I ran across a website for something called “The Anderson Method” so I went to check it out.  Come to find it was a site writing about another mental health professional who has recovered from food addiction.  He has written a book called The Anderson Method.  In addition, he had an article of value on the site.  It does not look like a best seller from the Amazon.com rank but that does not mean it is not a good one.  The book has four positive reviews so that is a plus.  I found a link to his website as this was a piece that he wrote for another site not his site.  Also a nice video from Sarasota ABC TV.  Ah, look he has some free articles on this page as well. Maybe I will buy the book he says with a smile.

You could look at what Michael Prager has to say on his blog for example.  He thinks Food Addiction needs to be in the book.  He is about to publish a book and this is a major focus of his book.  The Big Fat Blog founded by Paul McAleer thinks obesity is not an addiction or so it seems since this blog is devoted to what is known as “fat acceptance” movement….not that there is anything wrong with that.  In addition, you can see what psychologist Elizabeth Hartney of About.com has to say about the situation.

What do I think?  Well I agree with Dr. Hartney for the most part.  She thinks it is a good beginning but it might be better if it was called Food Addiction.  Bottom line I am for whatever works for an individual to live the life they consciously have chosen if at all possible.  It has been empowering for me to identify myself as a food addict and has led to a very different life than I might have had if I remained fat.  I am very glad that insurance would be covering work with folks who are wanting to change.  Finally, it is likely there will be more research focused on the issue as well if it is “in the book” as it were.  Until next time.

Definition:FastingOlogy…

The intermittent approach does not bother me.  The long-term one does.  I have not seen the protocol for the program and likely won’t given it costs $23 per month for 9 months to work the program.  I trust there is some provision for a licensed medical professional to approve participation in a longer-term water fast or even a juice fast.  They do mention “if you health condition allows” in the copy for the enrollment page into the program.  He also mentions he is a writer and journalist with personal experience.  He also says clearly he is not a doctor and can’t answer medical questions – fair enough. Finally, he does sell the program through ClickBank so there is an eight-week money back guarantee – a good thing.  Personal email type coaching with him is available for $125 per month.  Therefore, an option it seems and I would indeed check with a physician before working this program.

Now a brief follow up to my last post on fat discrimination.  This one is pretty serious as it involves fat discrimination by physicians.  The upcoming link includes a rather long video interview from the NBC Today program on an investigative report by Health Magazine that show doctors discriminate against women who are 20 pounds overweight or more.  It is debatable to say the least…and they do on the video.  Pretty interesting.  This could be very serious indeed….but of course this is not a scientific study so it may not be totally reliable.  That said it is something women need to know about.   In addition, I ran across this article on fat phobia and a physician that was interesting on several levels.

Well of course I Googled “fat discrimination” and took a look.  Seems indeed, there is a problem in the USA as well.  Women seem to have more issue in this arena and particularly at work as one article pointed out.  Men seem to have issues with discrimination as well as another article on a site targeted to men.  Even college students have troubles with fat discrimination.  Sooo I would say we do have a problem in the USA. 

On a personal note in the late 1960s, I was well over 300 pounds.  There were not as many folks who were obese then as today.  Frankly, I may not have been as motivated to change if there were so many other obese folks around as there are today.  I can’t say I remember any abuse as a 20 something but I sure remember plenty of abuse as a child and early teenager.  Therefore, in a way it worked for me to be aware of my being so unusual.  I did get a great job with no problem back then making far more money than my age mates did as well.  Well, bottom line there is a lot of ignorance out in the world and I am sure overweight food addicts do experience fat discrimination.  Until next time.

This approach has not been in my thinking for a long time but it came back up last week when I saw a press release on it out of the UK.  Like most western countries they are having rising problems with obesity in the UK (the release say 45% of Britain’s population are obese…can that be so?) and wondering how to fight food addiction.  Their health care system is also doing a lot of obesity surgery that is very expensive of course.  Well, this is a viable option, particularly if combined with addressing the “mind” aspects of the food addiction.  Clearly how to fight food addiction with VLCD is viable just ask UCLA.  Naturally, only take this approach after consulting a physician.  Until next time.

They offer some neat PowerPoint slide downloads if you want them.  They present a lot of the data on the site if you just want part of the story.  Like obesity by state, race/ethnicity, county and the like.  Actually, they have a whole section of the CDC website for overweight and obesity information.  You might want to check the whole site out for yourself.  They even have a section with downloads for you that is devoted to scientific research on what works in managing problems with weight.  Hey, your tax dollars at work I would say.

You can find a few more interesting but unofficial food addiction statistics here as well.  I did notice in looking at the counties map that the Southern states have the highest levels of obesity.  Not surprising given the food culture and given Blacks have the highest rates of obesity.  Therefore, we have a problem that is for sure!

I did a little searching the internet and found articles on a meal replacement diet approach although virtually all were by sellers of these products thus suspect I fear.  Some were for body builders who use these products for good reasons a lot.  I did find a very good article by a dietician on a UK website the really goes into the pro and cons with what seems like an objective assessment of the meal replacement diet approaches.  My bottom line is there are no should or should not in the business of recovering from food addiction.  Therefore, if a meal replacement diet approach works for you it works for me and I would think that is likely to be in the short term for most.

“Nature does not hurry, but everything is accomplished.” Lao Tzu

Now Lao was the founder of Taoism or so it is said.  My quick and very automatic reaction (something to watch out for in dealing with food addiction – automatic reactions) was this was not true about nature.  Now such an automatic reaction is to be suspect anyway food addict or not but fortunately, this blog’s home page (that is one of the most trafficked blogs on the internet) talks about what many call the USA “hurry sickness” that we seem to have developed in our culture.  Therefore, I would suggest you give this blog a look that is written by Leo Babauta.  He suggests you go to his getting started page since the site has over 1,000 posts.  Sounds like a plan to me.  You might find something of use in dealing with food addiction and maybe even a bit about Zen as he says it influenced his thinking.  Check it out.

“The practice of forgiveness has been shown to reduce anger, hurt depression and stress and leads to greater feelings of hope, peace, compassion and self confidence. Practicing forgiveness leads to healthy relationships as well as physical health. It also influences our attitude which opens the heart to kindness, beauty, and love.”

Now that sounds like something everyone would want.  I do know I have had positive results with forgiveness in my life and they were not big things.  I do know many food addicts may be better off practicing forgiveness in food addiction recovery since they have been victims of abuse of various kinds in their childhood for example. Check out Dr. Luskin’s website for the nine steps of forgiveness and see if they can be helpful in your life.  We all have small things to forgive in life and these steps help even for the “little things” in life.