Archive for the ‘Diet’ Category

Many of us stress during the summer months about how we look, which gets mixed up with how we feel, act, and think. Many of us, too, turn to food to feel better if we’re feeling down rather than dealing with the core issues that affect our thinking. If you’re caught in a yo-yo diet pattern, or are an emotional eater, using food as a drug to block your inner work, you can stop. In order to help you break unhealthy habits and get on track to a healthier you, learn a bit more about how food is affecting your body, mind, and soul.

Food as Drugs
Foods actually have a bigger effect and work faster on your body than drugs. For example, it takes several weeks for Prozac to build up in your system to increase the serotonin level in your brain. Sweets like chocolate or cinnamon rolls with frosting can increase the serotonin levels in your brain in just minutes. High-fat, high-sugar foods release natural opiates in the brain just like heroin. The only difference is the amount.

The problem with the use of food as a recreational drug is that it sets up a never-ending cycle. Depression and anxiety can cause people to eat to feel better, but mostly people end up feeling worse. When that happens, people start to eat again to feel better and the cycle is on. Weight gain, fatigue, and more depression are natural side effects of this vicious cycle.

Another common example of this cycle at work is when people blast their bodies with caffeine and sugar. When you ingest such powerful compounds, you’ll probably feel energized for a bit and then in a short while, you’ll feel tired and sluggish and need another caffeine or sugar blast. This cycle is quite difficult to break.

It is my opinion that no one will ever lose weight permanently until the emotional reasons for eating are resolved. Only then is it possible for people to learn to notice how food actually makes them feel – and can actually do something to develop healthy patterns that trump the negative.

Sugar
Hundreds of years ago, people ate no sugar. Heart disease, diabetes, and cancer can be traced to increases in sugar. These diseases were virtually nonexistent in primitive cultures. They begin to show up about 20 years after primitive cultures begin eating refined carbohydrates.

In his book Sweet and Dangerous, Dr. Yudkin sites numerous examples of many cultures where it was shown that sugar was a more likely cause of heart disease than fat. The Masai and Sumburu tribes of East Africa have almost no heart disease, yet they eat a diet high in fat (mostly meat, and milk, but no sugar).

And, there are plenty of health comparisons between Americans and other Western cultures, too, which you’re probably aware of. The French diet is higher in fat than the American diet. French people have lower rates of obesity and heart disease than Americans. The French eat approximately 5.5 times less sugar per capita than Americans.

Refined sugar has been stripped of all its nutrients and robs the body of its nutrients during the process of digestion. In order to digest and metabolize sugar, the body has to use its own mineral reserves of chromium, manganese, cobalt, copper, zinc, and magnesium.

Our bodies have not developed the ability to metabolize large amounts of sugar on a daily basis. When sugars or highly processed carbohydrates are eaten, they are digested almost immediately, and the flood of sugar is released directly into the bloodstream. In response to the increase in sugar, the pancreas secretes insulin. Known as the fat storage hormone, insulin is designed to restore blood sugar equilibrium by taking excess sugar out of the bloodstream and storing it in the muscle tissues or liver (called carbo-loading) or moving it into fat storage.

Sugar has been proven to destroy the germ killing ability of white blood cells for up to five hours after ingestion. Sugar reduces the production of antibodies, proteins that combine with inactive foreign invaders in the body. Sugar interferes with the transport of Vitamin C, one of the most important nutrients for all facets of immune function. Sugar causes mineral and enzyme deficiency and sometimes causes allergic reactions. It neutralizes the action of essential fatty acids, thus making cells more prone to invasion by all viruses and microorganisms. Also, cancer cells feed directly on sugar potentially stimulating tumor growth. During World War II, when sugar consumption declined, the number of cases of adult onset diabetes also dropped – sharply.

Break the Sugar Cycle
By all means, avoid sugar when you can. Choose food wisely. Make healthy meals together as a family and with friends. Exercise. Drink plenty of clean water and herbal teas. Eat fresh foods low in fats and sugars. Avoid bingeing and starvation diets. Plan meals carefully and you will find you have more energy to do the things you love with your loved ones. And, be sure to do the inner work necessary to discover your true reasons for poor eating habits you may have developed over a long period of time. When you deal with your emotional habits in a healthy way, you’ll feel better equipped to deal with your consumption habits, too.

In my weight loss classes, most everyone tells me that they are eating for every other reason than hunger. There are serious and real emotional reasons that push people to overeat, anxiety and stress appear at the top of that list. Many of us cope with the stress of our lives by eating, often too much, and too late. People eat when they are upset, compulsively cramming emotions and reactions deep down inside them with food. The only reason we should eat are because we are hungry (or, enjoying a meal with loved ones.)

Studies have shown that when stressed beyond normal levels, the body can produce so much cortisol (the stress hormone) that it is no longer able to metabolize fat. Thus, even if one exercises, if stress levels and overeating are off the charts out of control, it will become impossible to lose weight, much less live in a healthy, natural state.

My CD programs are designed to help you to de-stress, relax, and eat like a naturally thin person. When you uncover and face your issues, you are on your way to creating healthy patterns for a healthy life! These programs are designed to teach you to eat like a naturally thin person, and perhaps more importantly, to reinforce what this really means. Guided imagery through hypnosis can help you to get and stay in control of your state of mind, which in turn, helps you to control your eating habits.

Learn to eat right. Learn to trust your body. Learn to avoid starvation and raise your metabolism through exercise. My specialized programs address these issues related to weight loss and, combined with a good weight loss manual, you will have results.