Doctors Can Predict the Onset of Eating Disorders - Anxiety and Eating Disorders

Doctors states that schizophrenia and depression are not the mental disorders that have the highest mortality rate; rather, they point out that among people who have this disorder, 20% of them yield to the illness. Therefore, it is helpful if there are ways to predict the risk factors of having eating disorders and who will likely develop it.

According to the statistics, almost 90% of those who have bulimia, anorexia, or both, are young women in their 20's and teens. When they reach adolescence, their eating disorders have fully developed. Colleges in America reported that more than 40% of students have any of the three disorders in their florid or sub clinical form.

Around 2 to 3% of adolescents are bulimic while .05 to 1% of adolescents are anorexic. Moreover, 13% of high school girls are purging. Statistics suggested that eating disorders doubled since 1960's and younger age groups are the common victims.

Childhood anxiety, according to a team of researchers, is identified as a major vulnerability factor to predict the onset of these disorders. Two thirds of people with bulimia, anorexia or both experienced a form of clinical anxiety-like obsessive-compulsive disorder or social phobia-at some point in their lives. Years before their illness, 42% of them developed anxiety when they were children.

Doctors and medical specialists alike established a strong bond between anxiety and eating disorders in a way that both share a genetic pathway besides sharing many of the same personality traits. Dr. Walter Kaye reported this after observing and studying 672 individuals. He announced that in order to help young women to recover from devastating diseases, doctors must develop strategies to cure the eating disorder and anxiety. It may also be helpful to treat the anxiety illness at its onset to provide preventive effects on eating illnesses.

The obsessive-compulsive behavior of those with bad eating conditions was also particularly striking. OCD usually afflicts 3% of children. Because the onset of OCD is in the 20's, doctors identify this condition to be another factor to predict eating disorders.

Autor: Faviano Torres

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Added: July 31, 2009
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Eating Disorder Epidemic

It has become an epidemic across the globe, affecting millions of men, women, and even some children. This deadly disease does not discriminate; it can affect anyone of any color, shape, size, or religion. I am talking about the Eating Disorder Epidemic that is plaguing this planet right now. Anorexia Nervosa is characterized as an intense and irrational fear of body fat and weight gain, a strong-willed determination to lose weight, and misconception of their body weight and shape. Bulimia Nervosa is characterized by self destructive "binge" and "purge" cycles. During a "binge" the person consumes large amounts of food in a rapid manner and follows by "purging" through either self induced vomiting, laxatives, diuretics, or excessive exercise.

The modern marketing heads have prayed upon the trusting young men and women of today, practically sending subliminal messages through their commercials and billboards defining what they believe beauty looks like. Little girls and young teenagers idolize and look up to some of their favorite women celebrities like Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashlee Simpson who publicly suffer from eating disorders, which leaves them believing eating disorder = beautiful. Society is basically telling these young impressionable men and women that it is now "socially acceptable" to starve yourself to death, or to stick your finger down your throat after you eat, or to take a box of laxatives; heck it's even beautiful! Even though media is one of the main causes of this epidemic, a person may have many other contributing factors that can cause this disease. Every person's contributing factors are different, no two are alike.

The same applies to the recovery process from an eating disorder; it is different for everyone. There is no "cure" for this disease and once afflicted you have it for life; you can only be in remission from an eating disorder. It is one of the hardest addictions to overcome, and many relapse. When overcoming an addiction to alcohol, A.A. teaches you to abstain from alcohol, they then award you with chips based on how many days you have abstained from using. When overcoming an eating disorder obviously you cannot abstain from eating, you need to eat to survive. So they then have to learn one of the most difficult and incomprehensible skills that there is to learn for an addict; moderation. The classic addict mind set is all or nothing, black or white; gray just doesn't exist in their world. In actuality programs like A.A. and N.A. are, in some ways, reinforcing that "all or nothing" mindset and not teaching them the principles of moderation.

Eating disorders can have many serious side effects on the body. Some can be reversed if caught soon enough, and some are irreversible. The hair on the head can become thin and eventually fall out, but there is an increase in fine baby-like hair on the body called lanugo. The skin can become dry and the hands and feet cold and blue due to poor circulation in their body. Their menstruation cycle first becomes infrequent, and then eventually stops once their body weight drops below a certain level. Many will have difficulties becoming pregnant because of their irregular periods. Their blood pressure can drop due to inadequate body fluid levels which then cause dizziness, fainting episodes, and heart palpitations. Also, their heart muscle can eventually waste away and heart failure can develop, depending on the severity and length of the eating disorder. Low blood sugar from inadequate food intake and high cholesterol levels can be found. The liver will not function well and could eventually lead to liver failure.

Their body temperature can drop making the anorexic or bulimic feel constantly cold because there is so little subcutaneous fat on their bodies. Their levels of vitamins and minerals can drop to an unhealthy low causing lack in potassium, sodium, magnesium, zinc, and calcium. A drop in their potassium level can cause abnormal heart rhythms and could even cause a heart attack. Muscle weakness and wasting, particularly in the upper arm and leg muscles can occur. Bone protein loss and calcium deficiency can lead to early onset osteoporosis and increased risk of fractures. Their concentration can be poor, and they can frequently become depressed and extremely moody. As you can see there are many health complications that accompany this disease, which, if left untreated, can ultimately lead to death.

This is a grim and secretive disorder that requires the help of professionals. There are many treatment centers that are solely devoted to treating men and women with eating disorders such as The Renfrew Center or Remuda Ranch. Recognizing and treating an eating disorder early will greatly increase their chance of recovery. However, for treatment to be successful they must want to change and accept professional help and support from their loved ones. For the anorexic the first treatment step is to bring the person back to, or near, an acceptable weight. This means making sure the person has regular meals and consumes enough calories so that they will gain weight. With the bulimic, the priority is to re-establish a consistent pattern of eating, with three meals a day at regular times. Keeping a diary of their eating habits and learning about portion control is often helpful for them. Medication such as anti-anxiety or antidepressants may be used in the short term to help them through the initial stages of treatment. For many, therapy with a trusted counselor or therapist is helpful by providing them with a "safe" way to talk through that which may be triggering them or that may be coming up as they go through the treatment process. Group settings are always important. It is often comforting for them to talk to others who have been through the same experiences, and who offer understanding and acceptance without blame, guilt, or judgment.

This psychiatric disorder can be one of the most difficult things in these people's lives to overcome, and unfortunately about 50% of patients treated in a hospital showed signs of relapse. However, recovery is possible, with commitment, patience, and support, it can be done.

Autor: Erika Cook Erika Cook
Level: Platinum
My name is Erika Lyn Cook and I was born, raised, and still currently live in Sunny South Florida. I am a freelance writer and ... ...

Erika Lyn Cook is a freelance writer and the author of the upcoming book Purple People - The Diary of an Indigo Child. This book is a memoir of her life, and takes you through a journey of exactly what it's like to live as an Indigo child. Erika is also a certified Angel Healer Practitioner, Reiki practitioner, a certified Chrystal Healer, and an I.E.T. Healer. For more information about her services or about her upcoming book visit her website at http://ErikaLynCook.com

Added: July 30, 2009
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Facts About Anorexia Nervosa - Lessons Learned the Hard Way

Some common facts about anorexia nervosa, more commonly known as "anorexia", is that it is a psychiatric eating illness characterized by tremendously low body weight coupled with the excessive fear of gaining weight. People suffering from this kind of eating sickness are commonly known as "anorexics".

Anorexics starve themselves by relentlessly limiting the amount of food they consume because of the extreme fear of becoming fat. Their eating habits originate from this fear, especially women and adolescent girls. As such, the after effect is that these people become very thin and their weight is usually over 15 percent below their normal body weight.

Anorexics, although they are thin and skinny, believe that they are overweight. Driven by this fear, they do tedious workouts and exercises. Some even take laxatives and do not eat or drink anything within any given day. Even though they have become thin overall, they still have the mindset that they have gained weight.

There are cases of people becoming extremely ill and in some cases, the anorexic even goes through a near death experience. People suffering from anorexia in general are among the top level of society and people occupying professions that require thinness or being skinny, like dancing and theater acting.

Anorexics often develop bizarre eating practices and they usually refuse to eat in other people's presence. Some of these anorexics will eat a full meal, and then afterward, force themselves to vomit everything they have consumed. Most of them limit themselves to less than 500 calorie intake per day while turning down any kind of food with fat or sugar in it. These anorexics also have a tendency to overuse laxatives or water pills so that they won't gain even a quarter of a pound of weight.

Anorexia can be diagnosed by comparing the weight of a person to the expected weight of another person of the same sex, age, height and weight. Once these differences in the margin of weight and other factors are noted, further tests will be initiated, like heart and lung checks, blood pressure monitoring, and skin and hair examination. There may also be additional tests regarding the blood and even X-rays.

Once anorexia nervosa is detected, the treatment for it needs to begin immediately. As of today, there are no known medicines to treat this kind of eating disorder, but that does not mean it cannot be cured. Since it is both a type of physical and emotional problem, the initial step is to understand the problem.

Know the different facts about anorexia first by consulting a dietitian, a doctor, and a counselor. These people will help anorexics get through this kind of illness through counseling and other forms of guidance and instructions.

Therapy is usually the first form of treatment for anorexia, but can get quite expensive and is, quite frankly, a crapshoot. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But there is a home treatment program available that has helped countless anorexics and is endorsed by leading physicians.

Autor: Mark Bridges

To learn more about the anorexia home treatment program, visit MomPleaseHelp Anorexia Home Treatment Program. For more facts about anorexia causes and treatments, go to Anorexia Support and Treatment

Added: July 28, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

Anorexia Treatment Centers - Behind the Scenes

Anorexia is a physiological and at the same time psychological illness best described as exceedingly low body weight coupled with a distorted self body image. It is an eating ailment characterized by an unwillingness to consume food because of excessive or intense fear of gaining weight.

People suffering from this sickness are termed "anorexics" and they lose weight through many methods, including intentional undernourishment, excessive and unwanted exercise, unneeded weight control diet pills, or dangerous diuretic drugs.

If left untreated, anorexics suffer from body illnesses and malfunctions such as ulcers, low blood pressure, depression and anxiety, irregular menstrual periods for women, faintness, tiredness, slow heart functions, dry skin, brittle nails, and thin hair. Their bodies will eventually fall ill, begin contracting more and more of these body malfunctions, and begin to break down. In severe and extreme cases, anorexia leads to death.

In order to diagnose and help people suffering from anorexia, there are numerous Anorexia Treatment Centers available throughout the world today. These centers employ doctors, dietitians, and counselors that can diagnose anorexia and help people afflicted with it to cope and eventually conquer the illness.

Through proper diagnosis, doctors will know whether or not a person is afflicted with anorexia. This is done by a thorough examination of the patient's body, including their height, weight, heartbeat and air intake. The results of these tests will then be compared to that of a normal or average person of the same age and sex.

Further tests including blood pressure monitoring, observation of episodes of being tired, or fainting and being weak. X-ray examinations will also be conducted in order to determine whether the eating disorder of the patient is anorexia or some other type.

Most of these anorexia treatment centers today offer a "psychodynamic" approach in order to help the patient overcome this illness. The patient will undergo a series of consultations and seminars wherein he or she will be taught ways to conquer the fear of gaining weight.

This "nutrition rehabilitation" can get quite costly, but this is not the time to start pinching pennies. But if this is beyond your financial means, there is another way. There is a home treatment program available that is endorsed by leading physicians and has helped countless anorexics worldwide.

Autor: Mark Bridges

To learn more about the anorexia home treatment program, visit Anorexia Home Treatment Program Review. For more facts about anorexia causes and treatments, go to Facts About Anorexia And Bulimia

Added: July 27, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

Food Addiction Treatment

While drug and alcohol addiction is very common, not many people may have heard about food addiction. But it might be interesting to know that such an addiction exists and there are treatment programs also to treat this addiction.

Earlier there was a different way of treating eating disorder where the patients were asked to refrain from a set of foods and they were asked to weigh the food that they eat, even in public places. This kind of a behavior would naturally make the patient feel embarrassed and thus result in non compliance to the treatment plan. However, the present treatment methods have changed in recent times and the programs do not have a restriction on what food is being eaten or how much is being eaten.

In fact, these programs try to get to the root of the problem because of which the patient has become a food addict. These treatment programs encourage the patients to stick to the healthy eating plans provided by the center. Moreover, the food addiction programs today do not follow a general plan for all patients; rather they have an individualistic approach. Hence, a food addiction program these days may contain dietary classes, art and recreational therapy, nutritional classes,

This is not all; some food addiction treatment programs also include holistic services like yoga, meditation, acupuncture, massage etc.

Hence, if one thinks that one has cravings for a particular food or if the person just wants to binge, then it is time to find out a rehab center which can help.

Autor: Pauline Go Pauline Go
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Pauline Go is a highly respected internet marketer in Thailand. She has worked with many successful website such as Thailandbuddy.com, easyonlinefunds.com, ..etc....

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Added: July 26, 2009
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3 Steps to Build Your Own Emotional Eating Rescue Kit

Emotional Eating can get triggered at any time of day or night. You get an upsetting phone call, text or email and suddenly you're starving. You're out to dinner with friends and you feel left out of the conversation and dessert immediately seems like the perfect escape. Your husband and kids have gone to bed and you want some special time all to yourself but don't know what would feel rewarding besides a few stolen cookies and a handful of chips. Emotional eating is using food to numb, comfort or reward one's self. It is using food, not just as nutrition but also as a coping mechanism for life.

Therefore the answer is both simple and difficult. It's simple because if you deal with your feelings head on, you won't need food to help you along. It's difficult because dealing with feelings head on can be frightening and overwhelming, particularly when you don't yet have the skills to do so which is what makes the quick fix of food so enticing.

To begin to face your feelings you can build yourself an Emotional Eating Rescue Kit. This is something that you can have fun with. Just follow these three simple steps:

Step One: Identify Your Top Three Emotions That Trigger Emotional Eating

For a few weeks take the time to observe yourself. Notice which emotions send you to the drive thru lane of your nearest fast food joint. Look for the times of day that you overeat. Some people binge in the afternoon and others do so at night. Look for places where you overeat for instance in restaurants, at family gatherings, at work, or at home. Does anger, sadness, loneliness, or boredom make you most hungry? You can keep a journal or calendar until you notice some regular patterns. When you do, pick the top three feelings, times, or places that you emotionally eat.

Step Two: Build Your Rescue Kit

Get a shoebox or a big manila envelope. You can use a drawer in your night table or even the glove compartment of your car. Collect things that address the feelings that trigger you to eat. You can put inspirational writings in your kit, passages from a spiritual book, or aromatherapy, or a CD with songs that shift your mood. You can put the phone number of a friend who will hear you out. You can put pictures or images that soothe you. You can put anything in there that will help remind you to address the real feeling instead of trying to eat it away.

Step Three: Use Your Rescue Kit

Your rescue kit will only work if you use it. Practice using your kit. Develop it so that it really does address the feelings that trigger episodes of emotional eating. Don't be afraid to use trial and error. This is about getting better and better at attending to your real needs. You can even create a pocket sized rescue kit that you keep in your purse or in your desk at work. When your emotions trigger you to eat, you can always excuse yourself, go to the restroom with your rescue kit and keep yourself present to what's really going on for you.

Remember when you eat, you abandon yourself. By eating you don't address your real needs, hurts, and concerns. As a result many people report feeling stuck in their lives. But when you begin to address your true feelings your life starts to propel forward. Your Emotional Eating Rescue Kit will help you take steps to slow down, stay aware, and hold your own hand through your feelings, without the escape that food provides.

Autor: Michelle Fiordaliso

Michelle Fiordaliso, writer and psychotherapist
Clinical director of ShrinkYourself.com
Shrink Yourself is the Proven Online Program Designed to End Emotional Eating

Added: July 24, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

3 Reasons You Can't Stop Overeating

Even in these trying financial times we are faced with an overwhelming abundance of food. Food is everywhere. Portions are huge. And it's acceptable for all of us to have a snack and beverage with us at all times. It's no wonder that so many of us overeat. However, taking a look at some of the not so obvious reasons people overeat can help you cultivate a deeper awareness and change your current eating patterns.

Hunger Can Feel Scary

Many overeaters report that the feeling of hunger triggers great panic in them. At the slightest onset of a hunger pang they run for food or get terribly anxious. There are many reasons why this might happen. It could come from having had limited sources of food as a child or strict restrictions on certain types of foods. You may have to retrain yourself to know that it's okay to be hungry. In order to do this you can become aware of all the physical and emotional feelings you have when hunger hits. You can practice tolerating being hungry for a few minutes more than you normally would. Or you can simply get more attuned to what real hunger feels like.

Believing You Have to Finish Everything On Your Plate

Many people were raised with the rule that they had to finish everything on their plate. This rule can lead to overeating in adulthood. People override their natural alarm systems and can no longer detect when they're full. If you were raised with this rule you might still have a hard time leaving unwanted food on your plate. Overeating becomes an unavoidable, unconscious act. Practice listening to your body to determine when you're actually full. Practice leaving food on your plate and realizing that nothing bad happens when you do. Practice re-parenting yourself with new rules that only require you to eat as much as you really need.

Overeating Can Be a Habit

Sometimes overeating is simply a bad habit. People come to associate food with being festive. You can associate food with a movie, an afternoon coffee break, or the way that you transition from work to home. Once food has been linked with something it can feel like doing that task or activity without eating is incomplete. But it's not. If overeating is simply a habit, begin to create new associations. A movie doesn't have to include popcorn. A date with a friend can be a walk on the beach instead of going for coffee and a muffin. The more you disconnect food from fun, the more freedom you'll have to make better choices.

If you are an overeater, starting with the simple act of observing when and why you overeat can make a big difference. Most overeating doesn't occur because of hunger, it occurs because food has become something more that mere food. What does food symbolize for you?

Autor: Roger Gould, M.D.

Roger Gould, M.D.
Psychiatrist & Associate Clinical Professor, UCLA
One of the world's leading authorities on emotional eating and adult development
Author & Creator of Shrink Yourself
Shrink Yourself is the Proven Online Program Designed to End Emotional Eating

Added: July 22, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

The Darker Side of Dieting - 6 Sure Ways to Fail

Using food for comfort can be so compelling that many people try to find ways to be able to keep emotional eating as a pattern without having their weight suffer. I'd like to tell you about six different ways that people try to work around, or hold onto, their emotional eating habit. So many of my patients follow a weight loss regimen that looks good, sounds good, and seems to work for a while, but ultimately fails.

You certainly know people following such regimens. Your neighbor John runs five miles a day and still has a potbelly. Your sister Lara goes to Weight Watchers, drops twenty pounds, and then gains it all back when her boyfriend breaks up with her. And maybe even you have followed various diets and still find yourself binge eating when no one is around.

All of these examples reveal weight loss methods that rely on deprivation and discipline and nicely avoid dealing with the issues that drive overeating, emotional eating and food addiction. I call such methods "the failure strategies" and you'll learn about the six types sin this article. If you want to avoid wasting any more of your time and energy on strategies bound to backfire, then you have to give up relying on methods like these.

Of course, everything you know about weight loss to this point in your life endorses these approaches, so it might seem odd to you to disparage them now, to reject them as doomed methods. Please notice that I'm not telling you to eat with abandon or to give up exercise-not at all-I'm simply letting you know that these approaches won't work on their own.

Failure Strategy #1: Deprive and Binge

Almost every single diet book and diet plan leads to the deprive-and-binge approach, and so this is the most common strategy. It begins with deprivation. As you know, when you diet, you deprive yourself of what you really want, applying willpower and discipline to keep yourself away from the fridge. It's a painful and difficult thing to do, and unfortunately, the method doesn't work for long because you really don't want to deprive yourself. Eventually, your emotional eating patterns kick in, and then the diet ends. Willpower can only work for so long. Unless you are really addressing your emotional hunger and food addiction, this approach can never work.

Failure Strategy #2: Binge and Run

This is the approach where you allow yourself to eat whatever you want but try to compensate for it with exercise. Complimenting your diet with exercise is essential, but it only works if you also limit your caloric intake and end or limit emotional eating. This strategy doesn't work primarily because in order to compensate for eating excess, you have to exercise so much that you increase the risk of injury, which poses special problems if exercise is your chief weight loss method. Any time you need to stop exercising in order to heal, your weight balloons up quickly. I've seen patients in my practice who put on substantial weight after injuries and then couldn't lose it, though they had been trim athletes at one time-albeit athletes with a food addiction. Also, if you continue to eat unhealthy foods in excess, you weaken your immune system no matter how much you exercise, and so the risk of illness increases, illness makes exercise difficult, and anytime the routine slackens, the weight returns.

Failure Strategy #3: Binge and Purge

The binge and purge cycle of bulimia is a very dangerous strategy, and luckily it is normally viewed as an unhealthy approach to weight management. People can die from the electrolyte imbalance that happens with chronic purging, or they can end up with chronic esophagitis and gastritis, various forms of malnutrition and vitamin deficiency, and a secret life of agonizing shame. They appear to be thin, "together" people on the outside, but they feel like frauds on the inside. Bulimia is a very costly way to control weight, and it must be given up before too much damage is done. There is no possibility for success with this strategy, but many people try to hang onto their food addiction by compensating for it through purging.

Failure Strategy #4: Going Public

I call the fourth failure strategy "Going Public." I've seen many variations of this strategy, including losing weight for a specific event such as an upcoming wedding or family reunion, or making a public declaration that you've started a diet, or buying clothes that fit only if you lose weight, or paying to join a support group that encourages success but rejects you if you fail. There are many other ways to set yourself up to "have to" succeed, all of which lead to failure because the basic emotional eating problem is not addressed. Try as you may, you can't fool your own emotions.

Failure Strategy #5: The Blame Game

Do you curse parental genes for giving you a slow metabolism? If so, you've fallen prey to the fifth failure method-blaming the extra pounds on your metabolism. You might say that the blame game is more of a "failure attitude" than a failure strategy, but here the watchword is "failure." As long as you believe that genetics predispose you to being fat, you can tell yourself that your hunger is written "in the stars" and indulge your emotional eating habit whenever life gets difficult, doing nothing to change the underlying pattern.

I have seen so many patients who have made this claim, supporting it by telling me how diligent they have been about exercising and how careful they have been about their intake. When I do a detailed inquiry about their exercise and eating habits, it turns out that they have simply been fooling themselves. One patient, Joe, didn't bother to count the three beers he drank at night or the daily trip to the ice cream store. Somehow those calories didn't count. Most of the others failed to count little things that added up, and almost all didn't exercise nearly enough to compensate for what they ate.

As long as you blame the extra pounds on a slow metabolism, you've fallen prey to another ruse-unless, of course, you've been diagnosed with hypothyroidism or take certain prescribed medications. Some medications do cause weight gain, either by changing your metabolic rate, making you retain fluids, or by affecting how your body converts calories to energy versus storing calories as fat. That's a different story. But if you don't have hypothyroidism or prescription drugs to blame, then your metabolic rate is in the normal range and you need to gain control over your eating habits in order to lose weight.

It might be true that you have a metabolism that's a little faster or a bit slower than your neighbor's, and it may have slowed as you aged. It is indeed more difficult to stay thin if you have the slowest metabolism on the block or if you're well into middle age. You do need to eat less and exercise more than your neighbors do in order to stay in balance, but balancing calories in and calories burned is still the only answer.

If you can't quite accept the idea that you can't blame metabolism, look at the latest research showing that high-strung people stay thin not because of metabolism, but simply because they fidget more and move around more than others and therefore, they burn more calories. The study showed that sedentary people sat 163 more minutes a day than fidgety people, who took 7000 more steps and expended 350 more calories per day-a non-rigorous form of exercise, perhaps, but one that does, nevertheless, contribute to weight loss. And so, again, metabolism alone can't be blamed.

Blaming metabolism instead of your eating habits is just a way to avoid taking responsibility or a way to avoid giving up your patterns.

Failure Strategy #6: Medicate the Hunger, Trick the Metabolism

In our culture, many seek a magic pill to dissolve cellulite, reverse weight gain, and make getting thin a breeze. This search constitutes the sixth and final failure strategy.

All the pharmaceutical companies are looking for the big blockbuster solution that will control the hunger gland. The last "miracle pill" released on the market, Phen-Phen, ended up killing people, but the drug companies haven't given up since the American public would much rather take pills that kill hunger than address the emotional source of the compulsion to overeat.

Phen-Phen wasn't the first weight loss medication to endanger health. Dexedrine, a form of speed, was commonly used for weight loss but has largely been discredited. Many people who started taking Dexedrine to lose weight ended up addicted, less hungry and less dependent on food, but more dependent on the drug. Unfortunately, as the bumper stickers say, "Speed Kills." Speed increases your resting metabolic rate so that you burn more calories without having to exercise, stimulates a more rapid heart rate, and makes you sweat more. You stay up later and you have more energy to move around, but you can't use the method for long without physical damage. The speed category includes Ephedra, which is a major ingredient of many herbal appetite suppressants.

The same problems exist with thyroid supplements. If your thyroid is intact, taking more to speed yourself up will work for a while, but at a cost to your natural balance.

And as long as you continue to eat too much and don't address food addiction directly, the method won't work and your health will suffer.

Reality Always Wins

Now you've seen that the six failure strategies don't work because they all attempt to stimulate weight loss while keeping the emotional eating option intact. When you follow one of the failure strategies, you make a hopeless bargain with yourself: "I will deprive myself for a while as long as I can go back to binging sometime. I will discipline myself to run, as long as I can eat as much as I want when I am anxious. I will risk my health and harbor a shameful secret of purging as long as I can stuff myself at dinner. I will suffer public shame in order to overeat again. I will mess up my insides with speed and attack my hunger rather than attack the sources of emotional eating. I will blame my metabolism for my weight and put myself at risk for obesity related diseases so I can eat what I want."

These strategies circumvent the reality of emotional eating. They keep the emotional eating habit alive in a rainy-day bank account in case you need it to cope with the next life stress. Unfortunately, you can't win as long as you hold the eating remedy in reserve for difficult times, because reality guarantees that you'll backslide under stress, throw off that delicate "calories in-calories out" balance, and put the pounds right back on.

If you want to control you weight for a lifetime, you do have to attack and dismantle the emotional eating habit. There is no way around this.

To break the addiction to food, you will have to go through a healing process.

You will have to face down each of your sources of emotional hunger and find a way, through decisions and actions, to deal with the underlying life issues without using food to cover them up. It's not enough to simply recognize these sources. You will have to do something about them to put them to rest. You will have to include them in your conscious problem-solving mind, not stuff them down with food.

It's not something that you can do overnight. Its process you have to learn, and a life skill you have to practice.

If you have become convinced that you have to address your food addiction now, here are your alternatives.

1. Find a good therapist who understands this addiction and will guide you through the healing process.
2. Find a support group that will help you tackle the problem and develop new skills in order to master these motivations.
3. Do it yourself.

If you truly want to lose weight for life, and if you really want to break food addiction, these are your logical choices. Some are easier than others. No one can tell you what's right for you and it may take some experimentation on your part to find the right approach. Nevertheless, we urge you to choose one today and begin working on it as soon as possible. No one ever regrets trying to end food addiction. They only regret giving in. The questions to ask yourself are: Are you really ready to be free of this addiction? How are you going to do it?

Autor: Roger Gould, M.D.

Roger Gould, M.D.
Psychiatrist & Associate Clinical Professor, UCLA
One of the world's leading authorities on emotional eating and adult development
Author & Creator of Shrink Yourself
Shrink Yourself is the Proven Online Program Designed to End Emotional Eating

Added: July 21, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

Are You Eating Because You Are Hungry Or Sad?

Obesity has become an increasingly common problem in westernised society, and something which has affected not only adults but also young children. The reason for this appears to be quite simple, people are eating more food than they used to do in the past and they are exercising less.

However things aren't quite as simple as this, because the way a person is feeling can affect the amount of food they eat. For example, if you have ever felt sad, depressed or unhappy there is a good chance that you turned to food in order to make you feel better. Or if you were bored, then perhaps you decided to snack on something to relieve that boredom?

This form of eating is known as emotional eating, and is a term which describes the use of food in order to change an emotional state. This is also one of the major causes of obesity, because not only is food more readily available than it once was, but people are becoming more and more unhappy with themselves and their life. Put both of these factors together, and you get a dangerous combination that leads to emotional eating.

What makes emotional eating even more of a problem, and why it can so easily lead to obesity, is the fact that this form of eating occurs not when a person is physically hungry but when they are feeling a particular negative emotional state. The effect of this is that food is eaten when the body doesn't require food, and so whatever is eaten ultimately becomes stored as fat because the body simply cannot or does not need to use it.

Compounding this matter further is the fact that food becomes seen as a comfort, and therefore something which a person turns to whenever they are feeling down. For example, suppose you had a bad day, so to make you feel better you eat some chocolate. Then next week you have another bad day, and so you turn to chocolate again.

Given enough time you will develop the habit of eating chocolate whenever you are feeling down, and so chocolate becomes seen as your "comfort food". This is exactly how emotional eating starts, and before long you will be eating chocolate all the time just to make you feel good.

However the problem with this is that because you are eating when you are not hungry, and eating low quality food, you will begin to gain more and more weight, until you eventually become obese. This then creates a new problem, as now your physical appearance makes you feel even worse. So what do you do, eat some more chocolate to make you feel better again! And so the cycle continues.

There is no doubt emotional eating is a big problem in westernised society, but it is something which you can deal with simply by listening to your feelings and then responding appropriately to them.

Autor: Mark David Peters

To find out more about emotional eating, please see my website: Cause Of Emotional Eating & Primary & Secondary Feelings

Added: July 20, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

Anorexia - An Insider's Story

When people hear the word anorexia, they visualize a person who is very thin. That image is correct. The physical side is noticeable; however, the emotional side which is the most painful is rarely seen.

What is anorexia nervosa? It is an eating disorder where a person starves herself. According to the South Carolina Department of Mental Health, the mortality rate of anorexic females is 12 times higher than the death rate from all causes of death in females 18 - 24 years old.

There are many reasons for self induced malnourishment; low self-esteem, a loss of control over one's life and depression are just a few. A story by someone who has been there gives an insider's account of what it's like to be anorexic, and why it happened to her.

The Beginning

Ashlee Starr* was outgoing and vivacious. At 23, she had a lot of friends, worked as a certified nursing assistant and participated in several work-related events. She was newly divorced when she ran into an old friend, Roy, whom she met at a restaurant three years earlier where he worked as a cook. Roy was divorced also, and was eight months older than Ashlee. A week after running into each other, Roy and Ashlee started dating.

Two months later, Roy asked Ashlee to marry him. She explained to him that she wanted to remain single for a while but he said that he didn't want to lose her. He told her that if she didn't marry him, he would stop seeing her. She felt pressured and uneasy about his words, but she was falling in love, she enjoyed being with him, he was good to her, and she didn't want their relationship to end so she said yes.

Fifteen minutes after the wedding ceremony, Roy became verbally abusive. He berated Ashlee relentlessly. He whistled at a woman walking down the street. For the remainder of the return trip, Ashlee cowered in the passenger seat hoping that Roy was just bad tempered because of the heat.

When they returned home, her happy life as she knew it was over. Roy was emotionally abusive on a continual basis. He put her down, ridiculed and embarrassed her in front of other people. He made fun of the way she walked and talked. He told her that she was worthless, and that he didn't know why he married her. Nothing that she did was ever good enough for Roy.

Since Roy was unemployed and his only income was unemployment compensation, Ashlee worked two full-time jobs to help pay the bills. When she asked how his job hunt was going, he informed her that he didn't have to work. He criticized her and insisted that she wasn't pulling her weight in their relationship. None of this made sense to Ashlee because she was doing more than her share by working and taking care of their household. Roy started forbidding her to see her friends. He limited the time that she spent with her family. He played Ashlee and her family against each other. His abuse had also turned physical, and during one of his outbursts, Roy slapped Ashlee because she went to her doctor for a medical condition instead of asking him for help. His physical abuse escalated, and Roy frequently hit Ashlee, sometimes sending her to the hospital.

Ashlee's life dissolved into complete misery. After five months of marriage, she told Roy that she wanted a divorce. A week before her announcement, Roy had received a job offer from a friend in a neighboring state. He begged her not to leave and wanted a separation instead. She agreed and felt sure that the time they spent apart would help their marriage.

The Relocation

Roy packed a few things and departed. For three months he visited Ashlee on the weekends, wooing her by being kind, loving and considerate. He told her that he had done a lot of thinking and promised that he would never strike or yell at her again. With the changes that Roy appeared to have made, Ashlee decided to give him another chance and against the wishes of her family, moved out-of-state with him.

At first, things seemed to be looking up. Life between them was good for several weeks. One day while doing some cleaning, Ashlee found pornographic magazines hidden in cupboards. When she asked Roy about the magazines, he became belligerent and informed her that it was none of her business. His behavior became progressively worse. Ashlee didn't know what to do. Her family and friends were hundreds of miles away, and she was in a strange town with a man that she was afraid of. His stifling grip on Ashlee tightened, and she had very little freedom.

Life Got Worse

Over the next four years, Ashlee wasn't allowed to have any friends that Roy didn't select and approve of. He was again physically and mentally abusive to her, and he didn't let her forget that he was the boss. The few visits that she was allowed to have with her family, he spoke angrily to her for several days afterward. He often threatened to kill them if she didn't do exactly he directed.

Ashlee had lost control of her life. As a release from stress, she began to exercise daily. What began as the only pleasure in her life became an obsession. Her workouts were three times daily for two hours. If she missed a workout, she became frantic. She became obsessed about what she ate, and cut her portions to less than what a child could eat. She weighed herself several times a day.

Before long, Ashlee was eating only one eighth of her meal. As her weight went down, Roy accused her of losing weight for other men, and of having sexual affairs. He followed her to work and constantly spied on her. The more he ranted and flung accusations at her, the more she withdrew into herself.

People that cared about Ashlee urged her to gain some weight. She was down to 108 lbs. Her cheeks were sunken, her eyes were dull, her hair was brittle and she was exhausted. Her shoulders, ribs and hip bones were visible, and she couldn't sleep on either side because it was so painful. Even so, she felt that she was too fat and needed to lose more weight. Her life followed that course for more than two years.

The Turning Point

The turning point in Ashlee's life came when Shelly, a friend of hers and Roy's, moved in with them. Shelly was nine years younger than the couple, and having her there was a welcome change for Ashlee. After Shelly had been with them for two months, Ashlee noticed that Roy and Shelly were spending a lot of time together. She observed covert looks between them, and they told private jokes to each other. The attraction between them was obvious. Roy forbade Ashlee to go anywhere with him but always took Shelly along. Eventually Shelly disclosed to her that she and Roy were planning her demise.

Ashlee knew that if she wanted to remain alive, she had to do something fast to get out of her horrifying situation. Since Roy had threatened to mutilate her and kill her family if she ever tried to leave him, she did the only thing she could do - she sedated him. When he fell asleep, she loaded her car up with what she could get in it and fled home to her family.

Roy immediately started harassing Ashlee and her family. Undaunted by his threats, her father took the reins. After a few weeks of settling in and unwinding from the severe stress, Ashlee's health started to improve. She no longer felt the need to control her food intake so stringently, and she was able to enjoy her father's home cooked meals. She finally felt safe, and started gaining some weight. Her outlook on life was better than it had been before she married Roy. She had the support of her family and friends, and within a year she was working. She divorced Roy and continued to rebuild her life.

Twenty-six years later, Ashlee is able to look back on that time period with the wisdom of an adult that has self-respect, and high self-esteem. "In retrospect, I should have seen what was coming when Roy turned abusive as soon as we were married," she says. "I know now that my becoming anorexic was the result of the loss of control over my life and the abuse that I suffered. The only thing that I had control over was what and how much I put in my mouth. I am very lucky that I didn't die." It took her a number of years to overcome the emotional damage from her marriage to Roy, and she vowed that she would never let any kind of event cause her to become anorexic again.

So far she hasn't.

*Name changed at interviewee's request.

Copyright 2009 Patti McMann. All rights reserved.

Autor: Patti McMann Patti McMann
Level: Platinum
Patti was born and raised in Oregon. A writer all of her life, she writes for business and pleasure. She has well rounded knowledge and ... ...

Patti McMann is a freelance writer. She writes on a variety of topics for print and electronic publications. She has a diverse background and experience in many subjects, and offers writing services at competitive rates. To find out more, visit her website at http://www.pattimcmann.com

Added: July 18, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

Anorexia and Treatment - The Symptoms and Actions to Take

In general, anorexia is an eating disorder where people voluntarily limit their food intake in order to lose weight while starving their bodies in the process. People that suffer from this eating disorder are usually around the beginning of their puberty, and most of these people are women.

Anorexic is the term used to describe a person suffering from anorexia. Anorexics have a 10 to 15% reduction to their normal body weight, making them thin and skinny. Even though they are already slim, they still have the mindset that they are fat or overweight. This can be attributed to their extreme or intense fear of being fat, although they aren't. Based on this unfounded fear, they develop these bad eating and nutritional habits which harm their bodies in a short period of time.

In order to determine anorexia and treatment needed to triumph over this psychological eating disorder, it must first be determined whether or not the person has symptoms pertaining to the disease. There are many symptoms in determining whether or not a person is an anorexic or not.

First is the eating or dieting habit of the person. If the person has an abnormal eating or diet practice like refusing to eat in public or being obsessive with calorie intake when eating, then he or she may be suffering from anorexia.

Second, if the person focuses his or her daily life on controlling and managing their weight coupled with fanatical episodes of food intake limitation, sugar and fat level scrutiny in food, and pain staking irregular diets, again the person has the potential of being an anorexic.

Today, treatment regarding anorexia has undergone tremendous changes and innovations. In severe or critical cases, weight gain is the first remedy or first aid in treating anorexia. This is done by supplementing the victim with 14 milligrams of zinc.

Research shows that sufficient zinc intake stimulates the appetite of the anorexic, showing increase in food intake over a period of five days. The dangerously low levels of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients in the body are immediately replaced, thereby averting any form of imminent danger to the victim of anorexia.

Another recent discovery in treating this disorder is through psychological treatment and dieting counseling. The victim's mind is conditioned through a series of therapies and counseling sessions in order to encourage him or her to practice proper eating habits.

The disadvantages and dangers of suffering from anorexia and treatment with the modern ways and means on how to prevent further damage by it are taught in detail. Treatments may take weeks, months or even years, but slowly the anorexic will be gradually cured of the harmful eating disorder after going through this series of treatments.

Autor: Mark Bridges

To learn more about the anorexia home treatment program, visit Anorexia And Bulimia Home Treatment Program. For more facts about anorexia causes and treatments, go to >> Eating Disorder Treatments And Causes

Added: July 17, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

Know About Eating Disorders and Treat Them in the Smartest Way

By hearing the name of eating disorders, most people think about a disease related to foods. But, it is not the fact. This disease is not all about foods, actually abnormal consumption of food is a symptom. It has been noticed that this disease can affect at any age of a person, even at the age of 4. Though usually the girls from rich families get affected by this disease, but now both boys and girls are getting affected by it.

There are different medical names of eating disorder like Orthorexia nervosa, Binge eating, Bulimia nervosa and Anorexia nervosa. As per the doctors, some of the patients think that they are over weighted and that's why they start thinking food as their great enemy. As a result, along with physical suffering the patients of eating disorders start suffering mentally. On the other hand, the patients of Bulimia Eating Disorder possess uncontrolled bursts of overeating and over compensatory behavior, such as crash dieting. On the other side, the patients of anorexia eating disorder engage themselves in deliberate weight loss which is driven by a fear of distorted body image.

No matter whichever category of eating disorder patient one is, modern medical sciences have treatments for him/her. There are several medical centers which cordially welcome people for providing eating disorder counseling. The talk therapy and other psychological therapies provided by them are really beneficial for the patients. They also suggest the appropriate eating disorders treatments which will be perfectly suited for the patient.

So, if one of your near-dear ones is suffering from eating disorders then without any delay attain a counseling session. Remember, earlier treatment is the best way to treat a patient in the smartest as well as faster way.

Autor: Patric Smith

For more info regarding Eating Disorder, Addiction Treatment Center. Please visit: http://www.lakeviewhealth.com

Added: July 15, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

How Food Addiction Happens

Emotional eating is not always "just" emotional eating. Sometimes, it is a full-fledged addiction with obvious-and very serious-consequences. Acknowledging this addiction is the first step. Just ask yourself how many people you know who have endangered their health through eating! The fact is, once food is "installed" in an individual's mental computer as a way to deal with problems or stress, it can become so deeply embedded in his or her mind and so important that he or she would literally die to keep it.

It is hard to describe the intensity of this addiction because it is so commonplace and so easily disguised and blended into "just" eating. As one of my patients said so clearly, "Nothing is going to get between me and my eating. I am always ravenously hungry, and when the burrito stand is in view, I must eat."

No one can stop me.

I don't want to stop.

I can't stop.

I won't let anybody try to trick me into wanting to stop.

Stay away! This is sacred territory that I will defend with all of my strength.

These are the sorts of messages you receive when you just ask a person to consider their emotional eating patterns. This is what happens when you just suggest that maybe you are confusing emotional hunger with biological hunger. The resistance to dealing with this addiction at all is the strongest indicator of how much the addicted person is motivated to stay addicted. Yes, once you are addicted, you are also motivated to stay that way.

How Does One Become Addicted to Food?

The beginning of food addiction is a bit different for everyone because it can start at different ages. However, there is one universal theme. Somewhere along the lines you learned that eating can soothe the ordinary hurts in life. We all learn that, because it is true, has always been true an always will be true.

All addiction follows the same basic pattern. You are in a distressed state of mind, and the substance-whether it be alcohol, nicotine, marijuana, cocaine, or a cupcake-offers you almost instant, albeit temporary, relief from your distress. If it works the first time, you do it again and again. When it becomes the mechanism of choice, that's when you become addicted. It is the short route to the resolution of personal unhappiness. But if you are addicted now, it means you became too dependent on this mechanism and you created a short circuit to feeling good that now works against you.

Food addiction is a short circuit in many ways. Literally, it is the fastest route to feeling better. But it is also a short circuit in another sense, the more you use this mechanism, the more you bypass some essential work of life and short circuit the new learning and new ways of managing your feelings that can make life more fulfilling and a lot easier. You are trading the short-term gain for a real long-term loss.

The more you use it as a short circuit, the more you avoid doing what is necessary to resolve the unhappiness in real life, in real time. The more you avoid, the less you learn about how to manage your mind and your life, or at least those critical parts of you that have not fully matured and have been brought under rational control. It's a vicious cycle. The more you avoid learning, the more you need the cure, which makes you avoid learning all the more, which...makes you eat!

Why Can't I Just Stop?

It is our contention that since this addiction is a learned pattern, you can unlearn it! It is not mysterious, even though it seems so because it is so powerful and so embedded in ordinary thinking patterns. That's the good news.

While it is a learned behavior, we are not suggesting that the unlearning process is just a matter of education. No, once food has become installed as a primary way to regulate moods and emotions, it almost becomes an essential part of the person's mind. That's the bad news.

In cases where emotional eating has become food addiction, food is no longer food. The taste is largely irrelevant. It's the mental effect that is being looked for in the meal, not the calories or the flavor. Some have described their relationship between themselves and food as that of jealous lovers who want to possess, horde, hide and clandestinely have one another for their own.

There is a great deal of truth in that description, but it doesn't quite get to the quality I hear in my patients. What I hear sounds more like the eating pattern has become a part of their mental selves the same way an arm is part of their bodily selves, and is defended similarly. You wouldn't let anybody convince you to cut off your arm. In the same way, the person addicted to food won't let anybody convince them to give up this mechanism of internal control.

The bottom line is that food addiction has the same imperative quality as addiction has in the heroin addict who has to have his "fix," or the smoker who must have one more drag, or the alcoholic who must have one more drink. Food addicts can't bear the thought of refusing themselves satisfaction through food.

Florence Williams, a mother, describes the incredible experience between mother and child during nursing, and reveals the primordial power of food addiction in this quote from a New York Times Magazine article on Sunday, January 9, 2005:

"...every time we nurse our babies, the love hormone oxytocin courses out of our pituitaries like a warm bath. Human milk is like ice cream, Valium and Ecstasy all wrapped up in two pretty packages. For a mother and child, nursing is perhaps the most intimate of acts. Evolutionary biologists call it matrotrophy; eating one's mother. My daughter is not only physically attached to me; she is taking from me all that I can give her. Each time I lift my shirt, she pants and flaps her arms and legs as if it were Christmas. Then she settles in, both of us wholly reassured that this is the best, safest and most satisfying food she could eat."

Although not all mothers nurse, this is still the prototypic experience of the kind of bliss that we seek to recreate, in one way or another, the rest of our lives-especially when turning to food for comfort. We seek the temporary pleasure and relief, the sense that for now at least everything seems all right, when moments before it seemed as if everything was all wrong. And when this natural desire becomes addiction, most people refuse to believe that they can continue to function if they give it up.

Autor: Roger Gould, M.D.

Roger Gould, M.D.
Psychiatrist & Associate Clinical Professor, UCLA
One of the world's leading authorities on emotional eating and adult development
Author & Creator of Shrink Yourself
Shrink Yourself is the Proven Online Program Designed to End Emotional Eating

Added: July 13, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

Trust the Process - Heal Your Eating Disorder

The first time someone said to me "Trust the Process" the thought that came to mind was what process? Being blessed as I am today, knowing what I know today I do absolutely "Trust the Process"! The process is allowing things to be just as they are not trying to manipulate them to be what he or she thinks is the right way. Ease and comfort comes to the person whom finally gets that the only control he or she has is on themselves and the thoughts he or she allows.

Eating disorders do not happen overnight, this disorder stems from low self-esteem, a trauma, feelings of abandonment, fear and rejection and other deep rooted beliefs. The illusion that he or she has control over food by eating or not eating is what continues the disease cycle of eating disorders. Accepting circumstance's exactly as they are is the answer. The Serenity Prayer that is said to be written by Reinhold Niebuhr and used in 12 step programs is very helpful in teaching one to "Trust the Process."

The Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever in the next.
Amen.

Reaching out for help with an eating disorder is essential to recovery. When he or she spends time trying to figure out why an eating disorder exists leaves him or her stuck in the problem and not moving toward the solution. Everyday I ask for the wisdom to know the difference and I trust the process knowing that everything is in divine order, when I am stuck I ask for help. Freedom comes from knowing help is available when I ask.

Prayer retrieved June 9, 2009 from http://www.prayerguide.org

Autor: Joanna Painton

Joanna works for the Women's Behavioral Program. She has overcome adversities and shares her hope with anyone she comes in contact with. Joanna is a known published author in the Bariatric and Weight Loss Community, she has spent the last 13 years helping to inspire and motivate people on the value of the body, mind and spirit connection.

Please feel free to contact Joanna at http://www.womenstreatmentprogram.com or by e-mail joanna@recoveryconnection.org

Added: July 12, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

Craving Junk Foods - How to Stop Cravings For Junk Foods

Craving for junk food and fast food are a common problem in the Western world. Not only are there advertisements everywhere and popular chain stores around every corner, junk food meals target our very instinctual, primal diet - our sweet and meat tooths, making it that much harder to resist.

Giving up junk foods can be tough and to stop craving them can be tougher but it is possible. To stop eating junk foods you need to know firstly what to put into your body to nourish it enough not to crave these empty calories and to satisfy these cravings for sweet or junky foods. You then need to address your craving triggers and learn to avoid or to use something else instead of food as the solution.

Now, I am not saying that you need to diet. In fact you probably tried that and that just made you crave junk foods even more. Diets simply don't work because even the word diet implies restriction. This can send one into a panic, and then into a junk food binge. I know I have been there. The best approach is to introduce good nutrient rich foods at the beginning of meals and at the beginning of your day. The beginning of the day is the easiest time in terms of cravings. Cravings usually appear as the day goes on. If you introduce nutrient rich foods at the beginning of meals you will find cravings diminish also. Instead of completely changing your diet, making a small change like this is something one is able to stick to because you know you will be getting your usual food afterwards.

Once you have successfully added in good foods to your diet, you should find you cravings diminish dramatically if not altogether. If they disappear and you are able to continue life without any problems that is great. Of course though for many physical cravings is only half the battle and they must deal with emotional or phantom hunger.

Emotional hunger is when one experiences a sudden urge to eat as though they are hungry, after emotions. For example some people find that spending the evening in front of the TV bores them. This feeling of boredom triggers them to want to eat - and eat they do! Others find that stress at work can trigger a sudden urge.

The best way to find out your triggers is to observe yourself throughout a day. When you know your triggers you will be better able to overcome them. Instead of eating, write a list of things you can do instead and carry it with you. Sometimes simply allowing yourself to feel the feeling is enough to get over the phantom hunger. If it isn't eat some fruit (4-5 pieces).

Most people experience both physical cravings and emotional cravings so it is worth taking the time to work out your triggers. In a society where food is used to celebrate, to mourn and to enjoy ourselves, it is no wonder that most people eat due to emotions - so make sure you spend just as much time on this aspect of your eating as the physical cravings.

Autor: Kelly Aziz

Kelly Aziz is an expert in the field of nutrition and addiction psychology. She is the author of the acclaimed "Free to Eat" Combat Your Cravings eBook that helps you eat well and combat cravings for good. For more information please visit: http://www.CombatYourCravings.com

Stop Craving Junk

Added: July 11, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

Emotional Eating - Dare to Dream

Many people who overeat do so to fill in the empty time when they are bored, or they are using food to fill their emotional hunger. The pain of loneliness, the itch of frustration or the adrenaline-burst of anger can be suppressed by filling up with food.

And it's better to do that, we reason, than turn our feelings inwards and hurt ourselves or turn the feelings outwards and hurt others. So food becomes a drug to suppress feelings and all the feelings turn to fat.

Even though we know it doesn't really work, we still do it.

At the end of the overeating binge, our feelings are still there. They may for a short while be lying sulking in the corner, temporarily subdued by the food. But because physical hunger wasn't the question, physical food is not the answer.

And the food we choose to do this is so, so "bad". Whatever your comfort food is, I can pretty much guarantee it's not broccoli. We eat high fat/sugar goodies when we are feeling down emotionally. That makes us feel down physically and it makes us feel guilty!

So we can then feel yuk and bad/sad/mad all at the same time!

So how can you deal with this? In the Food & Joy Coaching Process I talk about having awareness - the first stage of tackling this is to be aware that you are doing it.

Then choosing a time when you are not emotionally hungry, dare to dream.

Dream of eating wonderful, nutritious foods that will fill you with vitamins, minerals and all the other goodies you need for good health.

Dare to dream of all the crispy crunchy salady stuff you could eat and experience the fresh cleansing feeling of eating this food. Feel the crunchiness, smell the crispness and freshness of this food.

Dare to dream of effortlessly making choices that will support your physical body and nourish your soul. See a huge buffet of food in front of you with lots of healthy foods to choose from and you are free to pile your plate high with them. And you know that these foods will nourish and sustain you.

Dare to dream that you are the kind of person who loves food and always knows how to choose the best for your body. So you see yourself choosing food that your body is going to love - you can feel the energy that you will have after eating this food.

Dare to dream of the lightness you will feel when you have made these food choices. You have eaten your fill but are not overfull. You have eaten foods bursting with goodness and the cells of your body have been nourished without being overfed with calories.

Do this every day and if you make this dream as vivid as possible you can eat what you want because what you want will be the most healthy, life-giving food on the planet.

Health and happiness to you!

Autor: Liz Copeland Liz Copeland
Level: Platinum
Liz Copeland, creator of the Food & Joy Coaching Process, has been looking after the health and wellbeing of her clients for over 15 years. ... ...

As a Nutrition Coach Liz Copeland shows people who find healthy eating difficult how to change their beliefs and behaviours around food so they can eat well, look good and feel great. Receive her 5-lesson mini ecourse "Conquer Emotional Eating Forever" and a complimentary subscription to her newsletter No More Rabbit Food - weight loss tips for people who love food at http://www.conqueremotionaleatingforever.com - http://www.ConquerEmotionalEatingForever.com

Added: July 9, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

Orthorexia Awareness

This article is all about healthy and effective diets and related subjects but it turns out there is an extreme form of everything, including the desire to be healthy. It seems like everyone I know is increasingly aware of the importance of a healthier diet and exercise, though everyone implements these changes in their own way and most are far from extreme in their lifestyle changes. But Dr. Steven Bratman has discovered a new and dangerous condition in which people pursue health to the dangerous extreme.

Back in 1997, he coined the term orthorexia which is an unhealthy obsession (as in obsessive-compulsive disorder) with what the sufferer considers to be healthy eating. The person may avoid certain foods, like those containing fats, preservatives, animal products, or other ingredients he or she considers unhealthy. What's worse is that if the dietary restrictions are too severe or improperly managed, malnutrition can result, including emaciation, and this has the potential to reach the extremes seen in anorexia nervosa.

Although orthorexia can reach the extremes that anorexia does, the motivation of orthorexia is quite different; an anorexic wants to lose weight, and an orthorexic wants to feel pure, healthy and natural. So what are the signs of an orthorexic?

He or she may present with the following symptoms:

Spending more than 3 hours a day thinking about healthy food
Planning tomorrow's menu today
Being critical of others who don't eat as well
Skipping foods they once enjoyed in order to eat the "right" foods
Feeling guilt when they stray from their "healthy" diet
Feeling in control when they eat the correct diet
Feeling virtuous about what they eat, but not enjoying it much
Experiencing a reduced quality of life or social isolation

So what do you do if you or a person close to you is experiencing these symptoms? Its important to enlist the help of a nutritionist or doctor who specializes in dealing with this type of eating disorder.

Autor: Judy Feder

Judy feder is a health and nutrition specialist. To read more of her articles, visit her online at http://www.judyfeder.com/

Added: July 8, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

Overcoming Binge Eating - The First Steps to End Binge Eating

Binge eating is something many of us face - yes MANY of us. Whether we binge out of intense physical or emotional cravings depends on the individual, but I wouldn't be surprised if we had all binged once in our life.

For some though binge eating is something that takes over their lives. Binge eating can be a regular, daily occurrence. The number one issue causing binge eating is usually emotional repression. In a society that encourages us to repress, avoid and take our mind off our feelings, it can be hard to allow ourselves to actually feel due to guilt and shame. When you keep avoiding or distracting yourself from feelings it can be even harder to move from this to a life of feeling. Binge eating is just one way people use to repress feelings.

Overcoming binge eating is a task that can seem quite daunting but taking a few steps in the right direction can really help prevent binges for good. I think it is important that before we address the emotional side of bingeing we must make sure that our body is getting all it needs nutritionally and physically. There are many aspects to overcoming binge eating but I feel the first crucial step is to stop dieting.

Although having a healthy diet is a good thing, the word diet has been used to describe deprivation eating. When you think of the word diet I am sure the first thing that comes into your mind is that you have to "give up" foods you like. This mentality around the term dieting is exactly why most diets fail and most people are unsuccessful at losing weight and preventing themselves from binging. One needs to reframe their mind around the word diet in order to be successful in eating better and overcoming cravings.

Thinking of a diet as deprivation will also push you into a panic mode, which can lead you into a binge. I know when I tried diets (or specifically the mainstream diets) I would do ok the first day but by evening I would almost go into a blind panic, as though all food was being taken away from me. This would lead me to a massive binge. This mentality is partly due to the way the word diet is used but also because of my emotional eating. I was going to "deprive" myself of my comfort foods.

As a result I found the best way to eat healthier and to keep cravings at bay was to slowly introduce healthier foods and to nourish my body with the right foods to diminish.

Most diets out there do not nourish your body sufficiently, are not healthy or geared towards the optimum diet for us as a species and leave you feeling deprived. They also do not address emotional and physical cravings either. So you are bound to fail by using these programs or getting wrapped in their use of the word diet.

Your Thinking

The biggest reason for failing at diets is the way we think. We think of food as good and bad and if we eat the bad stuff we feel guilty and ashamed. On top of this we see bad food as something we aren't allowed or that we are missing out on.

What we should be doing instead is viewing those foods we consider bad as something we have CHOSEN not to eat. You have chosen not to eat that food as opposed to not being allowed to have it. You can freely choose again to have it but you are choosing not to for your health and weight loss goals.

We need to also take the food off the pedestal we have firmly placed it on because those junk foods do not love you like you love them do they? They leave you feeling ashamed, guilty, depressed, sluggish and awful.

If you stop seeing foods as good or as bad, start taking power of your choices and saying to others and to yourself that you are CHOOSING to eat this way, you are CHOOSING to not eat certain foods, then you will find you will have much more success in eating healthy and not binging.

They are not forbidden foods, they are just foods you are choosing to no longer eat.

Autor: Kelly Aziz

Kelly Aziz is an expert in the field of nutrition and addiction psychology. She is the author of the acclaimed "Free to Eat" Combat Your Cravings eBook that helps you eat well and combat cravings for good. For more information please visit: http://www.CombatYourCravings.com

Overcoming Binge Eating.

Added: July 7, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

Eating Disorders - A Matter of Willpower

The human body is typically designed to heal and recover from disease, illnesses, and disorders that a person may experience in the course of their lives. It may take them some time to do so, but for the most part, people are largely able to recover from most of these illnesses, diseases, and disorders. There are, however, some disorders that tend to affect both the body as well as the mind of the person that is afflicted with the condition. One example of this are the various eating disorders that more and more people all over the world appear to be developing in the course of their lives. An eating disorder is a particular point of concern because of the effect it can have on a person, not only does it deprive the person of much needed nutrients needed in daily life, or conversely, it causes a person to eat much more than what is needed by the body and considered to be safe, but an eating disorder also significantly affects the mind of a person, making the person think that the erroneous eating habit that they had developed because of the eating disorder is not harmful to them in any way. In some cases, people do acknowledge the damage that an eating disorder can bring to them, but they feel that they are powerless to do anything about it, so they will continue to give in to the hazardous habit. In some cases, the person is absolutely afraid that people might discover that they have an eating disorder, and they will do their best to try to hide or deny that they are indeed afflicted with an eating disorder. This act only serves to exacerbate the condition, since people will often choose to believe that a person is just indeed having a bad day and that it is affecting the way they eat rather than attribute the change in eating habits to an eating disorder.

In cases wherein people tend to curb the way they eat, like when they are afflicted with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa, they will have an irrational fear of gaining any amount of weight, and will often have a distorted view of how they really look, often seeing themselves as being overweight when they are already dangerously underweight. When this behavior manifests, the disorder has already reached such a severity that will already require intervention, since most people already in this stage will not have the willpower themselves to seek medical attention.

In cases wherein people tend to binge or overeat, they are typically afflicted with the binge eating disorder. This disorder is usually triggered by emotional or psychological stress. People with this disorder tend to eat excessive amounts of food when they feel bothered, disturbed, or depressed. In some cases, this disorder is so bad that the person afflicted with it will take any excuse at all to binge on food, thereby making them gain a significant amount of weight. This disorder creates a vicious cycle of its own, since unhappy people who have this disorder comfort themselves by eating, and when they eat they also become equally unhappy, and the cycle goes on.

The issue to address here is how to best help people with eating disorders gain enough willpower to affect a change in their eating habits, and how to affect a positive mind set in them enough to allow them to develop proper eating habits and maintain those proper eating habits.

Autor: Paul Aragones

If you want to know more about eating disorders and what options you have to treat it, you can visit this link http://eatingdisordertreatmentoptions.blogspot.com/.

Added: July 5, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

Eating Disorders - A Silent Killer

Medical science has allowed medical and healthcare professionals to identify most, if not all disorders that plague humanity today. In many cases, the disorders inflict a great many number of people that it actually becomes commonly known, and therefore launches equally common known cures and treatments, which become quite popular with people easily. Some examples are the common byproducts of life today such as anxiety and depression.

The world we live in today can create so much stress for a person that it actually promotes the development of a disorder. This stress may also partially be blamed for the proliferation of the eating disorders among people. Many may not realize just how prevalent eating disorders can be amongst people, since it is not really a disorder that many address, at least not as popularly as depression and anxiety issues are addressed.

A recent study has shown that at least .5% of women and even .05% of men will manifest certain characteristics of anorexia nervosa at one point during their lives, with some of the people bearing the characteristics actually developing a full blown case of the disorder. A greater number of women, at least 3%, may manifest characteristics of bulimia at one point during their lives. Binge eating, however, remains the most prevalent eating disorder of all, being present in at least 2% of all living adults at any given time.

What is alarming, however, is the fact that the number of people suffering from the various eating disorders appear to be rising slowly but steadily over the years. Since first being documented and established as a disorder, the cases of people suffering from one form of eating disorder or another have more than tripled in number. This is quite alarming since there have been immense developments in the methods of treatment of the various physical and mental disorders known to man, and yet the number of people suffering from eating disorders appear to be on the rise, instead of decreasing.

In most cases, eating disorders appear to manifest more commonly in women than in men, as shown by studies in the field, where only about 10% of all patients diagnosed with eating disorders are men. Some contend, however, that this figure may never be accurately validated, since it is an established fact that people suffering from eating disorders have a knack of being totally secretive about it and will deny ever having it, much less seek help for their disorder, which has led doctors and medical professionals to speculate that there may actually be a bigger percentage of people with eating disorders that are unaccounted for, and thus, untreated.

Statistically, there have been much more people which have come out and sought medical help in treating sexually transmitted diseased or venereal diseases than people who have an eating disorder.

Most of people known to have eating disorders usually start manifesting it around the time of adolescence or even early adulthood. This condition is made worse by the fact that the transition between adolescence and adulthood is particularly fraught with much stress for the people going through that period. While there are no clear cut indicators as to what particular events trigger the development of an eating disorder in a person, it is generally attributed to instances wherein the person is subjected to much stress and anxiety, as in instances of violence, intense conflict, great physical stress, burgeoning peer pressure and even a lack of emotional support from the people the person expects support from.

Autor: Paul Aragones

If you want to know more about eating disorders and what options you have to treat it, you can visit this link http://eatingdisordertreatmentoptions.blogspot.com/.

Added: July 4, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

Is Anorexia a Form of Brainwashing?

I have been interested for a long time regarding what makes people change their beliefs, mindset, and attitudes towards things. I firmly believe that most eating disorders are caused by people's wrong beliefs and attitudes towards themselves and others. Genetic predisposition also plays the role too.

Once I was reading an article about brainwashing. Brainwashing is any effort aimed towards instilling in the mind of one person different beliefs and attitudes that eventually make a person behave in a certain way and believe in certain things. Brainwashing was used a lot by communists to spread the mentality of communism. It was also used on war prisoners in the Korean war - when American soldiers after being captured and kept in Chinese camps sometimes ended up taking the side of the communists and considered themselves to be their supporters.

Brainwashing occurs when people join cults or weird religious groups. These change people's identity completely, just like anorexia changes people's identity completely.

So, you see, brainwashing is something that can change your total identity. The media does it all the time too. And not just only the media things like the culture you live in can also brainwash you.
When I was reading this - I thought: How much is brainwashing relevant to developing anorexia! Anorexics really become the victims of brainwashing: their whole value systems and thought-patterns are changed in a matter of months after contracting anorexia.

American Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lipton did a special research project on what's involved in brainwashing. He came up with a list of steps on brainwashing techniques:
1. Assault on identity
2. Guilt and shame
3. Self-betrayal
4. Breaking point
5. Leniency
6. Compulsion to confess
7. Channelling of guilt
8. Releasing of guilt
9. Progress and harmony
10. Final confession and rebirth

I believe anorexia goes through similar stages? I think it really does when you think about it. The only difference is that when people get brainwashed it is done deliberately by someone else. In the case of anorexia, people normally perceive events in their life and what happens to them and take it the wrong way then they become prisoners of their own thoughts and feelings.

I have analyzed the brainwashing steps above in relation to eating disorders and here is what I have come up with:

1. Assault on identity: when anorexia begins after an emotional event or a number of events, the anorexic starts to think that they are not who they should be and who they want to be. The person is under constant self-identity attacks for days, weeks or months, to the point that she/he becomes exhausted, confused and disoriented. In this state, their beliefs seem less solid. They look around for a substitute for their identity.

2. Guilt and Shame: Constant thoughts: "You are bad the way you are." They feel that their body is disgusting, they feel ashamed of their own body. When the development of anorexia coincides with the time of puberty - thoughts of being ashamed of their own body is associated with feelings of disgust about sex and intimacy and this can have dramatic consequences. Associations of guilt and shame about intimacy can end up being a lifelong sentence for many sufferers unless major neuroplastic changes are instigated later in life.

Eating can be also associated with guilt and this is a major reason why anorexia turns into bulimia at later stage of the disease for some sufferers. People begin to feel a general sense of shame, that everything they do is wrong.

Many researchers have shown that feelings of guilt are tightly associated with the development of eating disorders (especially bulimia and binge eating).

3. Self-betrayal: This is when the anorexia starts to tell her/him: "Agree with me that you are bad". And once the person is confused and drowning in guilt, these thoughts force them to withdraw from her/his family, friends and peers who are eating normally and enjoying their life. This betrayal of her/ his own trust in themselves and people close to them increases the shame and loss of identity that the person is already experiencing.

4. Breaking point: The sufferer is constantly asking her/himself: "Who am I, where am I and what am I supposed to do?" At this point the person has her/his identity in crisis, experiencing deep shame and guilt. Also, the person may undergo a "nervous breakdown." This may involve uncontrollable sobbing, deep depression and general disorientation and withdrawal.Not everyone has the same severity of symptoms but lots of people do have this exact reaction.

5. Leniency: The Anorexia then tells the sufferer:" Follow me - I can help you." Anorexics often believe that their anorexia is the only way of life they can follow. Performing anorexic behaviour - like starving, purging which brings them temporary relief of their feelings, although short lived. But then it demands more and more attention until the person becomes 100% consumed by their distorted anorexic thoughts and feelings.

6. Compulsion to confession: "I can help myself."
For the first time in the brainwashing process, the anorexic is faced with the contrast between the guilt and pain of identity and feelings of sudden relief and leniency. The person may feel a desire to talk to other people with the same problems and visit 'thinspiration" sites. (Sites that are set up by other sufferers to try and justify their inability to deal with their anorexia in the real world). They may start sharing their experiences about anorexia, give each other advice on a best diet, on tricks to induce vomiting, make competitions about who has lost the most weight etc. The sufferer starts to confess that anorexia is their life style.

7. Channelling of guilt: This is why you're in pain. After weeks or months of suffering, confusion, breakdown and moments of leniency, the person's guilt has lost all meaning - numbness replaces it all. This creates something of a blank slate that lets the anorexia in deeper and deeper into the soul. The anorexia attaches itself to the person's guilt and belief system opposite what healthy people have. For example, food is associated with guilt and shame.

It is the stage when anorexics start to display bad tantrums when parents try to feed them or persuade them to eat and stop their abnormal behaviour. They start to believe that anorexia is not an illness but it is a life style and associate their own self with the anorexia: they become one with the disease.

8. Releasing of guilt: It's not me; it's my beliefs. With her/his full confessions, the person has completed his/her psychological rejection of their former identity. The sufferer has gradually giving up all their previously enjoyable activities, left their job or college quite their university. All this is just for the sake of practicing the life style anorexia provides. People start joining pro-anorexia groups, forums, looking for justification etc.

9. Progress and harmony:" If you want, you can choose good." - say their "thinspiration" friends.
These "Thinspiration" friends introduce a new belief system as the path to "good." At this stage the anorexia stops to hurt, offering the sufferer physical comfort and mental calm in conjunction with their new belief system. People get a "team spirit "attitude with their friends who practice the same dangerous way of living.

10. Final confession and rebirth: Their mind equals their Anorexia that tells them:" I choose good."
Good is the anorexia. The person has no doubt in the righteousness of her/his choice to be anorexic. At this stage separating them self from the anorexia seems impossible. People continue practicing this dangerous way of living. Thousands of them die as a result of this sooner than later. Some can live longer but still eventually die from severe complications or commit suicide because of their starving and the fact they can't cope with life and can't evaluate things logically.

This is how the anorexic mind gets programmed (brainwashed) to be the way they are suffering from severe anorexia. Most eating disorder sufferers go through similar stages but often these stages happen differently for each sufferer and it is difficult to differentiate between them.

The purpose of this article is to show you what the brainwashing process is all about and that what happens in cults and in prisoner of war camps is similar to what happens in people with anorexia.

Also I want to point out that the phenomenon of anorexia is mainly in the relatively young.
People in the past didn't have anorexia to the same extend we have today. In the past single cases of anorexia was described only in people who starved themselves for religious purposes, cult purposes and the like. There were no anorexic cases reported of people striving to be thin for beauty sake or for prestige purposes.

This all points to anorexia being a modern disease: I believe caused by some beauty product advertisers and the media that promote beauty standards that are impossible to achieve by normal human beings. You can say that it is designed to make people buy more and more beauty and slimming products, making someone extremely rich, built on the suffering of many.

The solution to this problem is to teach young people and emphasise natural and internal beauty. To make young people strive for learning, studying and expanding their minds, not to strive for this unattainable look which some of the media and others portray as beautiful. For many young people to reach for this unattainable level only brings suffering, hardship and death.

Autor: Irina Webster Irina Webster
Level: Platinum
Dr Irina Webster MD is the 39 years old Director of Women Health Issues one of the Australia leading suppliers of information on women health ... ...

Dr Irina Webster MD is the Director of Eating Disorder Institute. She is a recognised authority in the eating disorders area. She is an author of many books and a public speaker. To learn more about anorexia and its causes go to http://www.eatingdisorder-institute.com

Added: July 2, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/