Addicted to food.. really.

Few possible tips:

Plan your meals the day before.

Log your food BEFORE you eat it.

Log everything you eat. Everything. Even if you are hopelessly over. In fact, especially when you are over. When you actually see the calories consumed every day, day after day, it hits home.

Feel free to add me.

I agree, log everything until your fingers fall off.

I can say that I have been addicted to food. I would be full and just keep eating, sometimes I still do. To break the habit, I had to ask myself why I was still eating. If it was because I was bored, I would go do something like ride a bike or go for a walk - even if it was midnight. I had to keep junk food out of the house - no cookies, no chips, no ice cream, nothing that would be fun to binge eat. If I wanted a treat, I would buy something in a single serving. This also kept me from eating junk because I was too lazy to go out and get something (lol). Some nights after I've eaten a healthy dinner, I have to tell myself that I'm okay and I'm not going to starve to death. My husband has also been great support keeping me within my calorie range. I'm by no far perfect and have a lot of weight to go, but I do feel that I have binge eating a little more under control.

You're welcome to add me as a friend.

I know I do most of my eating and snacking at night so I leave most of my calories for then. That way if I feel like an extra treat, I've saved enough calories for it.

I agree, log everything until your fingers fall off.

Dude... totally want to keep my fingers. They are useful. But I promise to start logging. Sounds like that suggestion was unanimous!

Once you see how your food intake numbers interact with your exercise numbers for a week or two, everything will start coming into focus. I felt like at around week three, I had a pretty good understanding of how my daily walks affected my calorie goals.

Show me a fat person who's not addicted to food. We all use food inappropriately, which is why most of us are here, and we all have to find our own way to deal with it.

For me, I'm having to learn to love and forgive myself. And realizing that not every little slip up means I'm failing. I also know that I have to log everything, and weigh and measure everything. Recognizing appropriate portion sizes is very hard for me.

But to start, it took me a good several days to get my head wrapped around the idea that I wasn'tt going to diet. I was going to change my behaviors for life. So while I have my weight goal, I tossed out the date I wanted to get there. Too much pressure. I do still set mini goals, but they aren't necessarily tied to the scale.

Hang in there!

Wow this really describes me too. I am going to try some of these suggestions too!

When you're learning how to eat properly, but slip
"Don't let the Perfect overshadow the Good".
"Baby steps "! Everything can be a victory.

I keep pecans, pork rinds, and fresh, crunchy cucumbers
so that even if I go over in calories, I'm raising my grams of fat
to get as close to 70% of my daily intake.

If you are hungry, you need to eat fatty foods. Yes, it's NOT
what the ADA recommends, but following the ADA Food Pyramid
is NOT what you need to do on Paleo.

This is a link to an image of the Paleo Food Pyramid:

http://search.aol.com/aol/imageDetails?s_it=imageDetails&q=Paleo+food+pyramid&v_t=aolrt-ff&b=image?&s_qt=sb&q=Paleo+food+pyramid&tb_oid=15-07-2010&s_it=aolrt-ff&tb_mrud=02-04-2013&tb_uuid=20100715180104796&oreq=d2ee80f055ff4eada9f60b0a63f96033&img=http://www.livingpaleo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/paleo_pyramid.jpg&host=http://www.livingpaleo.com/the-food-pyramids/&width=111&height=90&thumbUrl=http://images-partners-tbn.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRyifKqlgQ4V-fMBgd2gP8EAUZnsSfowvenSAVQTaeEa9DofF9GoWdfLA&imgWidth=300&imgHeight=243&imgSize=43929&imgTitle=Paleo+food+pyramid

I've found that logging and planning a day in advance (pre-logging, so to speak) addressed a lot of my mental blocks. Most importantly, if you factor in snacks, including a nighttime snack, they are not only *not forbidden*, off limits, horribly tempting, however you view it... but rather something you should eat. Once I made snacking allowed and built into the calorie budget, I stopped giving in to the all-or-nothing, waistline-destroying mentality that used to come with it. You can even look forward to the nighttime snack, and hopefully after forcing something like that for a week (starting to build good habits is the hardest!), you'll appreciate how much better you feel every day, and truly not want to deal with the repercussions of the night binge anymore. Additionally, focusing on fiber and protein (vs. refined carbs) curbed many of my cravings, so go for healthy versions of your favorite snacks.

A few healthy snack ideas (up to ~300 calories each) --

Hungry: (1) apple w/ 1 serving nut butter (all natural, nuts only, not Jiff or anything else w/ hydrogenated oil etc.); (2) raw veggies and/or apple w/ 1-2 servings hummus; (3) low-calorie cereal (e.g., brown rice puffs, 50 calories in 1 cup) w/ low-fat/fat-free milk, optional add fruit and/or 1 serving nuts; (4) whole grain toast w/ egg whites and tomato

Sweet: (1) fat-free Greek yogurt w/ fruit, optional add a scoop of flavored protein powder; (2) frozen banana w/ 1 serving nut butter (all natural nut butters w/ added chocolate exist)

Salty/crunchy: (1) 1-2 servings pop chips; (2) 1-2 servings tortilla pop chips w/ salsa; (3) 1-2 servings plain pop corn (no added butter etc.)

The list goes on. Best of luck building a healthy relationship with snacks!

It's funny because I was thinking the same exact thing to myself last night as I was going to bed... and eating some tortilla chips just because they were there. I'm addicted to food.

I've been reading a lot of healthy living blogs and articles and I've come to the conclusion that we can track our food, we can try and say NO to those crazy cravings - but in the end I definitely think that there needs to be a human element in the mix. By that I mean until we can control this by ourselves we need outside support, be that someone online/ someone at home or at work/ someone you can call at 1030 because you see that ice cream and now all you can do is think about it - taking a small bite every time you walk past the freezer - someone else who can hold you accountable.

Its honestly just like having a sponsor for alcohol or substance abuse because just as jvendramin wrote "Scientists have actually been researching this pretty extensively in recent years and have found that the dopamine system gets all out of whack for some people from highly palatable foods, just like any other psychological addiction"

If its an addiction we need to treat it as one!

Feel free to add me. we can tackle this together!