When Food Becomes More Than Nutrition

What do I mean by—When Food Becomes More Than Nutrition?  Quite simply food serves two purposes—growth/repair of worn tissue and fuel for your body to run on.  The number of calories you need per day is based on your height and level of activity. Suffice to say, if you are eating more calories per day than your body needs you will gain weight.  If you are eating more than your body needs than there is another reason you are eating more than your body needs, because your body has a miraculous system—hypothalamus as the shut off valve to regulate the amount of food you eat based on your height and level of activity.

Unfortunately, people become conditioned at an early age to over ride this shut off valve. Thus, people are eating for other reasons—such as: to soothe emotional pain, or numb out pain—a.k.a. mindless eating.  Emotional eating is the most difficult habit to change.

There are a plethora of diets being marketed as the magic bullet to losing and keeping weight off—South Beach, Atkins, Dr. Phil, Weight Watchers, and the list goes on and on. These diets imply that if you find the magic bullet for you, over eating will be cured. The truth is 65% of people gain back all or nearly all the weight within a year after the weight loss.  Why is that so, if these diets are a magic bullet?  The fact remains weight gain is connected to the reason you over eat and not as much about what you are eating—although, what you are eating plays a big role.

Emotional eating is about what is eating you and less about what you are eating.  Therefore, the reasons for your emotional eating habits need to be discovered and addressed. The emotional wounds need to be healed in order for you to return to the status of the new-born, who only eats until they have been satiated.

In addition to healing the wounds that you are attempting to hide by eating, is the fact you have developed a difficult habit to concur.  Once the wounds are healed, the habit needs to be changed.

The steps are simple:

· Determine the number of calories your body needs.
· Determine what foods give your body optimal fuel—i.e. eat right for your blood type.
· Portion the calories between 3 meals and two snacks per day.

When it comes to eating better, less is definitely more.

You may have heard that you can have three quarts of hot air-popped popcorn for the same number of calories as half a cup of cashews. Those who make this comparison assume you’ll gasp and go for the popcorn, because who would want half a cup of something when you could have three quarts?

Things that are really good don’t need to be gigantic. That’s why espresso is served in a “shot” rather than a “Big Mega-cup” and truffles are bite-sized instead of super-sized. Unfortunately, many people have lost sight of this and think bigger is better.

But that’s not necessarily true, as we demonstrate issue after issue with great-tasting recipes made from high-quality ingredients. Spaghetti with Parmesan for example: It’s made with garlic, eggs, and Parmesan cheese — ingredients that make this a rich, satisfying dish. Sure, our serving size of one-and-a-quarter cups is less than what’s dished out at the Olive Garden or Macaroni Grill, but it’s plenty when accompanied by a green salad, a vegetable, and provides a well rounded meal. So “downsizing” your portions is not difficult if you approach your food in this way.

Here are a few strategies to help you go for quality over quantity.

· Pay attention to your food, and savor every bite. Eat sitting down, but not in your car or while watching ‘Survivor’ reruns. It’s a lot easier to mindlessly wolf down a large order of fries when you’re not paying attention to your food.
· Converse over your meal, and have fun. This, in turn, will slow you down, which is good, since it takes about 20 minutes for your stomach to tell your brain that you’ve eaten enough.
· Cook more. Get to know what real food tastes like — cooking from scratch doesn’t have to be difficult. You’ll find that spending time in the kitchen gives you a greater appreciation of what you’re eating. Plus, your house will smell wonderful.
· Every meal can’t be a fine dining experience, but if you think more about what and how you’re eating, you’ll be more likely to eat less and enjoy it more.

A reader wrote the following comment regarding nutrition—“Dorothy, this is an area of major personal conflict; I understand the concepts; cannot get the motivation to practice them. Well done article. Hope you continue your good work. God bless.”  Barbara

Barbara thanks for bringing up the issue of motivation.  Not having motivation is a misnomer. We all have adequate motivation to do anything in life. The truth of the matter is we talk ourselves out of doing that which we know we need to do for ourselves, because we have become lazy about disciplining ourselves to do the work to get what we claim we want.  Babies don’t need to be taught to be motivated to grab an object, learn to crawl or walk.  They learn to do these things because they already are hard-wired to have motivation to achieve.  As adults we have become complacent and lazy—giving ourselves excuses and rationales why something is too difficult.  If every child did the same thing they would never learn to crawl or walk.  So, stop the excuses and do the work to achieve what you say you want—A healthy, lean body.

Yes, you can have chocolate cake or desserts, but you need to stay within your body’s caloric needs.  The last weight management tool is to do some form of exercise to burn any excess calories you eat.  If you eat 200 calories more than your body needs on any day, then you need to burn those 200 calories before they turn into fat on your body—quite simple isn’t it?

Dorothy M. Neddermeyer, PhD
Genesis Consultants, Inc.