Tag Archives: emotional eating

The De-Stress Diet and 5 Foods for a Better Mood

Eat more when you’re stressed? You’re not alone. In fact, all that stress eating can pack on an additional 11 pounds each year! Most of us are quick to turn to sugar and refined carbs the second tension gets high. When we feel overwhelmed, we seek out comforting food, giving it the power to make us feel better…and then worse.

A national survey conducted by NPR, Harvard School of Public Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, found that most changes to diet occurs during stressful times. And these changes aren’t always for the best.

The foods we choose under stress, like chocolate or simple carbohydrates such as bagels or white pasta, often take you on a hormonal roller coaster: surging and crashing hormone and blood sugar levels which leaves you more susceptible to new stresses than when you started. It’s a vicious cycle that must be stopped! (more…)

Posted on July 31, 2024 by Katie McGrath

A Fork in the Road: European Eating Beyond the Mediterranean Diet

Americans love fad diets. There is a long history of attaching ourselves to the next fad, dating back to the Vinegar diet in 1820. (No wonder I am constantly being asked to find a quick fix to the growing obesity epidemic in our country.) However, this is not the case in Europe where food culture and traditions hold fast against the deep pockets of the weight loss industry. Europeans have an innate sense to diet sensibly without falling victim to the 40 billion dollar weight loss industry that we Americans buy into year after year.

Luckily, the tide may be turning in the U.S. The Federal Trade Commission recently announced an initiative against deceptive claims made by marketers of fad weight loss products. From food additives to dietary supplements, the government is making a move to intervene and crack down on deceptive and misleading propaganda.

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Posted on January 21, 2024 by GuestBlogger

Ramani Durvasula Lost 81 Pounds When She Jumped to the Dirty Plate Club

When Ramani Durvasula’s young daughter became ill, she took stock of her life and realized that her daughter’s condition may be out of her control, but her personal health was not. As a licensed clinical psychologist and professor of psychology, Ramani was in tune to why she was overweight, she just needed a new perspective. By adopting some “old school,” habits, Ramani lost 81 pounds.

As the mother of four children, Ramani noticed the creeping-on of weight over the years. She attributed it to less activity, not being mindful of what she ate and the common pitfall, emotional eating. “I used food as a one stop shop – lover, friend, numbing agent, celebration tool, kleenex – just about everything,” she said.

Like many women, Ramani thought she knew what she weighed but after a frustrating night preparing for a date with her husband, she began to wonder. “I knew I had put on a little weight, but figured I should be able to toss on some oversized garments my mom brought me back from India,” she explained. “I put these big tent clothes on and dress after dress ripped. I was mortified, sad and confused. I stepped on a scale – assuming I would weigh in at about 160 pounds. I stepped on and it registered 202 pounds.”

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Posted on November 30, 2023 by Dani Stone

Hungry or Bored: Is Your Eating Emotional or Essential?

Hunger:

1. a feeling of discomfort or weakness caused by lack of food, coupled with the desire to eat.
2. a severe lack of food
3. a strong desire or craving

Those are the dictionary definitions of hunger. But what does hunger really mean? If you break hunger down to the most basic definition, what is it?

A medical definition states that hunger is “an uneasy sensation occasioned normally by the lack of food and resulting directly from stimulation of the sensory nerves of the stomach by the contraction and churning movement of the empty stomach.”

We’ve determined hunger is the contraction and churning of an empty stomach. Now when was the last time your stomach was truly empty? Claims vary on just how long a healthy, well-nourished person can survive without food; usually it’s somewhere in the area of three to ten weeks. However, the feeling of hunger usually happens after just a few hours of not eating.

Our resident nutrition expert, Mary Hartley, R.D., recommends using the Hunger-Fullness scale to determine how hungry you are. The scale goes from one to ten, with one being extremely hungry and ten being extremely full. “It’s best to train yourself to eat at 2.5-3.0 and stop at 7.5-8.0, and then get hungry again in 4-5 hours.” (more…)

Posted on November 12, 2024 by Elizabeth

4 Reasons Your Diet is Doomed to Fail

Diets don’t work. It seems like such an obvious, undeniable statement. But if it is true, why does the diet industry continue to thrive? Well, because people always want to lose weight. So when one diet fails to achieve the desired results, it’s off to the next one. In some cases like with major commercial diet brands, they’ve created such a strong brand loyalty that people will often go back to their approach over and over again.

While pondering this simple but important question of why diets fail, I asked two health authors and advocates to chime in.

“In my experience, the key question isn’t ‘Why do diets fail?’, but instead ‘Why do experts keep telling us to eat in ways that we can’t keep up?’,” said Jonathan Bailor, author of The Smarter Science of Slim.

In simplest terms, it’s a matter of supply and demand. It’s just that in this case, the consumer continually goes back to a product that fails them. Could you imagine any other industry this logic would work for?

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Posted on June 13, 2024 by Jason

Colleen Fields Lost 124 Pounds by Food Journaling and Taking Control of Her Life

When most people start a diet, they focus on the numbers that appear on the scale, but Colleen Fields had a different sort of goal in mind, her dress size. In January 2024, Colleen weighed 304 pounds and wore a size 26 W. Her goal was to shed enough weight so that she could wear a size 12 by her 40th birthday. She knew she had just under two years to make it happen.

As a child, Colleen remembers being “chubby,” but says her real struggle with weight didn’t occur until after she had her second child. She gained 75 pounds with her son and never shed the extra weight. Then, a divorce and the demands of being a single parent caused her to gain even more.

Colleen explains, “I had a terrible marriage that left me with significant self-esteem issues. I left him shortly after my son was born and I poured myself into my kids (I also have a daughter, same father, who is three years older). I went back to school, I worked full-time, and I shuttled them to all of the normal kid activities – Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, gymnastics, baseball, soccer, dance, swimming, etc. I wanted to give them as much of a normal childhood as possible despite the fact that their father was not involved in their lives, and in the process I ignored myself. I would leave work, pick them up from day care, take them to their activities, grab fast food, get home and do homework, then put them to bed and I would do my own homework. There was no time for me and I didn’t make me a priority.”

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Posted on May 18, 2024 by Dani Stone

The Four-Star Diet is Not a Book for People Who are Attracted to Fad Diets

I would never guess by her images on Google that Laura Wellington used to struggle with her weight. But she uses diet-talk to describe her former mindset when she says, “I’m just in my self-destructive mode, but I can always go back on a diet.” Eventually, Laura does change her perspective in many small ways that add up to a critical mass when she becomes fundamentally changed. Exactly how she did it is not the point. Laura is simply writing about the lessons she learned for living a meaningful life along the way.

Somehow, Laura, a young widow, mother of four, owner of a TV show and brand, turned it all around. In trying to explain how she did it, she was inspired by a presentation, A Leadership Primer, on victory in business and life made by General Colin Powell. She applied Powell’s twenty principles for business to a weight-controlled life, and she sprinkled her new book, The Four Star Diet, with personal anecdotes and advice from inspirational leaders like Gandhi and Einstein. The book has only 136 pages and you don’t have to read it in order.

Laura Wellington believes that weight control is about taking personal responsibility for choices in less than optimum circumstances. As a result, she asks you to “reflect daily,” “look below the surface,” and “live fearlessly!” When General Powell asserts, “Endeavors succeed and fail because of the people involved,” Laura interprets it as, “Birds of a feather flock together,” and then explains how positive role models provide invaluable visual lessons, while toxic people in your life must change or perish. She takes no prisoners, in the best possible way. (more…)

Posted on February 28, 2024 by Natalie K

Katie Lowe Lost 130 Pounds With a Blog and a Simple Approach to Health

Katie Lowe may seem like your typical 25-year-old girl living in the London and loving life, but one look at her journey and you’ll quickly realize she has quite a unique story. Katie had always been heavy, struggling with her weight even as a child. But after an accident at the age of 19 left her unable to walk for two years, the weight piled on.

At her heaviest Katie weighed 290 pounds and she grew quite desperate. But after making health a priority and changing the way she approached diet and fitness, the pounds began to fall off.

After getting off track in late 2024, Katie turned around and created her blog, Fat Girl, PhD, in 2024 as a resolution of sorts – to hold herself accountable to the healthy lifestyle changes she sought to make.

Today Katie is a trim 160 pounds, just 15 pounds shy of her goal weight and a completely changed person. We had the pleasure of speaking with Katie recently about her incredible journey. Here’s what she had to say.

What specific changes did you make to your diet to lose weight?
I tried to cut out processed foods wherever I could, switching sugary snacks and drinks for healthy, nutritious meals. I also had to learn to eat the right amount – because when you’re eating the right things, you have to eat more of them than you think! Losing weight doesn’t mean starving yourself – it means eating well and enjoying real food. (more…)

Posted on January 4, 2024 by Dana

Mindfully Eat Your Way to Weight Loss This Fall

In many parts of the country, fall is one of the most beautiful times of the year. Other bonuses of the season including being able to exercise outdoors without fear of heat stroke and the holidays are quickly bringing family an friends together. However, that’s also a downside. With the holidays comes the lure of many enticing foods that will quickly pack on the pounds. Fad diets that promise quick weight loss may show results at first, but many times lost weight is regained as soon as the holiday decor is taken down.

Before this holiday season gives you even more reasons to overeat, change your bad eating habits in favor of ones with lasting weight loss.

We spoke with Susan Albers, PsyD., a clinical psychologist and author of Eating Mindfully, to hear her advice on how to achieve weight loss goals through permanent changes in eating habits.

“Seventy-five percent of overeating is caused by emotions, yet most of our diets focus on food, which is why they fail,” she said. “They don’t teach what to do for cravings or slip ups.”

Instead of another diet failing, focus on what she calls mindful eating. It’s not a diet with menus or recipes, instead it’s about changing psychological habits. “It’s more about how you eat than what you eat,” Dr. Albers said. (more…)

Posted on October 2, 2024 by SarahS

The Worst Time To Cheat On Your Diet

Waking to the news about the theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, this morning reminded me a lot of September 11, 2001.

My responses were somewhat different, but prior to both tragedies, I had received sad news about death and loss impacting me and those close to me in quick succession. Just this week, two families I know lost babies and other friends experienced other losses. With social media, I was also exposed to the losses of friends of friends. In 2001, I had been to four funerals in just the few months prior to 9/11. Today, the sky is gray and it matches how I think many people are feeling.

When we are stressed, we tend to reach for sugary or fatty foods. It is kind of a natural craving, but it doesn’t mean that it will help you manage your stress. While we may be most tempted to cheat on our diet plans when we are stressed or grieving, it might be the worst time to do it. (more…)

Posted on July 20, 2024 by Brooke Randolph

Tag Archives: emotional eating

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