Food Addiction Recovery – #18
With food addiction dealing with cravings and urges is a big challenge. One of the things you may need to be aware of as a food addict is that social pressure can create eating triggers. Because you are use to socializing with food, when you find yourself in a social environment you may feel extremely strong cravings and urges. The first rule of thumb in dealing with cravings and urges in a social setting is to avoid those social settings that center around food, at least for the first few weeks or months of changing your eating habits. When you do go to a food-oriented event have a plan in mind, and if you get strong urges or cravings (which are just part of food addiction) and are in danger of compulsive overeating, then you might want to excuse yourself and leave the event. As a food addict you have grown accustomed to instantly gratifying your desire for food, so urges and cravings are going to happen to you for sure. You will need to learn to NOT feed these urges and cravings. The more you ignore these urges, the less hold they will have on you and thus less compulsive overeating.
Overcoming Cravings in Food Addiction
You might want to make a list of social situations or other situations that tend to trigger your urges to eat. If you know in advance what your triggers are, you won’t be taken by surprise and will have a plan for how to deal with these triggers, urges, and cravings. Food ads on TV or walking by the ice cream cases in the grocery store can trigger me. Sometimes I walk another way now so I don’t see them and get triggered—or if I do walk by the ice cream case, I don’t look at it.
At some point, you will probably think, “I can’t stand it.” The rational response is, of course you can stand it. You could not eat for days and stand it just fine. It might be uncomfortable or inconvenient, but you’d get through it.
In food addiction one of the best things to do when cravings or urges occur is to fully acknowledge the feeling and to allow that feeling to be present. You can even say out loud something like, “I really feel like eating ice cream right now.” One of the principles in psychology is that a feeling tends to disappear once it’s fully experienced. Then remind yourself you know the urge or craving will pass in time, and that you will wait it out. If necessary, distract yourself with some activity like deep breathing, going for a walk, calling and talking to a non-overeating- friend, reading, or whatever works for you. More on dealing with food addiction cravings and urges the next time we get together.