Victoria,
I am so frustrated and all I can do is cry. I don’t understand why I can’t stick to a sensible diet long enough to lose weight. I know that I should be concerned about my health since I have children and a great husband. I get up in the morning planning to have a great day. I tell myself I am going to be strong and eat healthy and exercise and stay positive. Then it all goes wrong...

I have done what you said and put affirmations on 3X5 cards throughout my home but I get so frustrated that I could smear some jelly on the them and devour them. That’s what I end up doing with every other sugary food in my cupboard; I start off with a good breakfast and send the kids and hubby out the door. Then by ten o’clock, I have my hands in a bag, box or bowl of something munchy, crunchy or sweet and that’s the beginning of what feels like a beaver shaving it’s way through a log. I have gone through an entire bag of Halloween candy already and will have to sneak and replace it before anyone finds out. I eat continuously with an almost uncontrollable fervor.

You would think with the amount of food I take in that I would have lots of energy to exercise, but the opposite happens. By the afternoon, all I want to do is lie down and take a nap. I feel so exhausted and hopeless. Even worse than that, I feel ashamed for not taking better care of myself. Help me Victoria. I am eating and I can’t stop. I want to lose weight, feel good, have energy for my husband and kids, but I feel like I have lost my power over my appetite.

Katherine
Food Crazed in The UK




Katherine,
You sound like you are an emotional wreck. What you are experiencing are symptoms of being a sugar-holic. I understand exactly what you are describing. You feel like you are an intelligent person with good behavioral tendencies. You’re a mother and a wife and you want to provide the best environment for yourself and your family, yet you feel like a total failure because you can’t walk past a bag of Halloween candy without eating at lease one of those pesky little miniature candy bars.

By the way, there is nothing small or minuscule about those candies. They are little monsters dressed up in chocolate, nuts and all kinds of gooey stuff. They ruin your thighs, dimple up your butt, build deadly belly fat and make your brain feel like it’s bipolar. Sugar is not an innocent sweet thing; it’s a non-nutritive havoc-causing element that can rob you of all that you desire.

Katherine, You are not alone, each year, 120 pounds of added sweetener is consumed in America per person - that's 1/3 pound of sugar per person every single day! That's an added 630 calories. Many of these sugar calories are hiding in soft drinks and processed foods, so we may not even know how much sugar we eat every day.

Imagine giving up just one candy bar a day and losing 1 pound every two weeks, without making any other change in our diet. That's an astounding 22 pounds in one year.

Regarding my experience with sugar-holic-ism. I was a certified card-carrying Oreo Cookie addict. I wore a bracelet that said, “if found passed out in the parking lot of a supermarket, revive with Double Stuffed Oreos and chocolate milk”. I recall one Friday night I decided to go for a power walk in the crisp fall air. I struck out with my fanny pack and mini headset. I was singing and my arms were swinging. After about twenty minutes I happened to walk past a local food mart that had a special on ice cream and I thought “wow, I could save some money if I bought a pint of xyz ice cream". So being the responsible person that I am, I ran in and bought a pint saving about fifty cents off the regular price.

I swiftly jumped back into my power walk only to feel a certain urge to STOP, go over to a secluded park bench and what do you know, I had happened to pick up a spoon by the condiments while I was in the food mart and zipped it away in my fanny pack. I sat there and devoured the entire pint in a matter of minutes. If anyone had observed me, they would have thought I was a crack addict and I had just scored my first hit of the evening. The sad part of this scenario is that I totally felt like that. I was so ashamed and disgusted with myself and I kept telling myself that I “knew” better. Unfortunately, when it comes to any kind of chemical addiction, knowing what to do and doing what you know will hurt you is the true essence of and addiction.

Over time I came to be able to control my binging. Only because I learned that it was chemical as well as mental. I could not get the mental strength I needed until I was able to control my chemical hormonal balance. That happened when I learned about which foods were triggers that would throw me into a binge cycle and which foods would help me feel stable and satiated.

In the case of over eating, knowledge truly was power and was totally liberating for me. I do not suffer from binge attacks or live with the feeling of shame and self-hatred. I was so relieved to finally understand that it was not my fault and Katherine, up to this point, it is not your fault either. You’re eating foods that send you into a never satisfied cycle of hyper simple carbohydrate and sugar consumption.

Here are some signs of having a simple carbohydrate and sugar addiction:

The Power of Protein
Protein can be the physiological key to controlling your appetite.

Extra protein, it turns out, sends “stop eating” messages to your brain. Research from the University of Washington, for example showed that simply increasing the amount of protein in your diet helps you lose weight even if you don't shun carbohydrates one bit. Protein makes up 15 percent of most of our daily caloric intake, while fat accounts for 35 percent and carbohydrates for 50 percent. In the study, subjects bumped up their protein intake to 30 percent and reduced their fat intake to 20 percent.

Within three months, they were 11 pounds lighter on average, even though half of the calories they ate still came from carbohydrates. The group also reported feeling satisfied with less food. In other words, they lost weight because they consumed fewer calories.

Protein's benefits go way beyond waistline trimming. The brain and its neurons are essentially made of fat, but they communicate with each other via proteins. The hormones and enzymes that cause chemical changes and control all body processes are also made of proteins. Carbohydrates, while essential as the brain's main source of fuel, can make you feel tired—and hungry for an energy boost—because they increase the brain's level of the amino acid tryptophan, which in turns spurs production of the calming neurotransmitter serotonin. Protein, on the other hand, prompts the brain to manufacture norepinephrine and dopamine, chemical messengers that promote alertness and activity.

Here’s a brief list of high protein foods from natural sources:

• EGGS (1 medium size) 6 grams
  
• NON FAT MILK (1 pint or 568ml) 19 grams
  
• SOYA MILK Plain (200 ml) 6 grams
  
• TOFU (100 g) 8 grams
  
• LOW-FAT YOGHURT (plain) 150g 8 grams
  
• LOW-FAT YOGHURT (fruit) 150g 6 grams
  
• FISH (cod fillets 100g or 3.5 ounces) 21 grams
  
• CHEESE cheddar 100g (3.5 ounces) 25 grams
  
• ROAST BEEF (100g or 3.5 ounces) 28 grams
  
• ROAST CHICKEN 100g (3.5 ounces) 25 grams
  
• OTHER MEATS AVERAGE (100g or 3.5 ounces) 25 grams
  

To get a detailed list of the proper balance of foods and menus that are acceptable in your program be sure to pick up my Quick Start Energy Program. Not all high protein foods are created equally and that is why I created lists of acceptable and unacceptable foods in the program just for you.

Start Fresh and do all that you do with Joy!

Katherine, protein can give you the power you need to control your binging and that will give you the desire to start exercising. Once you start moving and have fun working your, you will feel like a new woman. Live each day like it is your last and add some joy to every thing you do.

God gave us the gift of life and what we do with it is the gift we give to Him. Ask Him to help you, lead you and provide you with the strength to become healthy and free from your past thoughts, circumstances and pain as you work on the physical aspect of your addiction. He loves us and He wants to help us. Many times, we have not, because we ask not. Ask Him for joy today.

Life is a gift and we need to embrace all of it with total passion.

Don’t wait. Start today! Make this your new beginning. Go through your house and remove all the foods that are not healthy for you just like an alcoholic that starts a sobriety program, they remove all temptation. Remove all your temptations today and set yourself up to win.