very little if anything to do with dealing with the stress of emotions. Nothing about embracing emotion much less how to do it.

Want to get a head start on dealing with emotional eating? You can purchase the best book, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) ever written about emotional eating now for only $14.95. It's a $39.00 value.

Emotional Eating "Some Real Advice"

Today, I noticed three articles about emotional eating. Only the last one is about emotions.

Click here for an article, Thinking Made Easy. You would think it's about healthy thinking such as avoid words like "lose, not, doing without, diet..." and use phrases like "shed weight, drop weight... but no it's about blah blah blah and about how poor eating habits affects your brain--depression, anxiety... More recycled stuff although it's important to notice that junk food is basically poison to the brain.

Then there's an article, "Lose Weight Quick at Home which you would hope would be more enlightenment but it's about more of the same recycled advice re getting supportive friends, making commitments..." Click here to read it--more blah, blah, blah.

Now for a great starting article, one with which you can relate, click here. It's called "Self Medicating with Food" which is about how food is used to avoid emotions. The advice again though is what worked for one person which involved him or her seeing a therapist to get at the root of his issues.

At this point, most over weight people are turned off because it's another thing to have to deal with. I mean you have to find a therapist and that itself may be a big problem. Who do you go to? Who really knows what they are doing? How long will it take to get results? Taking time to do it? The money it costs! The obstacles become a mountain and the whole idea of overcoming emotional eating becomes a huge project.

Well, from my personal experience in working with hundreds and hundreds of overweight people, therapy is not necessary. What is necessary is simply understanding the relationship between emotions, stress, and the reaction.

Literally its a 1,2,3 dance in life with #3 being the eating reaction. The goal is to discover how to deal with #1 and #2 and leave #3 out of the picture and that's what the Scale Conspiracy ebook and this blog is all about. The key is to allow you to experience the emotion at which time it disappears and so does the need for doing something about it.

Want to get a head start on dealing with emotional eating? You can purchase the best book, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) ever written about emotional eating now for only $14.95. It's a $39.00 value.

Emotional Eating "Hypnosis"

Hypnosis is a powerful subject. Actually it can be defined as the "art of suggestion." And suggestion can be given in a fully awake state of mind (awakened hypnosis) or a eyes closed relaxed state of mind.

This is one of my first mentions of the word "hypnosis." I began my career back in the 70's using hypnosis primarily for people who wanted to stop smoking or get thin or both. My initial experience in using hypnosis with losing weight was very uplifting with a group of approximately fifteen participants. Most were dropping weight for the first six weeks and then for the last four or five weeks, they gained most of it back. What a disappointment.

Fortunately I also had a private practice where I used stress management techniques in helping people get rid of headaches, anxiety... Some of them were overweight and the amazing thing is that they dropped the weight without focusing on the issue as they learned to manage stress.

Remember that hypnosis is the "art of suggestion." It turned out that by using stress managemnet techniques I knew a lot more about the types of suggestion than by using a straight hypnosis model I was taught.

So do I use hypnosis today? You bet I do and it's both in the awakened state and the relaxed state. Of course to take advantage of the relaxed state, that's where a series of powerful cds that I created and refined over the years come into play. If you know you want to add this powerful adjunct to the program click here.

Not sure but want to get a head start? You can purchase the best book, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) ever written about emotional eating now for only $14.95.

Emotional Eating "Like an Addiction to Drugs?"

Food can be an addiction--let's say addiction to certain foods.
Many of us are hypoglycemic because of the "sweet tooth." Sweets can be in the form of candy laden with sugar, or carbohydrates like pastries, cakes, bagels... made with white processed flour.
You have just one bite of the addictive substance and there's an incredible desire for more and more until you're stuffed.
Allergies to certain foods can likewise cause a similar response. The allergen in the food causes a blood sugar release resulting in a craving. Allergies can be to any unhealthy or healthy food or drink (such as orange juice). Or it can be a combination thing. You have a drink of coffee and there's an incredible desire for coffee cake. There's an interesting article, click here. He states that unlike drugs where you must stop them completely, with food we have to continue eating to live.
He's not exactly right about this. If you are addicted or allergic to any food, then it's important to stop eating that particular food. It's impracticable to even think about managing emotional eating until you stop eating completely the addictive food just as one has to stop drugs.
What foods might you be addicted or allergic to? Do you know how you would tell if you're allergic to a particular food?
Want to get a head start? You can purchase the best book, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) ever written about emotional eating now for only $14.95.

Emotional Eating "Recycled Advice?"

I noticed another article, Emotional Eating--Dare to Dream, click here to read it.
The author does a good job of describing how an emotional eater eats emotionally but then he uses recycled hypnosis to over come it by posing questions about dreaming your food to be nutritious, filling, fresh, crunchy... It says nothing new.

I ordered a few books about emotional eating to see if the other experts do more than what I've found in the articles I've been reading. I ordered Taming of the Chew, Shrink Yourself, and Breaking Free From Emotional Eating

Emotional Eating "Sweet Tooth"

Everyday I get an update on articles that have been published about emotional eating. As I read them it seems like there's a big humongous empty hole. They all attempt to identify what emotional eating is. The latest one identified emotional eating as people having a sweet tooth. Being an emotional eater myself, I must laugh because it's not always my sweet tooth that can get me in trouble, it could be my carbohydrate tooth which could be split up into my fruit tooth or my bread tooth, or my pasta tooth. And how about the salad tooth? Ever hear of anyone with a salad tooth? To read the article click here.

He does suggest observation which is the best place to start followed by his book, Free To Eat for $24.95. Maybe I should raise the price on mine which I will guarantee you is the most informative and useful book on Emotional Eating that you'll ever find.

Want to get a head start? You can purchase the best book, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) ever written about emotional eating now for only $14.95.

Emotional Eating "Four Levels of Eating"

There is an interesting theory that there are four levels of eating. Click here for the article. He starts the article by noting that empty calorie foods actually cause your body to give up nutrients to metabolize them which is true. Yes, that one pastry you eat every day actually robs your body of nutrients so that it may be metabolized and it does nothing to replenish the nutrients in your body.

The author then states his theory of four levels of eating. Level one being simply comfort eating which is linked with emotional eating. Level four is healthy eating. Aside from it being an exercise in classifications, there really isn't much in the article to provide insight about how to move from level one (the worse) to level four.

Want to get a head start on the emotional battle? You can purchase the best book, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) ever written about emotional eating now for only $14.95.

Emotional Eating "Ending the Binge"

Ending binging isn't that difficult, yet it helps to know what direction to go. Click here for and article in which the author believes one binges because they are on an unhealthy diet and because of how one thinks.

The author mentions that the word "diet" makes you think of all the things you've "given up." While I agree with his approach to thinking (in fact the first several of my posts about the words "losing" and "not" are hypnotic suggestions to cause one to eat--and there are many more covered in my ebook) I do not agree with his theory about one's diet contributing to binging.

Binging is 95+% created by one's own thinking mechanisms. At first one starts with the intent on just having a few bites of something and then rationalizes why a few more bites won't matter and before long those few bites become dozens and then there's a tremendous feeling of guilt as the package of chips is diminishing in size and one says, "what the hell, I might as well finish it off."

There is sometimes a feeling of self loathing and getting even with oneself for lack of control. You might think it semantics but whenever you try to "control" something it controls you. It's often helpful to know what the goal is and the goal is to "manage" one's eating habits.

The bottom line is that even though the article recognizes that binging is emotional eating, there's no direction as to how to deal with emotional eating. Not even the mention of stopping diluting the emotion.

Yes, binge eating can be stopped by taking the emotions straight and stopping their dilution. "Stop diluting" emotions is like "D day." The phrase "D Day" meant a coordination of forces along the entire European coast and likewise "stop diluting" emotions may be sufficient information for success, but often it's important to understand where emotions come from, how to experience them, how to set aside the stressors in life and leave food out of the picture even though the stressors are still unresolved and that's what my ebook, The Scale Conspiracy, shows you how to do.

Even if one has psychological issues deep seated as some would have you believe, one does not have to solve those issues or even attack them to be thin. I mean, haven't you ever seen a thin crazy person?

Want to get a head start on the emotional battle? You can purchase the best book, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) ever written about emotional eating now for only $14.95.

Emotional Binge Eating

There's an article on tips to curb binge eating. It is again the same old recycled tips and never mentions anything about emotions.

I'm very familiar with binge eating as I've had my share of binging in my life. And what I noticed is that the guilt of binging while I was binging over whelmed my sense of rationality. At first it was like, "OK a little of this won't hurt me." And then it was, "I already ate half of it, I may as well finish it," all the while feeling guilty hoping that I wouldn't repeat the same behavior the next day.
The challenge is to move beyond the guilt and observe the predominate emotion such as boredom and choose to take the emotion straight.

Back to observation. Today I had cereal in milk followed by one egg with a piece of bacon and toast for breakfast. For some reason my significant other made me two eggs and two pieces of toast. I decided to eat only one and save the other for later. No predominate emotion and I ate exactly what I chose.
By 1:00 pm I was bored and stopped in at the local Costco and ate a few samples to dilute my boredom.
By 5:00 pm I was home and finished the other egg, slice of bacon and toast followed by a nectarine. I observed that I was experiencing a sense of accomplishment for the afternoon.
When my significant other arrived home at 7:15 pm I ate a small leafy salad, two thirds of a Costco turkey burger, two tiny pieces of fried chicken, and one Chinese dumpling.

Don't know why but after dinner I notice a great desire for carbs. In the past I would have had a pastry and now choose to drink my second cup of hazel nut coffee for the day.

Later around 9:00pm while writing a stress management bulletin I walked by the kitchen island and noticed fresh cherries. Couldn't identify what emotion I was diluting as I ate about a half dozen cherries. I decided that whatever it was that it was affordable for me to dilute it.

You might have noticed that the last several days while observing my feeling and eating behavior it's basically an eating diary. One might suggest writing the diary throughout the day, but I choose to make mental notes instead and record them later.
Diaries are not necessary to drop weight, but can be an important tool. I suggest a diary such as I'm keeping connecting emotions with food. Join in, what can you lose?
Whoops, that word, "LOSE."

Emotional Eating "Big Life Problems?"

There's a good article which focuses you in the direction of identifying problems and then solving them. But unfortunately doesn't tell you how to embrace your emotions. It suggests that you find a counselor which is good if the counselor knows how to help you disengage food from your problems.

The article assumes that emotional eaters have emotional problems and that's not always true. Waking up late because of a malfunctioning alarm clock can contribute to you feeling pressured and food can be a way of diluting that feeling. So it would be silly to seek counseling for malfunctioning alarm clocks. Often it's simply a matter of identifying the emotion and what contributed to it. With some basic direction, you can learn to leave food out of the situation. Observing is the first step. It gives you an opportunity to identify the emotions and then you can trace back to the source of the emotion--the stressor.

Today I had a hearty breakfast of pancakes made with rye and millet flour and sweetened with honey and two tablespoons of rock road. I did this in preparation of a physically exerting day. I weighed myself after my gluttony on Sunday and was two pounds over what I was before the week-end started. Today the scale read four pounds down--my goal weight. It doesn't make sense and that's why I think the scale is a stupid instrument. Nevertheless I'm happy with it's reading although I have trouble believing it.

I returned from a tiring day at 4:00 in the afternoon and had an egg with two pieces of bacon on a slice of toast followed by an nectarine. Physically I'm tired and emotionally I'm flat.

For dinner at 8:00 pm when my significant other got home I had a green leafy salmon salad and a small portion of some Korean fish cakes she brought home. After wards I felt hungry for desert and observed a feeling of being left out as my significant other and her daughter spoke Chinese. I chose to take the feeling straight with a cup and a half of coffee.

For all there is to know about emotional eating order the Scale Conspiracy Ebook for just $15.00.

If you already know you want the accompanying hypnotic cds, all four plus the ebook are just $59.95 plus postage.

Emotional Eating "De Stress Before You Eat"

Click here for an interesting article

They attempt to figure out why we eat when we're stressed and theorize it might have something to do with the fight or flight. How silly is that? The answer is that different types of stress leads to different emotions. The brain has two primary directives:
1. Survival
2. Pleasure seeking

When we dealt with stress as a baby and were frustrated about anything, the bottle was the answer. As children whenever we were stressed with upset with school and came home crying, cookies and milk was the answer. Thus we were programed that food helped us survive.

Whenever we had a birthday, holiday, special occasion(and there are about six to ten every year in every family) there was the eustress of family and wall-to-wall food. When dad took you for a Sunday ride the eustress of enjoying the family together was stopping at Dairy Queen or Friendly's.

Thus we're conditioned since childhood to relate food with distress (bad stress) and food with eustress (good stress).

The answer to solving the emotional eating is to solve your stress before being around food. Wow, you'd have to be some sort of machine or cybernaught to do that.

Back to observing--I hope you begin to share your experiences in this blog as the first step to any real change is observation rather than jumping in, expending a lot of energy and ending up with disappointment.

I had my one egg breakfast with toast and two pieces of bacon. I noticed a sense of apprehension for my plans for the day.

For dinner I observed tiredness and a sense of accomplishment for the afternoon's events. My significant other prepared a northern Chinese style dinner with rice, eggs, potatoes. I had one helping and a piece of water melon after a nap for desert after which I noticed an incredible urge for ice cream. I observed a feeling of tiredness or hangover from my nap and chose to take it straight and instead of ice cream drank a cup of coffee.

Please take an opportunity to share your observations. Remember there is no right or wrong, good or bad with your feelings and emotions or what you do or do not consume.

Want to get a head start on the emotional battle? You can purchase the best book, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) ever written about emotional eating now for only $14.95.

Emotional Eating "The Aftermath of Gluttony"

Today was an opportunity to forget about food to make up for the gluttony of yesterday. I had a scrambled egg on toast for breakfast. Actually I was going to skip breakfast, but my significant other prepared it for me and I enjoyed it.

I did a lot of driving today, pulled into a couple rest stops and easily dismissed any thoughts about food. Emotionally it was an semi rewarding day and I felt moderately happy.

For dinner I planned on only a leafy green salad, but my significant other prepared an ear of sweet corn and a noodle soup with lots of cut greens which I also enjoyed. After dinner I checked my email to find out that a newsletter I published yesterday had an incorrect url.

I was a bit stressed out and frustrated searching for the correct url. I observed a temptation for coffee and desert and chose to take the frustration straight drinking only the coffee and leaving the desert out of my evening.

Want to get a head start on the emotional battle? You can purchase the best book, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) ever written about emotional eating now for only $14.95.

Emotional Eatng "A Gluttonous Experience"

Are you tired of observing yet? I hope not. I mean there are alternatives. One fellow claims to have discovered the answer to emotional eating (at least for himself). Click here to read his discovery

Read as much of it as you like and then skim down to the comments. There's really no mention of dealing with emotions, he just used an approach that's been used for decades and decades and there's nothing wrong with what he did, but what he did is impractical for the majority of over eaters as the comments indicate.

Just returned from my family reunion where as I planned I was gluttonous. I noticed (observed) my choice of gluttony and was free of guilt. Because of my present body weight being within three or four pounds of my goal, eating my family reunion was affordable.
More later...

Want to get a head start on the emotional battle? You can purchase the best book, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) ever written about emotional eating now for only $14.95.

Emotional Eating "More Observation"

Today was a rainy miserable day. Breakfast consisted of one large pancake made with rye and millet flour with two large strawberries and two tablespoons of rocky road ice cream with butter and honey.

Emotionally I was rather flat and consumed a reasonable breakfast. My morning was quite busy and went to lunch with a feeling of accomplishment. First, I was going to skip lunch and then realized that it would be about 6:30 pm before dinner so I had a small small piece of chocolate cake and a 1/2 cup of milk.

The afternoon was equally busy and dinner time arrived again with a feeling of accomplishment. I could have made more sausage but instead was very content with one sausage with pepper and onions. As usual I removed most of the bread from the hoagie and was left with mostly the shell full of the sausage, peppers and onions. I also had a beer (average about four beers per month--only drink them when I eat sausage, peppers, and onions, pizza, or lasagna). I felt tired and I observed that emotionally I simply had a good feeling of finishing the day with a slight ache in my back.

I finished dinner with a cup of coffee and a normal size piece of chocolate cake. I noticed how easy it is to feel guilt as I enjoyed it, but on the other hand knew that it there was no consequence to the cake.

I notice a pleasant sense of fullness from a very moderate intake of food during the day for which I'm pleased.

This weekend I'll be attending a family reunion and I have every intention of pigging out. But then I'm open to whatever happens.

Observe your feeling and eating behavior for a day and post it. Remember no judgements one way or the other. If you feel pleased with your behavior that's ok, if you feel displeased, that's ok too.

Want to get a head start on the emotional battle? You can purchase the best book, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) ever written about emotional eating now for only $14.95.

Emotional Eating "More Observation"

Today I observed that I was feeling put-out. I had a whole set of plans for the morning. At 7:30 am my son who works for me during the summer while he's off from college called to tell me that he was not feeling well.

Of all days for this to happen. Usually I'd do my stress management thing and say, "so what" about the day's plans and reschedule everything that concerned his job. But he had an important job to do today and guess who filled in for him--me. I had to say, "so what" to my plans and get up early to do his job for the day.

I had scrambled eggs with a piece of toast for breakfast. Then I had a small piece of chocolate cake and a cup of coffee. A few months ago when I was eating my stressors it would have been a danish. Instead I now bake my own cake with stevia as a sweetener--zero calories--and I use rye and millet flour instead of white flour.

At noon the feelings of being "put-out" were paramount as I noticed (observed) myself consuming a small burrito along with a small root beer.

I would normally skip lunch but today I diluted the "Put-out" feeling with a burrito.

I re planned my afternoon to get some of my morning plans done only to fall way short of my goals resulting in a low level of frustration.

By dinner time at 7:00 pm (that's when my significant other arrives home) I observed myself eating a second chicken sausage sandwich with peppers and onions. I noticed the frustration, was unhappy about it, and noticed the extra sandwich.

I then observed myself having a small piece of my chocolate cake with coffee and the feeling of uncertainty of tomorrow's schedule.

I was free of judging my eating behavior today or making it right or wrong. I can say that I'm unhappy about the extra sausage sandwich and that I'd prefer to stop diluting my feelings.

This is how to observe your behavior.

Want to get a head start on the emotional battle? You can purchase the best book, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) ever written about emotional eating now for only $14.95.

Emotional Eating "Rules for Observation"

To observe is simply to observe without judgements or coming to conclusions.

So you have an occasion where you "pig out." Observing means that you are free of any judgements about that experience such as, "I pigged out." That's a judgment. Or to call yourself stupid or dumb or a pig for over eating is simply coming to a conclusion about you.

To observe is to simply think, "I ate more than I desired and I was feeling bored." That's it--nothing more. There's no good or bad, right or wrong behavior.

It's a challenge to observe and be free of coming to conclusions. With practice you will improve your skill. The bigger challenge is to acknowledge what emotion you might be feeling at the time. Let me know how you are doing.

Want to get a head start on the emotional battle? You can purchase the best book, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) ever written about emotional eating now for only $14.95.

Emotional Eating Planning

Let's jump into emotional eating. The first posts were basically about how your thinking can stand in the way of success in shedding weight. There are some more suggestions we'll look at as we go along. But for now let's jump into emotional eating.

Click here for an article which is interesting to read. The bottom line is that the author suggests Making Plans Now Before Overeating Takes Control

This is to not give into emotional eating. Plan now to be aware of what triggers over eating and by so doing it will help prevent it in the future. And then focus on your positive changes leading to long term happiness.

Again, as I read this there's nothing here in their bottom line that hasn't been done a hundred times already. Essentially my opinion is that the author recognizes the effects of emotional and binge eating (also emotional) but then simply jumps on the bandwagon of applying all the old recycled advice to the problem of emotional eating.

What would I have you do that's different?

The first step in making effective change is to observe. Thinking of plans at this moment is a waste of time. Now if you are in a hurry to drop all that weight that took years to accumulate, then go use some of the recycled stuff and come back to this blog in a year of two and tell me why I'm wrong or why I'm right.

Observe what? Observe the emotions (what you are feeling) as you are eating. What predominate feelings do you have? Do you only eat when you are frustrated? or only when you are bored? or only when you are down? or only when you feel happy? or are there several emotions that accompany the eating habit. Please feel free to answer these questions.

If you just joined in this blog this would be your first step. No need to attempt to do any changing yet. More about how to observe in my the next posting as there are some basic rules to follow in "observation."

Want to get a head start on the emotional battle? You can purchase the best book, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) ever written about emotional eating now for only $14.95.

Emotional Eating "Why "Not" will Kill any Success"

If you tell a child he/she can't have something, a temper tantrum is a typical reaction. But what does this have to do with the person who over eats?

Back in the 70's the field of transactional analysis was born. Basically it says that within each of us there is a child and a parent. And there is the possibility of an adult.

Parents tell children what they shouldn't do and children fight back with temper tantrums. So when you tell you that you shouldn't eat something, that's your parent speaking. The child within you silently says, "I'll teach you, I'll create a temper tantrum." Who wins? Well if you were anorexic, the parent wins, if you're overweight, the child wins and you eat.

The goal is to bring out the adult within us and use more effective self communication which I'll cover in the next post.

Want to get a head start on the emotional battle? You can purchase the best book, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) ever written about emotional eating now for only $14.95.