food addiction

Breakfast can be a very confusing meal.

June 25, 2021 by Kerri Fullerton

We understand the importance of protein for keeping our blood sugars steady and brains going for the day. But and we’ve been told that eggs have too much cholesterol and meat has too much fat – especially breakfast meats as they tend to be processed meats. We hear we shouldn’t eat those because they might cause cancer. So we turn to vegan sources only to be told that soy is genetically modified and not good for us…

Bread. Poor bread. It’s certainly not safe or appropriate because, you know, it’s bread so…

What on earth are we supposed to eat for breakfast!

Lots of people have turned to smoothies. Then again you have to decide on the protein source (whey is dairy, soy is soy, pea – is it a carb or a protein?), how much fruit is acceptable to go in it, and are you allowed to use milk or yoghurt or is that no good either? What about nut milks? I’ve heard some rumours stirring around about those…

Eating has become complicated and confusing and downright scary at times.

It used to just be that the’diet’ world told us to eat nasty food and avoid tasty food. We would ‘suffer in the name of thinness’. That’s not cool anymore though. So we have the wellness industry on board preaching health instead of thinness but the end result is the same: confusion, fear and stress.

Since we know that stress contributes greatly to all kinds of health issues (including but not limited to: cardiovascular disease, diabetes, mental health, gut health, and inflammation) AND we’re told to reduce/manage our stress at every turn….why is nobody talking about how our food rules are contributing to ill health?

If trying to feed yourself is causing stress, fear or anxiety then it’s not contributing to your overall health.

Sometimes we have to STOP thinking about what we’re eating in order to positively impact our health.

Let’s Plan Breakfast

How Intuitive Eating Rekindled My Love Of Baking

February 7, 2020 by Kerri Fullerton

Today I needed a break. I’d been at my computer for hours and was starting to feel tired and uninspired.

Meditation didn’t feel right – I was concerned that I’d fall asleep.

I had a walk planned for later.

So I decided to do some baking.

Now, this is a pretty big deal. I remember taking baking breaks while I was studying for my regulatory exams. They were more an emotional distraction than they were a true act of self-care, but that story is for another time…

Today, I turned on the tunes and grabbed my ingredients.

While I bopped around the kitchen, I can’t tell you what I was I thinking about.

I can tell you what I was NOT thinking about.

I was not wondering if I’d:

binge on the cookies or the dough
done enough exercising to warrant eating cookies
been good enough this week to eat cookies
get fat from eating cookies
get over the guilt for not resisting wanting to bake cookies

If you’ve read my about me page on my site you’ll know that licking a spoon was what killed my last weight-loss attempt. What a stark difference to today where I not only licked the beaters and spatula*, but I also forgot about the cookie dough balls in the freezer!! It was 3 hours later before I even ate a cookie.

*yes I know that eating raw cookie dough comes at a risk – I’m willing to take it

This is one expression of the food freedom that I’ve found. My journey has been anything but a straight line, and the work has been worth it. Intuitive eating has given me the tools that I need to enjoy cookies and not worry about eating all of the cookies. In fact, I freeze the cookie dough balls so that I can bake a few cookies when I want them and they’re fresh and gooey every single time. That alone would have caused serious anxiety during my dieting and binge days. They would’ve called to me every single day. I wouldn’t have waited for them to thaw or to cook before they’d be in my mouth.

Freezing cookie dough balls means freshly baked cookies in under 15 minutes!

So what’s different? Why do I feel safe now?

I learned to practice self-compassion.

Weight loss programs and cultural norms told me that cookies were a sometimes food and that they had to be eaten in moderation and not at all if I believed that I was addicted to sugar (which I did, for a long time). I was trained to be ‘on the wagon’ or off.

Self-compassion gave me the skills to live in the middle.

Unconditional permission to eat.

The third principle of Intuitive Eating is Make Peace with Food. It’s poorly understood and often referred to as Permission to Binge.

Here’s how I understand it:

I’m a grown woman with the affluence to access food whenever I want it.
I have full autonomy over my food choices.
Simply put, I can eat whatever I want.

I also understand that I’m not free of the consequences of eating whatever I want. So I know that if I eat a lot of cookies, I won’t feel well (I’ve done it enough times to know this is true).
Since I respect my body and I want to feel good, I only eat enough cookies to feel satisfied. That number varies every time and knowing that there’s no maximum I can refer to my body to tell me when I’m done.

I honour my hunger and my biological need for food.

Letting myself get over-hungry leaves me more vulnerable to pleasure foods (my term for calorie dense, junk food, fast food, sometimes foods, play foods etc). By eating enough food regularly, I’m not trying to eat a meal of cookies (again, something that I’ve done enough times to know that it doesn’t feel good) and since I’m not starving, I can count on my body to tell me if cookies are what I’d like right now (shocking truth – sometimes I don’t want a cookie even when they’re there)

If you’re new to Intuitive Eating and this still seems impossible, please be patient with yourself. Check out Kristin Neff’s work on Self-compassion. And if you can, find a IE certified counsellor to work with. The nuances of IE are where the magic lies and the freedom exists. That stuff is harder to get by simply reading the book.

Dedicated to helping you find peace and power with your body,

Gluten-free baking tip:

Keep a bowl of water nearby so that you can keep your hands damp while forming the cookie balls. It helps keep the batter from clumping up on your hands.

https://www.bobsredmill.com/recipes/how-to-make/chocolate-chip-cookies-gluten-free-2/

Can you be addicted to food?

January 21, 2020 by Kerri Fullerton

Ten years ago if you’d asked me “can you be addicted to food” I would have said “absolutely, yes”.

In 2009 I attended my first Overeaters Anonymous (OA) meeting. I started out with phone meetings because I just couldn’t bring myself to walk into an in-person meeting. Shame whispered “what if you see a patient or someone else that you know?”.

Back then I was part of the 90% of people who believe that food can be addictive. I believed with all of my heart that I was an addict – a compulsive overeater. The pattern after all – craving, loss of control, excessive consumption, tolerance, withdrawal and distress.

So I got a sponsor, made my list of ‘trigger’ foods that I would abstain from, and attended my meetings.

As with any diet before, I threw myself into it fully. I read all of the books, did all of the work, and recorded my food intake and weight with the diligence of any ‘good girl’.

But I started to notice something the longer that I stayed in OA: nobody was actually getting food freedom. The lists of trigger foods were getting longer. I thought that was really weird. How could a food that they were eating without issue last month now be a trigger food? Instead of bingeing on junk foods they were bingeing on vegetables and meat. The foods may have changed but the behaviours hadn’t.

That was when I started to question the whole food addiction theory. I started to do a deep dive into the research and I was surprised by what I found.

Food Addiction Research

It’s not very clear cut at all. Consensus isn’t even close to being achieved.

When self-proclaimed addicts were assessed using the Yale Food Addiction Scale, only 12% actually met the criteria. Using the scale assumes that food addiction is real, which is still up for much debate, but even based on that assumption, almost 90% weren’t addicts.

Researchers have not been able to identify the addictive substance. And that’s a problem. Those who are in the food-addiction-is-real camp believe that sugar is the addictive food. But it’s blurry. All sugar? Just some sugar? Foods that converts to sugar?

The other sticky bit is that Food Addiction is eerily similar to Binge Eating Disorder (BED).

Another interesting thing about food addiction studies is that they’re not corrected for restriction (read dieting; read hunger). In animal studies the way that they get the animals to exhibit the food addiction behaviours that I was going through they had to starve them first – or at least restrict them.

In a hungry state our brains create chemicals that lead us to obsess about food. And those chemicals make us vulnerable to hyperpalatable foods (junk food, fast food) because we’re not going to let ourselves starve.

Why does this matter? Because as a society right now, we’re focused on restricting. We’re watching what we eat and trying to eat smaller portions. We’re forever putting ourselves into this vulnerable state.

So, are you addicted to food?

Maybe, but you’re probably not.

More likely, you’re overeating because of one of two things.

You’re vulnerable due to restriction.
Food is being used as a distraction.

I’ll dive into using food as a distraction in another blog/video.

For now, let me share a few tips on how you can start to overcome binge eating:

Stop skimping or skipping. Hunger wins every single time. Shift your attention away from maximum calories and start focusing on minimums. Eat regularly so that your body doesn’t ever think that it’s going to starve. *this step speaks from my privilege; food scarcity is very real for a lot of people, do the best that you can with what you have
Find a community. Shame kept me from addressing my binge eating disorder. I didn’t dare tell anyone about my binges and nobody asked. Everyone seemed quite content to help me lose weight and restrict but nobody talked about the binges or the emotional side of things. I created a Facebook Group called Applaud Your Bod for this purpose. A safe place to share and feel normal and to feel inspired. Consider this your cordial invitation. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1437974869844063
Take the Binge Eating Quiz. https://psychology-tools.com/test/binge-eating-scale We don’t know if Food Addiction is real but we do know that Binge Eating Disorder is. Treatment for Binge Eating Disorder is available and effective. If you’d like to talk, you can book a free Food Freedom Discovery Session with me. You don’t have to go it alone.