Replace Compulsive Eating Triggers
With Enjoyable Activities

Compulsive eating sneaks up on you in spite of your best intentions, making you want to eat when you are not really hungry, perhaps triggering a binging episode.

What pushes your buttons? Happy thoughts and events? Sad thoughts and events? Watching television or sitting at the computer? The smell of food as you pass a restaurant or bakery? A good book on a rainy day?

Use yourjournal to get a handle on the problem. Make a list of compulsive eating triggers, both psychological and physical.

Example: feeling sad, being bored, being lonely, walking past the ice cream store, riding in the car.

For now, until your new habits are firmly established, the compulsive eating temptations will be there. You must find things to do to distract yourself when the cravings become strong.

1. Get away from the food.

That is the most effective thing you can do.Make a list of things you like to do that will remove you from the vicinity of the food. Take the kids to the playground. Work in the yard. Go to the gym.

If reading a book makes you want to settle in with a glass of milk and a bag of gingersnaps, take the book and go to the park to read.

2. Don't keep junk food in your house.

If the family complains, explain that they (and you) do not need those fats and sugars in their bodies. Keep a bowl of fruits and carrots and let them eat all they want. If you teach children to eat healthfully, they won't have to go through what you are going through when they are adults.

3. Find a hobby that you love.

Learn a new skill if you don't already have a passionate interest. Take up woodworking, quilt making, knitting, crocheting.

Play golf. Take an art class. I guarantee that you won't be nibbling on food with oil paint on your fingers.

Make a list in your jounal of things you can do instead of compulsive eating. Refer to the list when cravings hit. And don't forget about using your journal itself as a deterrent. Put your frustration down on paper. Rewrite your rules and affirmations.

Tell yourself what you will look like when you reach your ideal weight. Write down a five year goal for your life, a one year goal, a one month goal, a one week goal, and a one day goal.

One more problem: how am I going to resistcompulsive eating when I am eating away from home?

That is our next step in conquering our food addiction.


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