Educating Ourselves: Researching Emotional Overeating

You probably know that the vast majority of people who do some form of a liquid diet gain all of their weight back within five years. It's a sobering reality, but we should not be put off by this. There are new resources -- books and articles come to mind -- available to us that we can study in order to control one of the key obstacles to keeping our weight off: emotional overeating.

By "emotional" overeating, I am referring primarily to comfort eating, yet also to eating out of boredom, stress, anxiety, etc. Engaging in this will pack on the pounds in no time. Attempting to manage emotions with food is not healthy, and we should be trying to identify things we can do instead of eating to get us through tough times. In many instances, this is not easy -- and if we were serious comfort eaters before starting Optifast, the pattern of this behavior may be very difficult to undo. But I think if we start educating ourselves now about methods we can use to manage our emotions, we might be in a better place.

This is where the library and bookstores come into play. Also Google searches to locate articles on emotional overeating. I went to Amazon (www.amazon.com), typed in "emotional overeating" and a large list of books appeared. Take a look. A few may appeal to you. As a fan of the "one day at a time" philosophy, I would specifically recommend this one:

Letting Go of Compulsive Eating: Twelve Step Recovery from Compulsive Eating - Daily Meditations by Anonymous Twelve Step Recovery Members

It's available on Amazon. I like this one because maintenance could get challenging, and meditations are very helpful in keeping you centered and in a good place. I believe we all should be building up a helpful library of our own to assist us in what we are trying to achieve: to take the weight off and keep it off -- for life. Literally. We are, in a way, going back to school, but I wouldn't call this class boring. Personally, I like understanding myself and my behavior, and if I can get information as to how unhealthy behavior can be changed, I'm all ears.

Our Optifast journey has many facets to it. There is the product consumption and weight loss part, the maintenance part and continuing exercise, but also the educational studies too. Those in the U.S. going through the clinic have access to some articles, books and classes, but these can be supplemented with your own outside reading. Go roam the stacks at the library, rooms in a bookstore, and let your fingers do the finding on the Internet. This can be fun! Armed with knowledge, we can succeed where others may have faltered. Crack that book today!