Tools for a Balanced Lifestyle

A Program of Recovery from Weight Related Problems
Going for the 3 increases: Increase of Health; Increase of Happiness and Increase of Energy

Chapter 3: Eat to Live

I. A Food ALERT
You might be wondering why in the last chapter the cavepeople were used as examples. The cave people are used in this book as a metaphor for people who live a balanced lifestyle automatically with no thinking, planning or emotional pain. Just like the cavepeople of old, these people use lifestyle balancing to live, survive and stay healthy with no pre-thought about why they do what they do. We are not cavepeople nor are we people who naturally live a balanced lifestyle. If we did, we would not need this program and you wouldn't be reading this book and I wouldn't be writing it. What we are trying to master and incorporate in our lives is the thinking, feelings and actions of the "cavepeople-like" people who have naturally implemented a balanced lifestyle in their lives. We want to do this so that we too can live healthy lives with self-esteem, self-confidence and self-worth. So we visit the cavepeople again in this chapter on food.

The cavepeople did not have the time or leisure to think much about food. What they spent a large amount of their time in was: scouting for, hunting down, capturing, bringing home, preparing and eating food for their survival. Cavepeople saw food as a means to live. They were not concerned about the excess amounts or variety of foods available to them because there wasn't enough food around for them to take it for granted. They needed to work hard to find enough food to live on. They saw food as a commodity which they needed to struggle to gain for themselves. They did not view food as a means to address their feelings of boredom, anger, sadness, loneliness, rejection, embarrassment etc. They saw food as the fuel to give them the energy enough to find more food. They did not feel embarrassed to eat in front of others on the converse they enjoyed eating socially because it was a sign of their success in surviving the cold and wild world in which they lived. Food was a sign of their success and they enjoyed eating it with their fellow cave members. Cavepeople did not obsess on what food they were going to eat the next meal. They were too busy trying to find their next meal to be compulsive over what it would be, how much they would have and how they would prepare it. Cavepeople felt no guilt over eating food instead they felt the pangs of guilt if they were unsuccessful in finding enough food to feed themselves for survival sake. Cavepeople tended to eat only when they were hungry. This seemed to be about three times a day. Once when they awoke after their nightly sleep. The second time in the mid day after their first half of an active day in pursuit of their food prey. The third time in the evening after they completed a full day of hunt and searching for their food sources. They only ate when they were hungry and only ate enough to satisfy their hunger. They ate sparingly from their food cache so as to help extend their food supply to last longer given the hardship of capturing enough for themselves. This would become a greater problem during certain seasons of the year (winter and rainy seasons) and after certain natural disasters (such as floods, fires, storms, earthquakes etc.). Cavepeople accepted food as an essential of life. They showed no fear or caution of food. They saw no nonpoisonous foods as "bad" for them. They experienced no panic when facing a table of food because they knew they needed to eat in order to live. They only experienced panic about food if there wasn't enough to eat. Their only worry was that they and their fellow cavedwellers would experience malnutrition for lack of food. They accepted that food was an essential to live and they balanced their lives around food to insure their survivability. Cavepeople ate to live.

If you are to become like the cavepeople of old, you need to balance your life with food. You need to change your concept of food from: "I live to eat" to "I eat to live." You need to change your concept of food from: "I eat all the food I want at any time of the day or night" to "I only eat enough to satisfy my hunger." You need to change your concept that food is a "person" who is either "my best friend" or my "worst enemy." You need to accept that "food" is just food. You need to stop seeing food as "entertainment," "emotional release," or a "time filler," but rather you need to see food as the source of energy to fuel your body to accomplish working, playing, having fun, relating to others and living. You need to accept that you need to deal with your emotions and feelings in food-free healthier ways. You need to change your thinking and feelings about food so that you can change your actions with it. You need to reduce the anxiety, stress, guilt, tension or panic you experience when thinking about or are in the presence of food. You need to rid yourself of the unhealthy beliefs, behavioral scripts and old tapes in your head about food. You need to free yourself of the burden, food has been to you in the past, so that you can put food into a healthy perspective in your new balanced lifestyle. To accomplish the reduction of your unhealthy reactions to food you need to do a food ALERT.

First, you need to Assess what is causing you stress, anxiety, panic, tension or guilt in your current life. For this food ALERT, you as a compulsive eater or "food addict" must accept that your cognitive and emotional reactions to food have become uncontrollable and at times your life has become unmanageable as a result of this. You have a tendency to become obsessive or compulsive in thinking about food. You tend to think about food in one form or another much of the time. Sometimes you are thinking about what will be the next thing you can eat. At other times you are thinking about how much you ought not be eating and how you need to go on a diet. Sometimes you are thinking about all of the unhappiness and sadness food has brought into your life. At other times you are thinking about all of the happiness and joy food has brought into your life. Sometimes you are thinking that you must eat only three meals a day. At other times you are thinking about how you need to eat as often as you can because three meals are just not enough. Sometimes you are thinking that you should only eat when your are hungry. At other times you are wondering what it would be like to feel hungry. Sometimes your are thinking about how you can hide your eating from others so that you will not feel embarrassed. At other times you are thinking about what you want to feed the others in your life at some special event or party you are planning. Sometimes you are thinking about the latest diet you have just heard about. At other times you are thinking about the local take-out service and how they are now delivering to your office to bring you all of their latest delicacies in a more convenient way. You are a foodaholic who has gone out of control. Your life has become unmanageable because of the way you think and obsess about food. While you have been reading this book and possibly participated in the Balance Lifestyles classes, you have found yourself thinking and day dreaming more about food. This is because of the "operant conditioning" you have experienced in the past from diet programs. Since you started reading this book or attending the classes, you have still held onto the belief that this is another diet program. So you are sure that you will be made to deprive yourself of the foods you enjoy eating. So you are thinking and obsessing more about food since beginning this process. You are afraid that "your best friend" or is it "your worst enemy" will be taken away from you. You are anxious that you will no longer be allowed to enjoy food the way you once did (When was it that you last enjoyed eating?). You are just waiting for a new food plan or diet to be dropped on you unexpectedly by this program. You are out of sorts. You are talking and thinking more about food since you started this program. You are even eating more. You are afraid that food will consume you someday because you are consuming too much of it. You need to accept that food is a problem for you, because you a have a poor relationship with it. To help you do your ALERT on food you may want to review Step 1 of the Self-Esteem Seekers Anonymous as outlined in Section 4: The SEA's 12 Steps on page 109 in Self-Esteem Seekers Anonymous (Messina, J. J., Kendall/Hunt, Dubuque, Iowa, 1992). In doing this food ALERT you need to identify what beliefs, behavioral scripts and old tapes you need to change so that you can improve your relationship with food.

Second: You need to Lessen the impact of food as a stressor, anxiety inducer, tension maker, guilt inducer and panic creator by identifying the old messages you have given yourself about food and to identify new healthier, more rational and more realistic messages to replace these old unhealthy food scripts. Once you identify the new messages about food you need to put them into self-affirmations. Put them on the 3 by 5 index cards. Begin to use these new messages to do a form of "brainwashing" of your mind of the old unhealthy scripts. Replace them with these newer healthy self-talk. What follows is a list of old unhealthy messages about food and the newer healthier alternatives.

Third, once you have identified new messages you can give yourself about food so as to help you develop a new healthier relationship with food, you then need to Ease out of your food based anxiety by using the new messages about food to help you develop visual images of your successful accomplishment of developing a new relationship with food. Visualize yourself only eating when you are hungry. Visualize only eating enough to satisfy your hunger. Visualize your ability to make tradeoffs so that you can eat the foods you want to eat and enjoy them guilt-free. Visualize your ability to eat in public with no fear of embarrassment or shame. Visualize your having desserts in public with no self-consciousness. Visualize yourself making tradeoffs by increasing exercise the next day or limiting consumption of food on days after you have had the foods you enjoy in the amounts you enjoy having them. Visualize the release of guilt and shame from your relationship with food. Visualize your acceptance that food is simply food and not some emotional comforter to whom you turn to when you are feeling good or bad. Visualize your handling of your emotions in food-free ways. Visualize yourself willing to take Step 1 in the SEA's program and your willingness to accept that your life had become unmanageable as a result of your old unhealthy relationship with food. Continue your visual imagery efforts during your next step in this process. Also develop a mirror work script with your new messages about food and use this mirror work script daily for the next 30 days to help you gain some self-confidence about your ability to relate to food in a new and healthy way.

Fourth, you now need to Relax out of your stress, anxiety, tension or guilt with food by breathing in the new healthy, rational and realistic messages about food and breathing out the old stale, irrational and oppressive messages about food which have kept you in bondage with food in an unhealthy way. Use thought stopping when you fall back to the old messages and use the breathing to keep your relaxed and focused on your goal of a guilt-free relationship with food. Use the concept of tradeoffs with food to help you to gain a balanced perspective so as to become more relaxed when you are out eating in a restaurant, at work, at a party or when visiting family or friends for a meal time event. Use the breathing in process with your new messages as targets you can hold on to as you escape the tension and stress of the food-related event.

Fifth, you then need to Take Action and utilize the Balanced Lifestyle approach to food. You need to work at this for the rest of your life. You will need to structure your life and set up specific guidelines to insure that you are: Eating to live and eating only when you are hungry. Such guidelines could be: Eat only at a table. Eat only when I am hungry. Never eat on the run. Handle my emotions in healthy food-free ways. Use behavioral chains (as explained on p. 77 in the SEA's Manual) to identify what emotions might be leading me to binge or become unbalanced with food. Make the celebration the focus of the party not food. Structure your house so that high fat greatly enjoyed foods are less accessible. Increase the use of exercise so that it can become a tradeoff to enjoy wanted foods. Learn more about the nutritional basis of food, so that you can be an educated consumer and make appropriate tradeoffs when needed. Keep in mind the axiom: real food for real people. When at buffets use the three bite rule: allow only three bites for each and every item on the buffet. This allows you to identify what you are eating, how good it tastes and reassures you how the rest of the food you left on the buffet tastes. Recognize that with food you have three choices: to eat it, to eat less of it or not to eat it at all. The choice is yours. Bon Appetite!

With kind Permision
James J. Messina, Ph.D., & Constance M. Messina, Ph.D.Copin www.coping.org