Psychological addiction to food how to get rid of. How to overcome food addiction: we solve problems on our own. Addiction to food in children

Psychological dependence on food exists in about half of the world's population. It occurs when the need for food arises not because of an empty stomach, but as the mood worsens, feelings of boredom, melancholy, and stress appear.

Psychological dependence on food is, in fact, a manifestation of a feeling of dissatisfaction in one or another area of life: work, personal relationships, study, etc. At the same time, “jamming” does not solve the problem, but only exacerbates it, causing additional stress.

You can enjoy other, safer and even more useful ways, such as sports, walking, swimming, hobbies, massage, talking with nice people, reading an interesting book, listening to your favorite music, but we choose food - the easiest and fastest way.

The desire to eat something tasty regularly arises between main meals with a full stomach.
The presence of food addictions - products that are almost impossible to resist: coffee, chocolate, ice cream, smoked fish and anything.
Feelings of guilt that arise after eating "forbidden" foods, which, in turn, cause stressful conditions that are compensated by a new meal.
Food is perceived as a means of rewarding oneself for something or achieving a sense of security, some psychological comfort(temporary, then developing into discomfort caused by guilt).
Hunger causes not only unpleasant physical sensations, but also serious psychological discomfort. Dieting can lead to deep depression.
The inability to realistically assess the severity of diseases caused or aggravated by overeating: diabetes, cardiovascular disease.
The tendency to absorb food volumes that significantly exceed the threshold necessary for physiological saturation.

Psychological addiction to food: how to get rid of it

Losing weight or with food addiction is almost impossible. Therefore, work on the body should begin with the elimination of the psychological root cause, and not with diets, massages, sports, hardware techniques and other secondary techniques. To get rid of the psychological dependence on food, you must first of all recognize its existence and realize the seriousness of the problem, and then:

start respecting yourself.
Let go of grudges against yourself and others, let go of the past and feel free from unimportant moments.
To understand that by eating insult or pain, we do not worsen the offender, but only ourselves, and do not compensate for the pain, but only worsen our condition.
Realize that only we can help ourselves.
Start a food diary in which to mark breakdowns and the state preceding them (stress, loneliness, longing, resentment, boredom, fear, etc.).
Find other sources of pleasure that are beneficial or at least neutral.
Switch from thinking about delicious food to other pleasant moments that become available as a result of not eating disorderly: beautiful clothes, a feeling of lightness in the body, strengthening health, a slender body that attracts the attention of the opposite sex, saving money, after all.
Make a clear meal schedule adapted to your usual lifestyle. Adhere to 2-2.5-hour breaks between meals.
Ensure sufficient intake of nutrients and calories at the main meals.
Do not buy foods that cause a special craving for uncontrolled eating. First of all, you will have to give up sweet and starchy foods, which cause spikes in blood glucose.
Go to the store with a full stomach and a ready list of planned purchases.
Drink a large number of water to ensure the normal flow of metabolic processes in the body and partially satisfy the feeling of hunger.
Fight hunger pangs with warm chamomile, peppermint, or other soothing teas.
Don't look at "breakdowns" as failures, treat them as temporary surmountable difficulties. Drive away the feeling of guilt for them and believe in yourself.
Do not be shy to seek help from specialists: a psychologist and a nutritionist who will help you choose a suitable and rehabilitation course.

In the first stage, food addiction is a way to compensate for stress and other unpleasant emotions. In such a situation, the correction of a psychological problem, as a rule, is easy and successful.

The second stage is the transition of dependence into a pathological state, which is virtually impossible to compensate without the help of appropriate specialists.

To briefly explain the essence of the technique, we propose to introduce a lemon. If you visualize a lemon conscientiously, in all colors, then, most likely, involuntary salivation will begin. By analogy, you can “program” your brain to lose your appetite at the mention of unwanted foods. And here any methods are good: from imagining the vile style of product names to fantasies regarding the transformation of the product itself into some kind of muck, including cellulite deposits.

In the same way, you need to present useful products in the brightest colors and connect the most pleasant associations with them.

Do not persuade the child to “eat at least another spoonful”, do not praise for the meal eaten. Such a tactic can further form in the child a stereotype of the connection between food and approval, receiving warmth, affection.

Don't give your child candy when they fall or get hit. Don't bribe with sweets. These adult-friendly ways of managing a baby's emotions can make him unhappy in the future.

When the baby's diet is made correctly and there are no problems with digestion and metabolism, the refusal of parental persuasion during meals cannot harm him. If you impose a taboo on all sorts of crackers, chips, sweets, tasty, but harmful foods such as sausages, then the child himself will happily eat his breakfast, lunch and dinner.

For what reasons they struggle with addiction to smoking, the use of alcoholic beverages and drugs is understandable. These substances, getting into the body, destroy it, disrupt its normal functioning, shorten life.

What is food addiction- difficult to understand. There are no food independents. It is impossible to exist without food entering the body. There are units that feed on energy sunlight, but even those sometimes bother eating.

Psychological dependence on food - when a person absorbs food not because he is hungry, but with any factor that irritates him nervous system. After eating, he feels happy, relaxes.

With the intake of calories in the body, the level of glucose in the blood rises, and, therefore, serotonin - the hormone of happiness. Then the insulin produced by the pancreas "suppresses" the sugar, the euphoria disappears. The mood falls, and they try to raise it in the usual way.

Comes from childhood

In many cases, parents themselves do not realize that they are instilling in the child a habit that will then be difficult for him to get rid of. First, the baby is shoved at the breast or bottle at the first attempts to voice - the baby does not scream when it is full. Then, when the baby fell down, give him something sweet to calm him down.

The child is older:

relationships do not develop in the team;
got a deuce;
not popular with the opposite sex...

"Eat something sweet, and it will be easier!"– advise caring parents. And indeed, it becomes easier, and now, at the first troubles, a person himself runs to the refrigerator or sweeps sweets from the shelves in stores.

And the result is reflected - at best - on appearance, at worst - on health. Due to obesity, the appearance becomes far from the model - and this again leads to a nervous breakdown, accompanied by continuous absorption of food. There is a metabolic syndrome, problems with the cardiovascular system and the musculoskeletal system - it is very difficult for the body to cope with increased stress.

Constant work on the "wear and tear" of the pancreas causes diabetes.

How to overcome food addiction and break vicious circle: excitement - food intake - temporary calm - excitement, etc.?

Awareness of the problem

Until a person realizes that he is sick, treatment of food addiction cannot begin. In this case, he repeats like an alcoholic or drug addict: "I want to, and I will not eat".

It takes him a while.

It is not easy to overcome such a state on your own; in most cases, a psychoanalyst or psychotherapist helps to restore psychological health.

food addiction- this is in most cases a sign of dissatisfaction.

Going to see a nutritionist is possible only when the root of the problem has been identified and there are already initial prerequisites for refusing food in "difficult situation".

If you strive to become independent of your own stomach, and it is impossible to contact a specialist for any reason, then the following technique will help solve the problem of how to get rid of the addiction of constant food.

help yourself

First you need to understand, is it really impossible to overcome difficulties without food, or are you just trying to mask the real root of the problem?

Signs of food addiction:

As soon as it becomes hard on the soul, the mood deteriorates, you want to eat something tasty - to please yourself. At the same time, they prefer to eat alone, the meal lasts a long time, the dishes are chosen with pleasure;
During the day, thoughts of what to eat constantly visit, I want to quickly be near the food counters or in a restaurant, the dishes that will be ordered are carefully planned;
Completely lacking self-control. All food that is in sight is eaten, regardless of whether it is full or not. There is no feeling of fullness;
Even in a full state, passing by a stall or counter with edibles, you buy yourself a chocolate bar or a banana, and immediately eat it;
After eating, you feel ashamed that you ate a lot, you curse yourself last words, you promise that this was the last time, and that from next Monday, for sure ... Is it worth it to continue that nothing will change from Monday?

If you observe at least one of the above factors, it's time to start treatment.

It is possible to cope with food addiction on your own:

You need to calculate how much food is eaten during the day. To do this, it is worth putting in a notebook all food intake, all snacks and so on. In the future, this will help to gradually get rid of excess food.
Gradually organize your meals. First, 3 main meals are prescribed and 2 snacks between them, then the number of snacks is reduced. It is impossible at the first stage of treatment to force the body to suffer from hunger. He will begin to resist intensely, his health will deteriorate sharply.
Self-restraint must be rewarded. For example: did not eat for 3 hours, you can use a piece of chocolate. And this chocolate bar will bring more pleasure than a whole bar that was eaten "out of habit".

There should not be any extreme in the treatment of food addiction! Exhausting diets, extreme physical and sports activities - all this will lead to a nervous breakdown, and recovery will be delayed for a long time.

Psychologist's recommendations - help recovering from addiction to food

Know thyself - that sounds too lofty. But you still have to be aware of your problems. To change eating habits, you need to determine whether these unsolvable life difficulties really exist, or, if you look, you can "unload yourself"?

Here's what you can do:

You need to try to find an activity that will entertain. Boring - you need to go not to the grocery store, but to the cinema, museum, take a walk. Sometimes it is very useful to be in the crowd, it energizes and makes you forget about your own problems. Mass festivities, crowded concerts - all this makes you distract from thoughts about food;
Change your attitude. Do not constantly criticize yourself, scold for weaknesses. Selfishness spoils life, why drive yourself into depression? Analyze your strengths positive traits, you should concentrate on them;
Do not drastically limit yourself, set a strict daily routine. Recovery should be gradual. Yesterday I eat - today I don’t - a sure way to drive the body into a stressful state;
While eating, you should not be distracted by anything. Food should be chewed thoroughly, enjoying the taste of each piece. Then it will be noticed with surprise that much less has been eaten, and the desired satiety has come;
During meals, portions should be limited, and the number of dishes should be increased. If you want to try everything, then you can not afford not to enjoy. Those who eat an appetizer, soup, main course, compote and dessert for lunch eat less than those who pour themselves a huge bowl of borscht. You may not believe it, but it is so;
If you take your free time as much as possible, after work, strive not for the refrigerator, but for a team of like-minded people, then you can distract yourself from food.

Only when thoughts about food cease to be present in the head all the time - it's time to think about unloading and switch to proper rational nutrition. Only at this stage can one realize: we do not live in order to eat, but we eat in order to live.

The sad irony is that even though the topic of nutrition is very popular these days, people continue to eat unhealthy foods that cause them health problems... and then think that taking medication is the solution to their problems!

Unfortunately, it is easier to say that you should stop eating junk food than to actually stop eating it, because many foods, like many drugs, are addictive.

If you're wondering how to deal with food addiction and regain your health, read on!

How to beat food addiction?

Understand what you want and then think about why you want change. Use the visualization exercises from the Silva Method to create a compelling mental and emotional image of your desired outcome. Imagine that you have an attractive body, boundless energy, excellent health, great friends - everything that matters to you and attracts you. Hold this image and the pleasant emotions associated with it in your mind for as long as possible each day. Don't think about "how" it will happen. It is important to sow the seed of desire. See what you want to see.
Understand your food cravings and why they occur Your body has developed chemical addiction from something that is causing you problems. Dig into the reasons why you eat certain foods and develop unhealthy cravings for them. Does it help you deal with stress? Or with boredom? Do you eat certain foods because it makes you happy? Is a part of you aware of the dangers of this product (or products), but is your self-esteem low enough that you simply do not worry about your health, or do you simply not feel strong enough in yourself to defeat your addictions?
It is very important! If you don't value yourself, you won't take the necessary steps to recover from food addiction (or any other addiction). Food cravings and other addictions are coping mechanisms used when needs for love, acceptance, or meaning are not met. If you have high self-esteem, you can deal with these needs (which all of us have in one form or another) with healthier alternatives such as exercise or creativity, such as art or music.

But if you have problems with self-esteem and it seems to you that love and acceptance are something that only other people can do, you have an attitude: “What is the point of taking care of what no one needs?” With such an attitude, it is almost impossible to achieve positive change.

Realize that your habit of eating certain addictive foods is a symptom of low self-esteem, and you will be on your way to breaking the habit! If you increase your self-esteem, you will find that it is much easier to get rid of addiction.

Self love is a weapon against food addiction.

The Silva Method is always ready to help you with a variety of self-esteem exercises that include self-awareness, self-programming, and a new outlook on life. Start with this and stick to the image of the desired result!
Understand which foods are addictive and gradually eliminate them from your diet Keep a food diary for a week and see what foods you have strong cravings for, how you feel when you eat them, and how you feel afterwards (both physically and emotionally).
Clue: in most cases, you will be craving simple carbohydrates like bread, pasta, and sugar. These foods cause a lot of health problems, so aim to cut them out first!
Practice "Delayed Reward" When you feel a strong craving for a food, drink a glass of water first and wait 15 minutes. Will you still be drawn to this product? Probably not. Here's why: sometimes thirst is mistaken for hunger. So first of all pay attention to thirst.
Sometimes the body signals to you, “More food, please,” but this signal is mistaken for “More calories, please,” so make sure you give your body the nutrients it needs before moving on to the immediate reward. Make healthy snack choices.
Take a delay in rewarding the habit, and as you wait those 15 minutes, visualize the desired end result. That might be enough to break the usual chain of events... in this particular case. And this is a great start!
Reward yourself for making wise choices by visualizing the desired end result and remembering those wonderful feelings of achievement that make you happy!
Do not hurry Find a healthy alternative to the product you want to eliminate. Just try not to replace it with another food (food is not the answer to your emotional problems). Choose another form of self-soothing: exercise, meditation, hobbies, etc. And instead of reaching for a donut, reach for this new "substitution". Connect your imagination. Imagine how satisfied and happy you feel when you make the best choice. Reinforce this feeling with the Three Finger Technique, programming yourself to automatically make the right choice.
Always think about the end result, not about what you want to get away from. After all, when you think about what you want to get away from, your mind automatically restores the pleasure of eating this product in your memory. Where do you think this will lead? That's right! To the fact that you will reach for the next donut, although you know that this is wrong!

There is no doubt that you can get rid of any food addiction. The most important thing is to create an internal mental and emotional environment of a positive attitude towards oneself.

Loving yourself is the first step to overcoming addictions! Self-love will give you the strength and will to do what you need and the desire to hold on tight to the image of the desired outcome. Can you do it!

yours,
Irina Khlimonenko
and the Silva method team

P.S. Are you familiar with the problem of lack of self-confidence and own forces? And if so, what are you doing to solve it? Share with me your comments. We are very interested!

10 MEDITATION LESSONS

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In previous articles, we examined in detail the causes of and, as well as by establishing nutrition and creating an interesting, multifaceted life. Today we will talk about how to overcome food addiction by working on your own with psychological problems.

How to beat food addiction

How to solve psychological problems

You need to work on self-esteem. Stop being insecure about your uniqueness. Do what you do best. Improve yourself, develop yourself. For example, create an album on social networks with photos of your achievements - your friends will appreciate them, increasing your self-esteem.

Stop reproaching yourself for weaknesses, stop self-flagellation. Constant digging in oneself brings only negative emotions who want to eat quickly. The circle closes...

Don't hold back your emotions, let them find a way out. If you're upset about something, let yourself be with it for a while. Cry, grieve, and then smoothly switch to something that requires your attention and direct participation - this is the main part of the secret of how to solve a psychological problem on your own.

Keep your brain busy - solve logic puzzles, crossword puzzles, read interesting book. You will immediately notice how much better you feel, and you will understand that you can cope with negative emotions without overeating. The main thing is to get the first experience. Each time, experiences will take less and less time, and you will learn how to solve your problems. psychological problems without the help of food.

Ways to solve psychological problems

Love yourself. To do this, of course, is not easy ... But know that it is love for yourself that will help you overcome any difficulties. Loving yourself, fighting food addiction is much easier.
Set short-term goals, they are achieved faster and easier.
Start praising yourself. Think of some kind of reward for achieving your goals. Of course, the prize cannot be food. Treat yourself to a trip to the spa or sauna. Buy a cute bauble to remind you of your accomplishments.
Find motivation and. Start, he not only disciplines, but also helps to find mistakes, and correcting them.

If you feel the desire to eat something and quickly, drink water first. Then try to occupy yourself interesting business, which will distract you from experiences and thoughts about food. If this trick worked out, then you are on the right track, and you, it turns out, will defeat food addiction.

And what are we eating?

If you have the urge to quickly take your mouth and stuff your belly, you should analyze what exactly caused you such a reaction. It can be some minor problem that does not even require attention, or a real nuisance that requires systems approach. One thing can be said unequivocally - knowing the enemy in person, it is easier to deal with him. From everyday experiences and chronic stress, sedatives and meditation techniques are great help.

Big problems need to be approached more carefully. To get started, you need to create step by step plan actions, seek help and support from loved ones. A clear plan of upcoming events will give you some self-confidence and relieve unnecessary anxiety and nervousness, thereby alleviating your condition. Well, in this case, sedatives will help you perfectly.

Breaking the vicious circle

Remember, it's best not to push yourself to the point where the symptoms of the disorder appear. eating behavior. This is where food addiction prevention comes in handy.

Food addiction spoils the lives of many people, how to get rid of, how to overcome?

Almost every overweight person has an addiction to food.

And here we can say that not entirely from food, but from the effect that a person receives after eating, and from that state of body and soul.

Naturally, each disease has certain signs. Is food addiction disease?

Food addiction rarely occurs from carrots or, for example, from semolina 🙂

Most often, addiction rests on such "whales" as sugar, salt and fat. It is these components that are always included in the composition of tasty and harmful products for our body.

These ingredients have the greatest impact on our taste buds, and then on certain structures in our brain that respond to signals with the release of the hormone serotonin.

Serotonin is the hormone of pleasure and joy.

It is no secret that all people strive as much as possible to enjoy life, and this desire is literally inscribed in our subconscious.

That is why, food rich in salt, sugar and fat causes a certain dependence in a person.

Why does a person react to such stimuli?

It all started a long time ago, when man was still prehistoric, and in his diet there was very monotonous, and not very tasty food.

In addition, the body did not receive all the useful and necessary components on time, as studies show, the same fat that we now eat constantly was present in the diet, only 20% of the norm, the same applied to fast carbohydrates.

Well, about sugar, and you don’t have to say, it was berries or, at best, honey.

What foods do people fall on the most, and they become addicted to food:

Chips
Seeds and nuts
Fried potatoes
Candies
Cookies, waffles
Fast food - hamburgers
Grilled meat
Ice cream
Chocolate
Pastries and cakes
Muffin, various pies and rolls

Signs of food addiction are quite simple:

You think about delicious food all the time;
You can eat such food, regardless of satiety;
You experience negative emotions if you have not eaten such food;
Your emotional state depends on the presence of such food in your diet;
You constantly struggle with temptation, and it is difficult for you to refuse if such food is in front of you.

Unfortunately, often our food industry tries in every possible way to instill such dependence in its consumers.

If we reacted consciously to everything, passed all the information through our filters, through consciousness, then there would be no such problems.

But most of the information that comes to us from outside is processed automatically. At the same time, the most ancient, brain and emotional structures are involved - as a result, we just want delicious food.

And to cope with this "desire", oh, how not easy.

Let's take a look at the mechanism itself, such a dependence.

Mechanism of emotional dependence on food

Not only is the food tasty and gives a feeling of pleasure while eating, but the most important thing is that saturation, for how long, turns off the problems that exist in a person’s life, and that is not a comfortable emotional state with these problems.

In principle, it turns out that a person has a dependence of emotional disconnection on a problematic and uncomfortable state.

Naturally, the psyche builds a whole range of protective mechanisms from falling into emotional experiences, because at such moments negative emotions are experienced in full.

In my opinion, it is useless to fight only with the food itself.

Basically, everyone thinks that it is necessary to remove temptations away from the eyes and then the addiction will go away.

But the problems are not solved.

Let's imagine an ideal scenario, probably the one that every person who understands that food comes first for him aspires to.

So how can it be..

When there is no dependence on food, and when food is just food………..

Food is just food, there are no constant thoughts in the head about what to eat or not to eat.

A person is focused on what is happening in his life, on relationships with loved ones, his thoughts are occupied with some pleasant little things, what he needs to do, how to do some things faster and better.

But the most important changes take place in the emotional realm.

It is impossible to say that all emotional reactions are even and positive, because life actually gives us surprises and surprises.

And these surprises are not always pleasant and expected, therefore, the reactions are different.

But a very important point, a person realizes what is happening to him, realizes what he feels and can choose this feeling of his emotional experiences.

There is no automatism of reactions, and this absence gives a lot of advantages in relations with the world.

A person ceases to be a victim of circumstances, because he knows how to choose how to behave and how to react to some things that are unpleasant for him.

If there is an awareness of the current moment, and a timely choice of one's behavior in this case, there is absolutely no need to seize and no need to get away from any experiences.

You can’t remove negative reactions from life, you can’t be positive all the time, you just need to be a realist and understand what is happening now.

Such a life can be lived by a person who finally hears and feels himself, and then the body does not need defense mechanisms at all to protect against experiences.

How to deal with food addiction?

I think that you have a question, how to come to this clear awareness of yourself, how to learn to cope with automatisms, how to get away from the usual model of solving emotional problems with the help of food?

It is not worth starting with food restriction, because in this case, your attention will not be focused on your reactions, but will be focused on what is forbidden.

You may now decide that if you stop controlling your food, then soon, you will spread to a huge size 🙂

Maybe you will recover by a couple of kilograms, this is not excluded, but your task at first is to watch and observe your automatisms.

habitual response to external events, arose for quite a long time and it is natural that it is not at all easy to change these automatisms at once.

They must first be identified, understood how they manifest themselves and how they are launched. That is, to find triggers, trigger mechanisms.

Finding these triggers is facilitated by self-observation, I talk about this very often, but for some reason it is difficult for people to observe themselves, to observe current moments, and often, our thoughts turn into the past or into the future.

In principle, this is already a habit, a habit of digging into oneself or dreaming. Neither is conducive to self-observation.

A good way would be to write down your own thoughts during the day, for this you can and should start a diary of emotions

I'll be back to main idea articles « How to stop depending on food?”, start working not with food, but with what lies behind the hidden feelings and sensations.

Maybe you just read this article and thought, well, again, nothing specific, no steps on how to do it.

I want to say that we are all completely different and we all have a different mindset, therefore, I don’t want to give general recommendations.

And yet, who is actually engaged in changing his own, will draw certain conclusions and begin to work in this direction.

And those who seek turnkey solutions and some magic formulas suitable only for him, of course, did not see anything useful.

Write your opinion about what you read, what do you think?

Do you have a habit of observing yourself?

Best regards, Natalia

P.S. In addition to emotional dependence, there is also a physiological dependence on food. I have a program to help reduce food addiction called Detox.