Diet Rehab: 28 Days to Finally Stop Craving the Foods That Make You Fat (24 page)

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Authors: Mike Dow,Antonia Blyth

BOOK: Diet Rehab: 28 Days to Finally Stop Craving the Foods That Make You Fat
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The solution? An approach known as graded exposure therapy. With this method, you can go at your own pace and take very small steps toward freedom. I used this approach with Jenna when I had her eat out alone, then with a friend. Try the following exercise yourself to see how this technique might be helpful to you.
EXERCISE: FACE YOUR FEAR
1. Eat in front of someone at home (preferably this person is supportive and aware of your struggle).
2. Eat at a restaurant or café that you find comfortable and unin-timidating with a good friend you feel you can trust and be relaxed with.
3. Go to the same place (or another you are equally comfortable with) and eat with people you’re unsure of or who give you anxiety, such as a colleague or family member.
4. Choose a new restaurant and eat with a person or group that makes you anxious or tense, such as friends of friends you experience as intimidating, colleagues, or a difficult family member.
Repeat these steps until you can do each one without terrible anxiety. If a binge is triggered, accept that as part of the process, and go through the steps again without skipping the next meal or snack. Your goal is to feel somewhat less anxious and somewhat less frantic to escape. Moving away from avoidance one baby step at a time will help you to conquer your fear without being overwhelmed. Give yourself credit for any effort you make and for even the smallest improvement.
Rules to Live by for Binge Eaters
 
1.
Have a plan.
Binge eaters need to stick to a plan of three meals and two to three snacks every day. When filling out your food journal (see page 263), know that only the third snack of the day is optional for you. Map out what you will eat the next day and shop or plan for this in advance. I advise investing in lunch bags or boxes to take your food to work. Think ahead. If you’re unprepared, you’re more likely to fall into a binge.
2.
Never skip meals.
Punishing yourself by skipping a meal is the cornerstone of binge eating. You’re setting yourself up this way. First come the low feelings of guilt, then the self-punishment and even lower feelings, then finally the real hunger hits you and you start to crave a binge.
3.
Enjoy food.
You don’t have to eat food that’s bland or unen-joyable. Remember, you are not allowed to beat yourself up or feel deprived on this plan. Find booster foods that you’ll enjoy. When planning your meals, think about the flavors you really like. You can even find some great simple recipes on page 297 so you can create an entire meal out of boosters. You can even boost your brain chemistry with pancakes!
4.
Never say never.
If you say, “I’m never going to eat this food,” it increases the possibility of a binge. Don’t encourage impulse eating by keeping your trigger foods at home, but at the same time, never say “never” to them or they’ll be calling your name from the store. Tell yourself, “I can have that later,” or work a small amount of something you crave into tomorrow’s meal plan.
5.
Keep a journal.
Writing down what you eat helps keep you accountable to yourself and whomever you choose to share your Diet Rehab journey with. Journaling is a key part of this program, so go to the journal section on page 263 and make sure you are keeping a full and honest track of your food.
6.
Weigh yourself only once a week.
Obsessing over the scale will expose you to emotional ups and downs that can trigger a binge. Everyone’s weight varies a little throughout the day, so don’t pay too much attention to each weekly weight reading. It’s better to consider your weight over a period of four weeks or, better yet, a year.
7.
Find a friend.
One of the most common characteristics of binge eaters is secret eating. Eat with others and enjoy their company!
8.
No distractions.
Don’t eat in front of the TV, in the car, or while working. Be present when you’re eating rather than distracted by something else. Bringing this awareness to your eating will also teach you to savor your food and eat slower. It helps to promote the opposite of the trancelike state that is one of the characteristics of binge eating.
9.
Clear your cupboards.
Decrease pitfalls and increase availability of booster foods in your home. If packaged foods are opened, it’s too easy to say to yourself, “Oh well, it’s open now, I have to finish it.” Donate your packaged pitfalls to a homeless shelter and stock your shelves with healthy options.
10.
Lunch money.
If you worry about eating too much while out of the house, restrict how much money you carry and leave the credit card at home. If your lunch and snack at work is ten dollars, take just ten dollars with you.
11.
Hands off.
Don’t taste when cooking. You’ll be tempted into eating everything you’ve made. Just treat cooking your meal like a job. You’re creating a healthy dinner for you or your family and you must complete the task without tasting it. If you really need an opinion, ask a friend or a family member to taste the food.
12.
Chew gum.
Chewing can be an anxiety reliever. So chew sugar-free gum to give your mouth something to do.
13.
Go public.
If you love a particular food and have avoided it because you’re afraid it might trigger a binge, challenge this belief by joining some friends and consuming one serving of the forbidden food. Forcing yourself to publicly enjoy a food you normally see as forbidden and secret can go a long way toward breaking its obsessive hold on you.
Freeing Yourself from Bingeing
 
The principles of Diet Rehab can help free you from a problematic relationship to food and from yo-yo dieting. If you are still experiencing binge eating after Diet Rehab, don’t berate yourself. Instead, take what you have learned, and put those tools in your toolbox. Look at the continued bingeing as feedback that you may need to add another tool in the form of professional help. Find a mental health professional who specializes in disordered eating. If you need help, consult my website,
www.drmikedow.com
.
Where Do I Go from Here?
 
By now you have learned how to free yourself from some of the most common and addictive patterns people develop around eating. These tools will help you rehab your diet, which we’re going to discuss in depth in the next section. Over the course of the next twenty-eight days you will finally be freeing yourself from craving the foods that keep you trapped in addiction.
PART IV
 
Rehab Your Diet
 
10
 
Change Your Tastes, Change Your Body
 
A few years ago, my patient Veronica was listing her long history with diets.
“When I did South Beach, I lost ten pounds in the first two weeks. Atkins was almost as good. And on the diet I did last year, I didn’t lose ten pounds, but I did lose six.” She looked at me hopefully. “So I’m hoping
your
program will be at least as good as those, Dr. Mike.”
I searched for the right questions to help her figure out the solution to this problem for herself. Finally, I said, “Veronica, how many diets have you been on in your life?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Six? Ten? Maybe a dozen.” She was frowning now.
“I see,” I said. “And how many of them helped you keep the weight off?”
“Oh. Well.” She sighed. “None of them, really. But that wasn’t their fault. It was mine. I just couldn’t stick to it. I’m always so bad at sticking to anything.”
“Veronica,” I said gently. “What if it wasn’t your fault? What if it was that those diets just didn’t give you the tools you needed to make the changes you were trying to make?”
To Veronica, this idea was a revelation. But that is the whole idea behind Diet Rehab: In order to give up the foods that are creating addictions and causing us to gain weight, we need the support of booster foods and activities, as well as booster mantras and attributes. When your life is full of foods and activities that support your brain chemistry, and when you’re also allowing yourself at least some of your favorite treats, it’s easy to let go of the pitfall foods that pull us into addiction.
There’s one other thing we can do to support our transition from pitfalls to boosters: transform our tastes. Many of us have taught our taste buds to like only very sweet, salty, or fatty foods, making it difficult for us to appreciate the more subtle but equally delicious flavors to be found in fresh fruits, lightly cooked vegetables, and lean proteins. You
can
recalibrate your taste buds to like these “challenge foods,” and I’ll show you exactly how to do it—again, without your ever feeling deprived. You can even look forward to delicious all-booster versions that will start to taste
even better
than their pitfall food counterparts!
There are a couple of great outcomes that are possible here. One is that you may start to feel that the foods you used to love are simply too sweet, too salty, or too greasy. They might actually lose their appeal for you. This was the experience of people in a 1982 study who over a five-month period actually came to prefer less salty soups than they had in the beginning. Their palates had been successfully recalibrated.
Another possibility is that you’ll love your old treats even more once they’re a special break in your routine and not business as usual. Or perhaps some old treats won’t make the cut, some will come to seem “just okay,” and some will stand out as more delectable than ever, while you come to love your new “challenge foods.”
Fortunately, you can recalibrate your palate at any age. Diabetics told to cut back on sugar often report that regular fruit tastes sweeter than it ever did before. The principle works the other way, too: The more we are exposed to a flavor, the more we get used to it and come to like it.
Whatever happens, you can expect a whole new world of tasting pleasure. So let’s get started with the transformation, because this is definitely one of life’s win-win situations!
Recalibration: My Own Story
 
When I developed my addiction to sweet and starchy foods, I didn’t just transform my brain chemistry and increase my weight, I also reprogrammed my taste buds to respond only to super-sweet and super-salty tastes. I had “trained” them with doughnuts, sodas, and overly salted processed foods. In effect, I taught my taste receptors to set the preference bar very high for sweet and salt flavors and very low for natural, fresh flavors. I found nothing enticing about a nice, crisp salad garnished with cool cucumbers, sweet red and yellow peppers, and slightly sour red tomatoes. I wasn’t in the least turned on by a serving of grilled asparagus splashed with lemon and a bit of extra-virgin olive oil, or by broiled salmon dressed with fresh dill. Sweet strawberries or tart raspberries didn’t sound like a treat but like a consolation prize—what you were supposed to eat, not what you wanted to eat. Nothing registered as delicious if it wasn’t “super-sweet” or “super-salty.” I could barely taste anything that wasn’t, let alone crave it.
Gradually, as my life filled up with serotonin booster activities, I was able to let go of some of my food addictions and make the transition to healthier food. But my mind was converted before my taste buds were. Even though I was a little concerned about my high cholesterol and had grown to dislike the constant spikes and crashes of a high-starch, high-sugar diet, I still thought sweets and starches tasted good, while my “challenge foods” of greens and fruits and lean proteins seemed bland and boring.
So I made the transition from pitfall to booster foods very, very gradually. One week I added a salad to my usual dinner of pasta and cheese. The next week I reduced the portion of pasta and added a vegetable. The following week I experimented with substituting fresh fruit for at least one of the three sugary desserts I ate throughout the day. The next week I started including lean protein as a main course at least once a day. Little by little, I filtered out most of the sweet, starchy, and salty foods and replaced them with fresh, healthy choices. And slowly—very slowly—I began to like my new menu, and even to actively look forward to it. Today I can honestly say that I
crave
a fresh salad at lunchtime. The succulent shrimp feels satisfying, the crisp, tart, Granny Smith apple wakes up the whole meal, and the light dressing of extra-virgin olive oil and tangy lemon makes everything taste genuinely delicious. Sure, sometimes I sub in some fries or a bowl of pasta. But most days I really
want
the salad. I’ve both let go of my addiction and recalibrated my taste buds. Now that I’m here, I can feel how positive reinforcement—my body looking better, my cholesterol in the normal range—helps me to keep going. And it feels effortless.

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