Last Updated on January 2, 2023 by Mike Robinson

Overcome food addiction the food addiction, like other addictions (as the snuff, alcohol or gambling), relates to the difficulty in preventing or controlling the behavior, in this case, food intake.

Overcome food addiction If you tried to start making several diets without success, because you consider yourself a / addict / aa food, you should continue reading this article.

Overcome Food Addiction

Here are 10 tips to help you control your food addiction, so you can prevent or detect serious diseases  related to food.

Steps to Control Food Addiction

1. Do not follow “miracle diets”

Miracle diets are those that promise you spectacular results in a short amount of time and without much effort. They usually take place  weeks before a special event (bikini operation, a wedding, etc.).

Some of them are:

• Hay dissociated diet: it is considered the precursor of all miracle diets, since it appeared in the 20s. According to this diet, proteins and carbohydrates cannot be ingested simultaneously. This is a clear example of a harmless diet but based on erroneous information.
• Atkins Diet: consists of minimizing the consumption of carbohydrates, such as cereals, milk, vegetables, sugar products, etc.
• Diet Dukan: is based on the consumption of proteins, such as fish, eggs, meat, among others. It is a very unbalanced diet that can be especially detrimental to health.

These diets, among others, will cause the body to carry out a greater retention of fat later (what is known as “rebound effect”), to compensate the food deficit that has suffered.

However, a well-established diet will not cause you to go hungry, or suffer a very pronounced rebound effect at the end.

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When a specialist makes a correct diet plan, the amount and quality of food you eat is adequate depending on your body,  age and height, so that your body is gradually adapting to the new weight.

In addition, going hungry is the first step to lose control with food, which entails that you ingest more food than you would have eaten had you not Been hungry.

2. Do not skip breakfast

This is a very frequent mistake, and you have probably experienced it in your life.

If you want to lose weight and you are controlling your food, do not propose to do without breakfast or reduce this important meal.

If you do, all you will get will be to the next meal with more hunger and anxiety, so you will consume more food than if you had made a good breakfast.

So, instead of suppressing it, replace saturated fats with fruits, cereals and other foods that help you have a proper digestion and have a balanced nutritional intake.

3. Make 5 meals a day

It is much more advisable that you have a set schedule for meals, divided into 5 times of the day, than to perform 3 hard meals on a daily basis.

This happens because, when consuming food in a more distributed way, you will not go hungry, so you avoid “chopping” between hours.

With an adequate distribution of food you eat, you will have more sense of fullness and you can avoid experiencing continuous obsessions with food.

Therefore, we recommend that you keep track of the hours you are most hungry to avoid long periods of starvation.

Then, adapt your schedule and make a schedule of the hours to take each meal, so that your body gets used to the daily dietary rhythm.

4. Do not have “forbidden”

Surely, when you have started a diet, you have tried to avoid by all means ingesting certain foods, especially the high caloric ones like sweets, ice cream, chocolate, sweets, etc.

With these kinds of prohibitions, you will only obsess over those foods, increasing your craving for them.

It may also happen that, once you take a small portion of these foods, you lose control and eat much more than you thought.

Afterwards, you will feel bad about yourself, regret and restrict these foods.

To cut the vicious circle, you should consider not carrying out these self-prohibitions.

It is much more advisable that you control the amounts you consume of these foods highly caloric, not to surpass and have a balanced diet, but without depriving yourself of a fad from time to time.

5. Come sit at the table and serve the food in plates

Surely many times you have gone out of tapas with friends and you have had a feeling of fullness, although you thought that you had ingested little amount of food. This is because you do not have an exact knowledge of what you have eaten.

Therefore, we recommend that you serve the ration in your plate, so that you see the exact amount you eat, what is left over or if you serve a new portion of food.

Similarly, you can lose control of the food by “chopping” different foods in the kitchen that you find in the pantry or the refrigerator.

Therefore, it is very important that you change these basic behaviors at meal time, so that your body adapts to the schedules and places for food.

6. Eat slowly

Another factor that can make you lose control over food is the speed with which you are ingesting food.

When you eat excessively fast, there is an increase in the amount of food you eat.

However, when you eat slowly, the neural mechanism that controls satiety sends the body the signal that the body has eaten the right amount, so that you feel full and interrupt the intake.

In addition, by eating slowly and chewing food, you help your body to do better digestion.

Keep this step in mind, if you are the one who comes to the food with hunger and anxiety.

7. Do not eat from boredom, anxiety or sadness

If you are an “emotional eater”, that is, you eat when you feel bored – you visit the fridge again and again – when you are sad or down, you must  consider changing some aspects of your day to day:

• Do not buy sweets, desserts, ice cream or sweets in excess: simply seeing them at home will prompt you to consume them.
• Do some leisure activity: go for a walk or run in the hours you have less activity, since these are critical hours to eat gluttony.
• Substitute food for company: When you feel that you have anxiety or sadness, turn to friends or family with whom to express your feelings. The food only soothes your discomfort in the short term.

8. Increase the amount of water you eat

Surely at this time of year you do not drink as much water as in summer, since the feeling of thirst is not so high.

However, the body needs water not only to hydrate, but to carry out a good digestion process and to perform its vital functions.

Pay particular attention to the amount of water you drink, distributing it throughout the day and increasing it after doing some physical activity, so that the total amount reaches 1.5 or 2L per day.

In addition to the benefits we have already mentioned, water consumption will help you not to feel hungry between meals.

9. Never eat at night

If you wake up hungry, it means you have not eaten enough during the day.

In this case, drink water or take something light, like a glass of milk or a juice and plan to modify your diet the next day.

Eating at night is a bad habit that will not only affect your digestive rhythm and your weight but also your regularity of sleep.

10. Consult a specialist

If you think you may be developing a food-related illness – or you are at risk for it – we recommend that you consult a specialist who advises you on the need to start a specific treatment.

Communicate it also to your family and friends so they can support you and use them in critical situations, especially if you live with them, since they can modify some bad habits to help you with your problem.

Disorders related to food addiction

The causes of eating disorders are manifold, including biological, psychological and socio-cultural factors.

One of the socio-cultural factors that potentiate the appearance of this disease is the change of the ideal of beauty that has occurred in the last 30 years.

As we can see, in the developed countries we are looking for a slim body, which is often below the ideal weight for the person in question.

This thinness is not only a symbol of beauty, but also of success and self-control, so it adds more reason to pretend to remain with a thin figure.

This problem particularly affects young women, although there is also a tendency to present these eating disorders in people over the age of 40.

Below we describe the most worrisome psychological illnesses related to food: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder.

Anorexia nervosa

Anorexia, causes, symptoms and treatment

Although “anorexia “literally means “lack of appetite”, it has become clear that people with this disease are obsessed with food. It is estimated that 1% of the Spanish population presents this eating disorder.

The main characteristic is that people intend to continue to lose weight, presenting a phobia to gain weight, although their weight is less than adequate in terms of age and height.

Generally, these cravings for weight loss occur because of the distortion of their body image : girls see themselves as being much fatter than they  actually are.

This disease is so serious that it even produces amenorrhea in women – absence of menstruation.

The typical personality of people with anorexia nervosa is as follows:

• Young girl (between 13-20 years old).
• Middle-socio-economic level (although it begins to occur at all socio-economic levels) and developed countries (in poor countries, this disorder does not occur).
• Perfectionist and with great capacity for self-control.
• Introverted.

Importance to the physicist within your family.

Bulimia nervosa

Between 1-3% of the population presents this disorder.

The term ‘ bulimia ‘ means excessive hunger, which describes a characteristic very frequent among the people who suffer this disease.

This feeling of hunger causes episodes of high food intake, especially those with a high caloric content.

People report feeling a loss of control over food, so once these binges occur, it is difficult to stop them.

After these episodes, the person invades a sensation of guilt and remorse, reason why usually carries out mechanisms compensatory to the ingestion, like for example:

– Use of laxatives or diuretics.

– Self-induced vomiting.

– Practice of intense physical exercise.

– Establishment of strict diets in the future.

Unlike people with anorexia nervosa, bulimics tend to have a normal weight or to be slightly above their ideal weight.

This is due to the fact that, once the food is ingested, no more than 50% is expelled (even if vomiting and laxatives are used).

The personality profile also presents differences with respect to that of anorexia nervosa:

Start between 20-30 years.

Distant and conflictive family.

With difficulties in his adolescence.

Extroverted, irritable and impulsive.

Great emotional instability.

They often have other addictions.

The main similarity between the two mentioned disorders is the preoccupation about the corporal figure and the thinness.

Binge eating disorder

This disorder, much less known, has many similarities with bulimia nervosa, with the difference that no compensatory behaviors are produced for binge eating.

Therefore, people who suffer from it are often overweight.