If you could only put down the fork and back away from the table then maybe you wouldn’t have such a problem with food. If you could only stop going out late especially to buy junk, then maybe you might not be so miserable.

You feel greedy.

You feel weak.

But honestly, you are neither.

If it was that simple, you would have done it by now wouldn’t you?

Well now you can make it that much easier.  Stop food cravings by discovering the 2 crucial foods that diminish intense cravings for good and give YOU back control.

Where can you learn this?  Simply visit Combat Your Cravings now and start living the slimmer life you always wanted to without obsessing over food.

My addiction to food messed up my relationships. Sometimes I was so hung over from bingeing I couldn’t get out of bed to be in time for meeting friends and couldn’t return calls. I was desperate to feel complete that I took more from friends than I gave. I was in a miserable state of affairs. I often pretended to be interested in others companies but really I had a deep empty hole inside of me and felt self absorbed and selfish.

I had no energy, my self esteem was missing. I just craved all day and night. The thing is it never occurred to me that I had an issue with food. I just thought I had an issue with life. Whenever I went anywhere or did anything the food was my main attraction and even at parties I would eat and eat but try to do it secretly by moving around the room and hiding junky foods under the healthy looking foods. By moving about and talking to lots of people I avoided anyone seeing exactly how much I was eating.

It was only when I came across an article about emotional eating that I realized I had an issue with food and not with life. I learnt about how food is physically addictive and thus can affect your mood that way but also through emotional addiction too. I was trapped and I would never have realized this without being lucky enough to stumble across the info.

I followed the advice on an online book called Combat Your Cravings. I ate properly and found my physical cravings diminished considerably. I felt I was able to function properly and didn’t eat a refined sugar fix as soon as I wok in the morning.

But my biggest properly was my emotional eating. Everyday after work I still found it impossible not to binge and overeat. It was only until I read Shrink Yourself and then enrolled in the online program that I was able to successfully become in charge of my life.

Both the books I mentioned have been my life savers without their information I don’t think I would have overcome my overeating.

If you overeat I highly recommend you read these articles and start working through your issues today!

Stop Overeating

Many people, especially women are addicted to chocolate. Some even prefer it to sex. But what exactly is chocolate’s appeal?Well first of all chocolate is an addictive substance. Chocolate targets the same area of your brain as heroin, and although not to the same degree as heroin still have a powerful hold over many people. I know that I would go out especially, even at 1am, to get my chocolate fix. Those few moments of pleasure seemed worth it to me.

Eventually though, we can all become sick of our lives evolving around chocolate. It might not seem so bad having chocolate once in a while, but then it turns into everyday, several times a day and you wonder why you want it so much.

You can overcome chocolate cravings, I did. It was easier than I initially thought. Once I knew how to eat properly and eat a TRULY healthy diet I managed to completely eliminate my physical cravings for good. The book Combat Your Cravings helped me in my battle and it can help you too.

However, physical cravings were only half the battle for me. It was easy to give it up once I ate properly, but there were the moments of emotional distress that lured me back to chocolate. I used it to comfort me; I used it to soothe me. Instead of working out and focusing on what I really needed, I just numbed myself with a big ol’ chocolate bar!

So I started to observe myself and started noting down what feelings triggered my cravings. I then started to work through my feelings – allowing myself to feel and also getting support. A great book that helped me was Shrink Yourself. It really opened my eyes up to why I was so reliant on chocolate. The guy who wrote Shrink Yourself (Roger Gould) also has an online 12 week intensive program to help people overcome emotional eating, if one struggles to do it alone. The website also has some great resources as well and a great selection of useful articles on the subject.

Anyway once I was able to overcome my emotional needs for chocolate and start really addressing my true underlying needs and desires. I managed to quit chocolate for good. I don’t miss it. I don’t feel deprived. Chocolate tasted great and I love it, but it didn’t love me back. It just made me moody, irritable and miserable. I am so glad that part of my life is over with!

Stop Chocolate Cravings

Sometimes cravings are a sign that our needs aren’t being met. For most of us, we are working 9 to 5, then coming home to deal with family – potentially cooking, dealing with kids and there just seems to be no time to do what we want to do, to relax, to be creative, to do things we enjoy. Even at weekends it feels like there is no time.

Most of us end up sitting in front of the TV, munching out as a way to deal with life and not having time, not having energy. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

If you want to overcome cravings you need to first start eating properly. Eat nourishing foods.

And secondly you need to start getting your needs met. One of these needs is relaxation/creative.

Giving yourself time to relax is very important in a world that is full of everyday stressors. Whether this is having a nice hot bath at the end of a long day, or dipping into a book, spending time with your partner etc. it is important for your health.

Being creative is also important. Diving into something you love has incredible power to it – writing a story, playing the guitar or painting a picture. Whatever your interests get creative! Life isn’t all about going to work – bring some spark back into your life and do not neglect your interests. Not sure what you are interested in? Try different things and get creative!

By fulfilling just this one need you should see a reduction in cravings and a better overall sense of well being.

Stop Cravings

Lots of people are emotional eaters but have no clue that they are.  When we first start realizing that we have an issue with our food, there are two things that we must acknowledge: physical cravings and emotional cravings.  For emotional cravings, we can observe ourselves and see which food cravings are triggered by emotion – but starting out, what do we need to look for and how do we know we really are an emotional eater?

There are very specific signs you can look for and it is quite easy to establish whether you eat for emotional reasons or not.  Here are 5 signs you are an emotional eater:

1. Your hunger comes on suddenly and it feels urgent (you have to have a certain food NOW and will go out of your way to get it, even go out at 1am to the store!).
When you have true hunger/physical hunger it comes on slowly and is patient.  It can wait until you are able to get food, it doesn’t need to be satisfied immediately then and there.  Emotional hunger on the other hand demands you feed it NOW and you usually will end up shovelling the food down like you haven’t eaten in days.

2. You crave specific foods – usually junk.

3. Your hunger will coincide with an upsetting emotion.
Hunger that is connected with upsetting emotionals is definitely emotional hunger.  If you find you eat straight after someone has upset you or after a stressful event than it is emotional hunger more often than not.

4.You don’t even realize that you are eating sometimes – eating is something very automatic.
If you are genuinely hungry you will usualyl be aware of it and mindful.  Emotional nger on the other hand isn’t mindful and is the reason why many “forget” what they have eaten that day and do not acknowledge their snacking.

5. You keep eating even when you are full.
You can satisfy your true hunger without overfilling.  Emotional hunger however never really feels satisfied so you end up eating after you are full and ready to pop.  We want to keep having the taste to help us the numb the feeling.

6. After you eat you often feel a sense of guilt and regret.
If you feel guilty after eating, trhen it is most likely emotional hunger – you know deep down that what you doing isn’t to satisfy true physical hunger.

If you relate to none of these statements then overcome food cravings may be as simple as eating the RIGHT nutritious foods, making sure you are eating enough and knowing more about physical food addiction.  For more information click here

Helpful Programs

Emotional Eating Program

A 12 week online intensive emotional eating program to help you overcome overeating and feeding your emotions. This is also great for those wanting to lose a few pounds, as you will find by overcoming emotional eating the pounds will fall off.

Visit the Site: Click here.

Everyone has a sweet tooth – we all love sugar and crave it, but the refined empty-calorie junk food sugar that is in all the advertised junk foods we have grown to love is not the real sugar we crave.

When we eat refined sugary foods it is our body simply going for the foods it knows and searching out the nutrients it requires (despite the fact the food rarely contains any nutrition benefit).  If it knew better and was used to an abundance of fruit then these would be the first foods it would search for.

On top of this our cravings are usually emotional cravings.  No one really reaches for junk foods for their nutritional benefit do they?  And this is where the idea of what society sees food as goes wrong.

Food has a purpose, a function.  It isn’t to entertain us (although you may disagree), it is to provide us with fuel, with nutrition so we can keep going.  When we look to food for more than this, then we have a problem.  Many of you probably know this, if you crave sugar, cheese, chocolate etc.

So what can you do to kick your food cravings in the butt?

First start adding in NUTRITIOUS foods.  Make sure you eat plenty of whole raw foods.  This will help keep physical cravings to a minimum.

Second, if this isn’t enough for you to stop craving and give up the junk, observe yourself and see what triggers yourself.  Work on your emotional eating issues.  This can be tough so use a program liek Roger Gould’s Shrink Yourself, to really get to the root cause of your proble,

Third – go cold turkey.  The first bite is the EASIEST to resist.  Once you go past that you will most likely end up bingeing.  It’s inevitable.  Just give up your prized junk food and start treating your body the way you should and deserve to.  It can take some time to muorn the loss of your emotion comfort but it isn’t doing you any favors (and most likely leaves you moody and depressed the next day).

Lastly, believe you can do this because you can.  You can give up your favorite junk foods, you will give up your favorite junk foods andy ou DESERVE to be free from food addiction for good.

Stop Food Cravings

Emotional Eating help:  ShrinkYourself.com

Previous Post: Overcoming Overeating: Creating The Right Mindset

Overcoming cravings can be as simple as erasing the physical causes (poor nutrition) of the cravings.  But usually there is an emotional craving attached also.  Emotional cravings are when an emotion triggers you to crave a food or feel hungry (Roger Gould calls this phantom hunger).

When we experience emotional cravings that are out of control, we need to start observing ourselves and seeing exactly what emotions are causing the triggers.  Maybe we eat out of boredom.  Maybe we eat because we are dissatisfied about our relationship.  Cravings – emotional cravings – are telling you something.  Instead of eating you need to listen.

A good start pointing when tackling this issue is to tackle our mindset first.  Negativity is something many people habitually part take in.  Our inner critic tells us we are not good enough and we constantly play the worse case scenario in any situation instead of weighing up all the facts.

Your weight loss outcomes can depend on many things but at the core of it all you need to believe in 3 things in order to successfully lose the battle with the bulge.

You need to believe:

1. POSSIBILITY: It is possible for you to overcome cravings.
2. ACHIEVEMENT: You are able to stop craving.
3. WORTHINESS: You deserve to stop craving and lose weight.

Possibility

Possibility is almost always mistaken for competence. We think that something isn’t possible, that we aren’t able to give up our favorite junk foods or stop craving when really we don’t know how to do it – we don’t have the knowledge or resources to be able to stop craving.

It is possible though, regardless of your situation. You can’t prove that it isn’t possible – you can only say that you haven’t achieved it yet.

Beliefs are not fact.

Beliefs are just our best guess at something and we often sell ourselves short. Do you think you have put a mental ceiling on your achievements? Do you think you have hindered your ability to stop craving through your beliefs about yourself?

Ability

Most of us tend to make others aware of our short comings, when we can’t do something. If you take a day out and observe people and what they say, you should notice how often people say they can’t do this or they can’t do that. We all think this is being modest, when in fact its not. Modesty is not boasting about what we can do, it isn’t boasting about what we can’t!

Once you become aware of yourself voicing your inability to give up chocolate/junk/sugar, you can stop yourself voicing it. If you continue to voice your inability to give it up, it will hold you back from achieving your lifestyle/weight loss goals. If you find it difficult to stop voicing your inability, a good alternative is to add the word “yet” to the end of your statements.

“I haven’t been able to give up chocolate…yet”

“I can’t stop craving…yet”.

It is also important not to make excuses for your craving failures. If you do not have the knowledge to prevent cravings, go out and get it.  Set tasks that you need to do in order to achieve your slimmer figure.

A general belief that you should try to hold is:

You have not yet reached the limit of what you are capable of.

Keeping this in mind will help you to achieve your craving and weight loss goals.

Worthiness

Do you deserve to give up junk food/lose weight? Does it make you feel uncomfortable to say you deserve to? If it does, this should help you figure out any obstacles that are in your way to achieving your goal. List them and work out how you can overcome them.

e.g. I don’t have the correct knowledge to stop my sugar addiction – to overcome this I am going to do some research and find a suitable diet program or expert to help me.

Allow yourself to believe these 3 things and you will be on the right path to a positive mindset to help yourself overcome cravings.

Overcome Overeating

Click here for help with emotional eating

Previous Post: Binge Eating Disorder – What is Binge Eating Disorder?

Binge eating disorder is when one uses food to satisfy or cope with emotions/feelings.  People binge in order to repress feelings of anger, sadness, depression, general stress or boredom.  People have used food as a coping mechanism for such a long while that it is now an automatic habit.  When they feel, their “phantom” hunger automatically turns on and they eat and eat.

Bingeing in this way is a sign that one’s needs are not fully met, but instead of facing the emotion head on or listening to our inner critic, we instead suppress the feelings and zone out in front of the TV.  For some reason we believe this is easier than to face our feelings head on.

Binge eating disorder is the most common eating disorder and it is no wonder why when we live in a society that uses food to celebrate, mourn and for various social gatherings.  Food is very much attached to our emotions and something that is just built into us from an early age.  Unfortunately this leads to many using food as their life crutch, to cope in times of distress.

A person who binges usually will: eat an unusually large amount of food, feel they have no control while eating, consume the food quickly, eat large amounts even when they don’t feel hungry, prefer to eat alone, hide their eating habits, feel guilty, ashamed and disgusted with themselves.

Luckily there are many resources available to people to overcome binge eating.

Roger Gould has created a 12 week intensive emotional eating program online to help people overcome binge eating disorder.  For more information click here or visit ShrinkYourself.com.  He also has a book on the subject of emotional eating that is extremely useful for anyone wanting to educate themselves on how to overcome binge eating (and a great supplement to the 12 week program).

A great starting point though is a book called Combat Your Cravings.  This will help you address whether you are eating properly, whether you know the difference between hunger and true hunger and also will help you determine your emotional eating and help you make an action plan to overcome it with activities and guidance.  You can get this book here: http://www.combatyoucravings.com

Many food cravings and overeating issues can be eliminated when one provides the right nutrition for their body. However, not all overeating is a result of physical addiction to food or because one isn’t being a healthy eater.  Sometimes it isn’t as simple as this.

As a society that uses food for celebration, mourning and for social interaction – the emotional element to food cravings and overeating cannot be ignored. For many people their emotional eating issues can be addressed with some self awareness and journaling, but many need more guidance and can’t overcome it alone.

It can be difficult, very difficult to overcome our attachment to food – the comfort it gives us, but it IS possible.

If you find that becoming self aware – finding your emotional eating triggers, getting support from others and nourishing your body to decrease physical cravings isn’t enough to stop you overeating, then ShrinkYourself.com’s step by step, 12 week online program may very well be the solution to your emotional eating.

ShrinkYourself.com offers a 12 week program that teaches you how to overcome the bad feelings and emotions that cause you to overeat. It has been developed from a proven program used in hospitals to help individuals overcome overeating. What the program will teach you , step by step, is how to become mentally stronger, to question your emotions and overcome bad feelings for good.

ShrinkYourself.com is also a wealth of information on emotional eating and overeating. It has many free interactive tools to help you become more aware of your patterns of eating and also has many articles on the subject. If you are struggling it is a great resource, whether or not you feel the 12 week program is for you.

Click Here to Read More About The Program

Click Here to Visit ShrinkYourself.com

Despite playing off our addictions and calling them cravings to tame them, most people suffer from food addiction.

What is food addiction?  Food addiction is like being addicted to drugs and for some is harder to overcome than giving up smoking or giving up drinking alcohol.  If you find yourself going out especially to buy your favorite food or if you find yourself not being able to go a day without it – then you most likely have a food addiction.  The food you are choosing to eat most likely is devoid of nutrients.  Refined, processed junk foods do not provide much nutritional benefit to the body so the only reason you are eating it is addiction.  This can be physical or emotional addiction.  Most cravings will be physical and can be overcome simply by nourishing the body properly and sufficiently.  However, for some, emotional eating plays a much bigger role in the addiction and can be the hardest part of junk food cravings or overeating that one can experience.  You can overcome emotional eating with a plan!

First though it is best to tackle your physical addictions.  Lots of foods contain heterocyclic amines which can either directly or directly addictive.  T nourish the body properly the first step is to make sure you have a good breakfast.A high fiber breakfast is important as one low in fiber has been shown to cause an increase in snacking throughout the day.  On top of making sure you eat a good healthy wholesome breakfast, you should also make sure you eat plenty of fruit before each meal.  Fruit is also great to have when you are craving – eat 4 or 5 pieces and this should saitate you enough not to crave anymore.  If you eat fruit before your meals you will also not feel like you need that extra something to top of f your meal (i.e. dessert as you already have had it!).

Why is fruit so good?  Because it’s contain nearly all the nuitrients the human body needs!  Start incorporating lots of fruit into your diet and you should see a decrease in cravings.

Once you have overcome the physical cravings you experience from food, you may be ok.   If however you experience overeating and craving still monitor yourself throughout a day to see what is triggering these cravings.  If you find it is emotion, then start making a list of things you can do instead of eat.  Most people eat out of boredom in the evenings so changing the way you use your evening could be the best thing you do.

If you have intense emotional eating and feel the feelings that are trying to surface are too intense then a specific program over several weeks maybe usual.  ShrinkYourself is an online 12 week program that helps people overcome their emotional eating.  The website also has great free tools so you should check it out even if it is just for that:  http://www.ShrinkYourself.com

Physical and emotional addictions to foods can be overcome.  Nourish your body properly and seek the help you need in order to overcome your emotional eating for good