Food Is Not The Enemy Information

Food Is Not The Enemy Anne Cuthbert MA, LPC, LMHC https://foodisnottheenemy.com/home/eating-disorders-therapy-of-portland/ Join our cause to Help others with Eating Disorders on our directory. Are you tired of yo-yo dieting or using food as a way to fulfill your emotional needs? Do you constantly think about food? Do you hate the way you look? Do you use food to take care of yourself or to punish yourself? Are you tired of dieting and don’t know what else to do? Always thinking about what you should eat and how you should look is no way to live your life. That’s why I’m glad you’re here! Taking the first step towards getting help is often the most difficult yet the best thing you can do for yourself. Why dieting and restricting doesn’t work You have learned to diet, to restrict, to limit yourself of the food you love (restricting = anything you do to make a food “bad”). This doesn’t make you want the food less. In fact, often you want the food more! In the end, in spite of your intentions to eat less, you end up overeating. Have you ever noticed that you overeat (binge) on the very same food you decided never to touch again? Of course. It isn’t that you don’t want it, it’s that you made it bad, the forbidden item. This actually increases your desire for the specific food you are trying not to eat. Food works the same way and that is the reason restricting doesn’t work. In fact, studies show that 95%-98% of diets don’t work. When you are in the dieting cycle, you begin by restricting in a variety of ways: the diet starts, you don’t eat what you really want, you eat less than you want or need, you feel bad about what you eat, and/or you starve yourself. Perhaps you eventually eat the forbidden food, but with a feeling of losing control. You might then feel you have failed and become angry with yourself. You think it is your fault. There is something wrong with you. You are flawed. Does this sound familiar?