I agree with addiction expert Gillian Riley when she says you can be addicted to food. In my case, sometimes it is very hard to get through the day without chocolate. Luckily, Gillian says there are ways to beat cravings and stop eating so much, which can help you to maintain your weight and improve your health.
oention the word addict and the first image that often springs to mind is of someone shooting up heroin or smoking P. You might also think of smokers puffing away on cigarettes or alcoholics knocking back huge amounts of booze.
But what about people who demolish a large bar of chocolate and then go back for more? or those who can down a jumbo pizza on their own and still feel hungry? And what about people who think about food all the time and eat even though they’re not hungry? It’s likely they have an addiction to food, which is more common than we think, says British food addiction counsellor Gillian Riley. However, a lot of people don’t accept that the desire to eat too much – particularly foods containing sugar, fat and salt – is a genuine addiction.
“There is science to back this up,” says Gillian. “MRI scans show the same pathways in the brain light up when people think about chocolate as when cocaine addicts think about cocaine.”
Addiction leads to overeating, usually of the kinds of foods that are unhealthy if you overindulge. While some people may realise they’re scoffing too many of the wrong foods, they may find it disturbing to learn they have an addiction. However, the good news is that there is something they can do about it, says Gillian.
HoW FooD ADDICTIoN WoRKS
Foods containing fat, sugar, processed grains and salt all give us pleasure, thanks to chemicals that are released in our brains when we eat them. Whenever we get the chance to eat, our brains react by releasing the chemical dopamine, which we experience as desire or impulse. This results in an altered state of consciousness that keeps us focused on food and drives us towards getting it. Then, when we eat those foods, more feel-good chemicals like endorphins are released. our brain responds to this feeling and wants more.
Processed foods in particular produce the pleasurable sensations that lead to overeating, says Gillian. “People don’t have an addictive desire for a stick of celery because celery doesn’t deliver that biochemical hit.” We keep wanting to get that “hit” and overeating then becomes a conditioned behaviour.
RECoGNISE YoUR PRoBLEo
The first step in beating overeating is becoming aware of your problem, says Gillian. “You need to understand that there is such a thing as an addictive desire to eat – it is a very real, biochemical thing.
“once you accept it and come to terms with the fact that you have this desire to eat more than you need, you can then start doing something about it.” Acknowledging the addiction can help to weaken cravings, she says.
HoW To oVERCooE FooD ADDICTIoN
There is no quick-fix solution says Gillian. Food addiction is often the result of many years of habitual behaviour and you can’t expect to cure it overnight. And unlike other addictions – to drugs, cigarettes or alcohol, for example – you can’t just give up food. However, you can learn to control your overeating.
Some of the things Gillian teaches people to do include:
USING FREE CHoICE
It’s crucial to realise that you have free choice when it comes to what you eat. “When you’re on a diet, you often end up feeling deprived of the things you can’t have and this means you crave them even more,” explains Gillian.
“If you tell yourself you are free to eat a food like ice cream every day, then you are giving yourself a choice. Some people will go ahead and have it every day but others, knowing they have the option to eat it if they want, will use their free choice and decide not to.
“Knowing you can have whatever you like tomorrow and the day after may mean that you choose not to have it today. And that’s a start. It takes a while to change your attitude, but once you’ve adjusted your thinking, you will have that for the rest of your life.”
CHANGING YoUR ooTIVATIoN
For most people, their motivation for wanting to stop overeating is that they want to lose weight. “The problem with that is, once you lose weight, you don’t have the motivation any more and the weight goes back on,” explains Gillian.
other motivations, such as being more healthy, having more energy or improving self-esteem, are easier to satisfy, she says. If the motivation is to improve your health, often the weight that comes off, stays off.
“Start thinking about how much you can reduce your chances of developing serious illnesses if you stop overeating,”
THINKING ABoUT NUTRITIoN
Stop focusing on the calories in what you’re eating and instead concentrate on how nutritious it is.
PAYING ATTENTIoN To HoW oVEREATING oAKES YoU FEEL
Notice how uncomfortable, sluggish and guilty you feel when you scoff too much food, and try to recall that feeling when you are making the choice about whether to overeat or not
ABoUT GILLIAN
Gillian first worked in the addiction field, helping people to quit smoking, but found some of her clients also had a problem with overeating and they wanted her assistance to overcome it. It was a subject Gillian was interested in because she also used to overeat. “I had my own issues with food once, but my eating is brilliant now,” she says. “This is how I know these methods work – they worked for me. And they are backed up by research.”
Gillian has written several books including Beating overeating: Easy Guide and Eating Less: Say Goodbye to overeating.
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