5 Essential Steps to Minimize Overeating.
{source: akbar99.com}
Once upon a time, there was a pretty little girl. She used to wear a red riding hood.
The girl would turn into a wolf during the full moon, and then she would completely lose control of herself. Eventually, her whole life got out of control. One day, she even devoured her lover.
Always ashamed of herself, little Red Riding Hood, as she was called, suffered greatly. She even asked to be chained and locked up, but nothing helped until she met her own kind. Her new teachers taught her to embrace the wolf inside of her. From then on, little Red Riding Hood was able to live peacefully with her inner wolf.
The Origins of Overeating
Back in the old days, food was an equivalent of gold, wealth, love, and ultimate well-being. Having fat on the body was equated to having wealth. My grandmother, after surviving the war and hunger, didn’t take this concept lightly. She was determined to make me healthy by loving me and stuffing me with as much food as possible!
I grew up to love food, its taste, its smell, and even chewing it. I was overweight and addicted to food by the age of 23. Luckily, I embarked on a journey of healthy lifestyle, but the patterns are still with me. My inner wolf materializes from time to time, and so I binge.
If looking at abused substances and at palatable foods high in sugar and fat, there are interesting parallels between their priming and intermittent exposure effects on both drug use and binge eating behaviors. A morsel of palatable food can trigger binge eating. Similarly, drug-taking behaviors can be reinstated while recovering from drug addiction with a single exposure to the previously abused drug.
1. Embrace your inner wolf.
There are many ways of living with addictions. Yoga practice helped me to embrace my inner wolf. I am talking about a very specific, individualized practice prescribed by qualified teachers. This daily yoga practice is based on your age, where you live, your occupation, and your goals. To have such an individualized practice like this will create a balance not only in your body but also in your life. As a result, your inner voice will become your guide and your mind’s chatter will slowly take a back seat.
After my separation from group classes, I embarked on a long journey. I had my daily rituals and did my home practice under the guidance of my long-term mentor and teacher, Chase. It was a struggle at first, but after really getting into the practice and making the many life changes my yoga practice inspired, I was able to tune in and find the courage to discover and follow my heart’s desire.
My experiences were changing. I quit smoking and drinking. I also started exercising and slowly changed my diet. I surrounded myself with like-minded and supportive people. I moved away from the hustle and bustle of the big city to be closer to nature. My system became more balanced, and my binging subsided. I realize that I will not be able to completely stop binging, but at least it is more dormant.
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Healthy eating habits are a side effect of a balanced system. You can’t will yourself to stop binging.
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If you want to be a different person, then start by changing your experiences.
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Let’s be kind to ourselves and not beat ourselves up. Let’s try our best to make a positive change in our patterns.
2. Reduce stress.
Stress, just like fear and anxiety, correlates to unproductive behavior, negative thinking, and a non-attentive mind, which then leads to very poor food choices. Yoga, again, is my best medicine. It brings your system into a state of balance so that the whole organism functions better. It offers many tools: exercises (asana), breathing (pranayama), visualization, and meditation.
By cultivating the attentive mind, you bring your whole system into the state of equanimity, and as a result, you can also make better food choices. The key is to work on stress reduction on a daily basis. Make it a part of your natural state. After all, it is very hard to start deep breathing by the time your brain is in binge mode and your inner wolf is out of control.
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Plug relaxation into your schedule. Make time to relax for at least an hour each day. Vow to eliminate as many sources of stress as you can. Write down the people and situations in your life that bring you the most stress. Find ways to spend less time with those people and in those situations.
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De-clutter your schedule. One reason that many people are stressed is because they feel over-committed and like they don’t have enough time to pursue their interests. See if you can find a way to free up just a few hours each week.
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Recognize that you can’t control everything. There will always be stressful elements in your life, but you can minimize the stress in your life. Eliminate what you can, and learn to deal with the rest.
3. Good nutrition starts with smart choices in the grocery store.
{source: Stream of Life Yoga}
Be very mindful when you go food shopping. Be prepared. Make a list of items you will need for the upcoming week before you head out. Get small, reusable bags for bulk food (my weak spot).
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Buy wholesome seasonal food. Reduce or eliminate packaged foods. Avoid over-processed foods, which are packed with chemicals and are not nourishing. Try to cook your meals, or buy from restaurants with sustainable cooking practices.
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Choose real foods, such as whole-grain items with as little processing and as few additives as possible. If you want more salt or sugar, then add it yourself.
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Avoid foods that contain ingredients you can’t pronounce. You can find healthy recipes with seasonal foods.
4. Reduce sugar.
{source: Stream of Life Yoga}
Sugar is a palpable food, which can easily trigger binging. There was an interesting experiment in which rats were allowed to choose, in mutually exclusive fashion, between water sweetened with intense calorie-free sweetener and intravenous cocaine. The majority of animals (94%) preferred the sweet taste of saccharin!
The conclusion of the study was that for most mammals, including rats and humans, sweet receptors had evolved in ancestral environments poor in sugars, and thus, they have not adapted to high concentrations of sweet tastings. The super-normal stimulation of these receptors by sugar-rich diets, such as those now widely available in modern societies, generates a super-normal reward signal in the brain with the potential to override self-control mechanisms and thus lead to addiction.
I’ve never tried cocaine, but I love sugary treats and dry fruit, which is one of my major binge triggers. From my understanding about cocaine, once you have a hit, the drive is similar… Scary… since sugar is more addictive than cocaine. The bottom line is — sugar is our new poison.
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Try to exclude all processed white and table sugars. Start reading labels to avoid anything with high fructose corn syrup and sugar.
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Eat fruit separately, preferably early in the morning. I experimented by not eating dry fruit (my very favorite) for about three weeks. Surprisingly, the cravings were gone!
{source: Tumblr}
5. Fine-tune your digestive system.
We are not what we eat, but we are what we don’t excrete. Digestion starts with the idea of eating. Taste is the next step in the digestive process and the first step in the nourishment of our tissues or the creation of fat tissues. Consequently, it is the first step at what we become. It is not normal to go the bathroom once every three days regardless of your age. You simply can’t be healthy if your digestive system is not working.
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Incorporate probiotics by including probiotic-rich, fermented foods like cultured vegetables and probiotic liquids.
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Hydrate by sipping hot water throughout the day but not during meals.
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Choose your dining company wisely. It is not only how you eat but also who you eat with. I’d rather eat alone than in bad company.
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Try not to talk during meals. Focus on the food.
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A well-functioning digestive and elimination system is a critical part of preventative health. You can improve your digestive system by reducing stress, exercising, and getting proper nutrition.
Keep in mind transformation doesn’t happen overnight and you might never be able to completely remove the binge-eating habit. Just focus on small steps. Make one small step at a time.
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Anna Sheinman is a passionate Yoga student, a teacher, an outdoor enthusiast, a foodie, a bookworm, and an amateur writer who is hopelessly in love with the Rocky Mountains. She is a 700+ hours registered yoga teacher and continues to study with her teacher Chase Bossart in the tradition of T. Krishnamacharya. Anna has been fortunate to study with T.K.V. Desikachar, Gary Kraftsov and A.G. Mohan. She enjoys hiking, dancing, skiing, rock climbing, good company, and the vastness of the mountains. Anna currently teaches yoga in Nederland, Colorado, and organizes outdoor yoga retreats, where she teaches in her favorite studio — at top of the mountain. Anna’s life transformation has inspired her to help others on the journey to create healthier and happier lives through the exploration of yoga. Read more about Anna and connect with her on Facebook or via email.
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