Diet, Excersise and Determination - diet.web-angels.co.uk

Nicole Ransom is the very image of a California girl: long, bronzed legs, sun-kissed hair, curves in all the right places. But it wasn’t always that way.

The advertising-sales rep is a mere wisp of the woman she was back in 1999, when her weight peaked at 231.6 pounds (she remembers the number exactly). Over four years, she lost 100 pounds through a combination of diet and exercise—and a heavy dose of determination.

Food was a constant focus when she was growing up. “When we would go out to eat, I couldn’t pay attention to the conversation until I ordered and my meal came. That’s how focused I was on food,” Ransom says.

Her outgoing personality and take-me-as-I-am attitude won her tons of friends—but few dates. “I was the guys’ girl,” she says. “There were guys who liked me for my personality, but then they would want to keep our relationship a secret. That’s what really hurt.”

Over the years, Ransom tried a litany of diets, but nothing stuck. “It was always a short-term goal: to fit into a dress, get a guy,” she says.

Then, she signed up for Weight Watchers … again.

But this time, something was different. “I decided to do it for me,” she says. And the pounds started coming off. Ransom lost 50 pounds over six months, and dropped another 20 when she started running.

“I was so jazzed that I could actually do it!” she says. Ransom lost the last 30 pounds by eating fewer packaged foods and more fresh fruits and vegetables.

Now, the girl who was recruited to anchor her grade school tug-of-war team three years in a row is standing tall at 130 pounds.

“It’s still a struggle,” she says, particularly because her job on Health’s sales team involves a lot of entertaining. “I have to deal with people urging me, ‘Just one bite.’”

But when Ransom does indulge, it’s not because someone else wants her to. “Now, I decide when I cave.”

Emotional Eating - http://diet.web-angels.co.uk/articles.htm

Occasional emotional eating is normal. Everyone has celebrated with food before, that's what birthday parties, Christmas lunch and BBQ's on SuperBowl day and the Forth of July are all about. But emotional eating can become a serious problem when it leads to negative emotional and physical imbalances in our lives.

Frequent emotional eating can easily become a destructive cycle. Emotional eating becomes entrenched in the lives of its sufferers when they use food to regulate their mood, cope with stress or overcome feelings of anxiety or boredom.

This type of behaviour can easily lead emotional eaters to become overweight or obese because many of them feel hungry most of the time.

"Satisfying" this insatiable hunger with food, many emotional eaters consume far more calories than their body needs and they gain a lot of weight which becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible to lose.

Common signs of Emotional Eating

Here are some common signs of emotional eating:

Eating when not physically hungry.

Eating during times of strong emotions, like anger or depression.

Eating when bored.

Rapid eating.

Eating immediately after arriving home from work.

Eating alone out of embarrassment at the quantity or type of food being eaten.

Eating until uncomfortably full.

Feelings of disgust, depression, or guilt after overeating.

Recognizing emotional hunger

Recognizing emotional hunger (as apposed to real physical hunger) is one of the keys to overcoming or staving off frequent emotional eating.

Some of the characteristics of emotional hunger include:

Emotional hunger comes on suddenly.

One minute you're not hungry at all and the next minute you're starving.

Emotional hunger often craves specific food, like pizza, candy or a cheeseburger.

Emotional hunger begins in the mouth and the mind, not the stomach.

Emotional hunger often accompanies an unpleasant emotion.

Emotional hunger involves automatic or absent-minded eating.

Emotional hunger isn't satisfied when you're full.

Emotional hunger makes you feel guilty.

Are you an emotional eater?

To find out if you might be an emotional eater, rate yourself on the following statements about your current lifestyle (adapted from the book Fattitudes: Beat Self-Defeat and Win Your War with Weight, by Jeffrey R., Ph.D. Wilbert, Norean K. Wilbert, St Martin's Press, NY, 2000.) using the scale:

0 = Never

1 = Rarely

2 = Sometimes

3 = Often

4 = Almost Always

1. I've try to lose weight, but always fail.

2. I don't feel in control of my eating.

3. I often eat when I'm not hungry.

4. I eat food when I'm stressed or upset.

5. I eat food for pleasure or as a reward.

6. I think about food a lot.

7. I can't stay on track when dieting.

8. I binge eat.

9. I feel ashamed of myself and my eating habits.

10. Food helps me deal with feelings.

Add up your TOTAL SCORE

Interpretation:

0 – 10. It is very unlikely that you are an emotional eater.

11 – 20. You engage in some emotional eating but it's unlikely that it is harmful.

21 – 30. You are a moderate emotional eater and should consider professional assistance.

31 - 40 You are a heavy emotional eater. Professional assistance is highly recommended.

What to do if emotional eating is a problem

Here are some suggestions that may help you overcome problematic emotional eating:

Become aware of your motivations for wanting to eat.

When you feel like eating, ask yourself if you could possibly be upset instead of hungry.

Keep believing in yourself. You are in control and have the power to make changes in your life.

Develop new mood regulation strategies. For example, share your problems when anxious and exercise when you're bored.

Remember support is available. If you need to, find a weight loss class, hire a lifestyle coach or engage a licensed therapist.

Focus on the things that matter. Like taking care of yourself, improving your emotional well-being, eating well and exercising.

Be wary of using diets. Dieting can lead to more emotional eating and won't help you to address the underlying reasons for being overweight.

Love yourself for who you are and forget about trying to be perfect.

Don't swallow your emotions for the sake of sparing others from getting upset. If they've upset you, let them know about it and tell them that you won't tolerate that kind of behavior in the future.

Make yourself - not a diet - responsible for what you eat.

Focus on the cause and solution rather than the affect. Constantly focusing on the negative symptoms of the problem won't help you solve them. Focus on what you're going to do about your current circumstances rather than the circumstances themselves.

Take responsibility for your life, stop thinking about food and LIVE!

Conclusion

Remember, we're all emotional eaters to some extent. It's nearly impossible not to be in America, where eating is an integral part of our celebration rituals and a fundamental aspect of our family and social life. But when emotional eating interferes with your health and happiness you know it's time to do something about it and the sooner the better.