What to do about a food addiction?

Question

Well long story short I think i have a food addiction, basically almost every time i walk by the kitchen or have nothing else on my mind i am thinking about the food that i want to eat, and usually...i end up get that food or some food/calorie filled drink, i am now up to 159 from 145 and i really want to lose weight and get toned, but in addition to excercise i really need to drop the food addiction, does anyone have any ideas to drop the addiction?

i only want intellegent answers, and no one telling me to develop an eating disorder like bulemia or anorexia

Answer 1

Make a list of the foods that you "crave" the most during these times. Make lists of the ingredients of each one and compare them.

Does each one have corn syrup/citric acid/dextrose (or fake sugars) in it?
Does each food have something in common?

Try to rule out if you're craving something because you're missing some kind of nutrient in your diet, or if you're craving something special in the food.

If you're constantly wanting something with one particular ingredient (say milk, wheat, corn, etc), then you may have a physical addiction to that ingredient. If so, knowledge is power and avoiding that ingredient in all foods will help you break that addiction.. though do be prepared to go through withdrawl and detox.

If you've studied your cravings and there is absolutely nothing in common in any of the foods, then make sure you're taking a good multivitamin, drinking plenty of water and getting adamant protein.

Keep yourself busy and try to limit the things in your house to foods that you can "pig out" on.. like raw veggies and other healthy foods.

When those thoughts of food cravings come to mind, shoo them away and replace it with something you can have. Make a list of foods that you can have.

Like.. veggie salad with vinegar, oil, salt, pepper, and a touch of honey. Or tuna salad lettuce wraps (light on the mayo, heavy on the lettuce). Or whatever else you think of that is healthy, high in fiber (filling), and tasty.

It'll take a while to combat the cravings, but having a list of options to stick to during these times really helps keep your mind on task (diet) and from roaming to macaroni and cheese or ice cream. :)

Btw.. if you do cheat on the diet.. IE.. a bowl of ice cream.. Use real ice cream with real ingredients, not the "light" stuff. The fat in the real ice cream will fill you up faster and quench the craving faster. Light ice creams don't fill you up at all, they're pure sugar.. so you end up eating more of it without the satisfaction. (Also don't eat out of the container, make a small bowl. You can always go back for seconds if you need to, but its less tempting if you have to get back up and get the ice cream back out of the freezer.)

Good Luck

Answer 2

self control - food is replacement for something else like boredome or loneliness or anger etc.
if your kitchen is the biggest trigger are - find two pictures - one where you look the worst (thickest) and one where you look the best - put them on the fridge and every time you want to open it look at pictures and decide which way you are gona go depending on what food choices you make
Eating small meals every 2-3 hours will keep blood sugar from crashing and give your body energy when it needs it and doesnt have any extra left to store in fat reserves (which happens when you eat 3 big meals a day) - have 5-6 small meals a day
have 5-8 servings of fruit and veggies a day and 8 glasses of water
find daily calorie intake calculator on the net, enter all your stats and it will tell you how many calories you need a day to maintain, take off 300-400cal off that number and thats how much you need to lose.
have complex carbs for breakfast - they give you energy
have protein (lean meat, legumes etc) for dinner - repairs muscle
cardio is the only fat burning exercise and burns fat all over your body (running, jogging, swimming, spinning, elliptical etc) 4-6 times a week for 30-50min (ideally 45min because the first 20-30min body burns carbs and only then starts burning fat), light weight training (more muscle=faster metabolism)
dont consume foods that are made of white flour (white bread, cakes, pasta etc.), sugar loaded foods (cookies, icecream, candy etc) and nothing fried, oily.
ofcourse you can spoil yourself once in a while with a little treat:)

Answer 3

i know what you mean. i think i have a food addiction as well. heres what happened. everyone calls me a big guy cause im tall but im also big boned. but i have fat as well. im not huge, im at the point where people will say "no hes not fat" about me, but i am. last summer, i went to the doctor's and i weighed 253. i was shocked, and that, along with seeing a friend that came over that summer whom i hadnt seen in months really thin, plus having seen someone die right in front of me in a motorcycle accident, put me into shock [the last two happened in the same day] and i couldnt eat. i started going to my nearby track and for a month, i only ate like healthy, tasteless food cause i didnt have the stomach to eat anything and i didnt eat a lot, and i went to the track everyday. and i lost 28 pounds, i was down to 225. and when i went back to school at the end of that month everyone was sayin "woah you lost a lotta weight". and i started to regain my appetite then, and in february which was like 7 months later i went to the doctor again to see if i had cancer and they weighed me and i weighed 232, so i'd gained 7 pounds. now i went back again the other day and i weighed 246, and ive been eating a lot because im home and a lot of times im upset because of my family so i eat and it suppresses the negative feelings and im shocked that im up to 246. yesterday i tried to go the whole day just eating fruits and vegetables, and i ate a lot and thats all i ate, till at night when i saw these small moonpies and so i just ate like 5 or 6 of em. and i woke up this morning and tried the fruit and vegetable thing again but i guess it didnt work. thisll sound weird, but i wanna be traumatized again, because a year ago today, i started goin to the track and only ate a little cause i couldnt eat. i mean along with the trauma, i was disgusted of myself for my weight and what i looked like. as far as any advice, idk. but right now i think i have a food addiction as well. maybe you should busy yourself so youre never around food, that way youre not eating too much.

Answer 4

keep eating food cause if you don't Ur metabolism is going to slow down. cut back to no more then 1400 cal a day. Trick your mind with certain foods. get sugar free stuff like Popsicles, jelly,pudding,low carb soy milk. mix things together to. if you feel like your going to binge badly eat vegetables till you can no longer stand.

Answer 5

eat infront of the mirror, half naked, you probably wouldnt want to eat then, and drink water 10 times a day, keeps you full and raises your metabolism, and there is no such thing as being fat from water
good luck :)