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When you're eating out with friends or family, there's always someone who will say something about what you’re eating or how much you're eating. Maybe someone will try to get you to eat some of their fries or will comment about how “healthy” your food choice is or will say they are “being bad” because they are eating something sweet.

Grieving the loss of a loved one is a normal and common experience. However, it is not one that takes a predetermined course because everyone grieves differently and the feelings around the loss of a loved one can last for differing periods of time. And grief can cover many other losses that often aren’t considered.

Believe it or not, we spend one-third of our lives at work. So, it's very likely that women with binge eating disorder, emotional eating and food addiction will take their eating disorder to work with them. Some studies have linked improved mental health and recovery from mental illness through employment. However, if you have an eating disorder, stress and stigma at the workplace may be difficult to avoid and may make your eating disorder symptoms worse.

I'd like to circle back to finishing our conversation about Reward Deficiency Syndrome (RDS). If you don't have food addiction, eating normally leads to release of enough dopamine in the brain so that you feel a sense of pleasure and you feel satisfied. You may remember from my previous email that food addiction can be partly explained by RDS.

Food is a source of pleasure for most people, and the source of pleasurable sensations originates in a part of the brain called the dopamine reward center. Dopamine is the brain chemical responsible for feelings of pleasure and reward. Anything that provides pleasure affects the dopamine reward center.

I recently posted something brief about how taking some publicity photos affected my own body image. While I am aware of all the movements in the field of eating disorders whether it be body positivity, body neutrality, fat activism, fat liberation and more, I'm also - like many of you - aware that it's not easy to like your body when it doesn't conform to the "societal norms." As I grow older and experience health issues that impact my body shape and size and just experience the results of working in a very stressful career for many decades, I've had to recommit myself to ignoring outside voices and re-focusing on my own love of and compassion for my body which, after all, has proved to be so resilient and strong despite all it has gone through.

Although most medical doctors don’t discuss the need to nourish your spirit for good health and well-being, some very specific benefits are associated with spiritual well-being. Just as toxic childhood experiences are associated with negative changes in your brain, spirituality and religion are associated with positive changes in your brain, which can reduce your risk for depression, for example and also improve your recovery from depression. This benefit can have direct effects on your eating.

If you struggle with food addiction, binge or emotional eating, Virginia’s case above illustrates how recurrent acute and chronic stress can sabotage any efforts you make to resolve your food and body image issues. Managing stress without food requires that you learn a new set of skills to use when you’re feeling overwhelmed, worn out, or stressed to the max. Managing stress also requires learning to tap into your body’s wisdom to identify the early warning signs and symptoms of stress, a key first step toward handling stress differently. Stress management involves a moment-by-moment mindful awareness that you may not naturally possess but that you can learn.

If you are dissatisfied with your body, you are not alone. Body dissatisfaction is felt by millions of people in the United States—dissatisfaction directed toward both our own bodies and the less than perfect bodies of others. In one survey, 59% of young girls expressed dissatisfaction with their body shape and 66% expressed the desire to lose weight; disturbingly, older women are also increasingly being diagnosed with eating disorders.In a survey of over 4,000 women by Good Housekeeping, 87% of women reported having been on a diet to change their size or shape. Only 6% said they are "happy with their bodies." An astounding 14% said they would be willing to take 1-5 years off their lifespan if they could have their ideal body.

Physical activity has been co- opted by the diet industry just as food has—in other words, used only in the service of trying to get you to lose weight. No wonder just thinking about exercise may send you into a fit of resistance or may make you feel guilty that you’re not doing enough or not doing the right kind—at least according to all the experts.

The first goal of therapy should be interrupting any current unwanted behaviors, such as bingeing, overeating, obsessing about food or your body. If you have binge eating, you may have very chaotic eating patterns: eating more, both at meals and during binges, than people who are living in larger bodies but don’t binge eat. You may also engage in weight cycling, or yo-yo dieting - going on and off diets, always chasing the latest fad diet that promises to deliver the perfect "summer body." Another common trait of those with binge eating, food addiction and emotional eating is the loss of control over your eating that can make you feel like a failure, no matter how many other areas of your life you succeed in.

In the last blog, I talked about avoiding the pitfall of going on detox diets, cleanses, fasts or other codes for weight loss diets in the New Year and instead 1) letting your body do the work it knows how to do to take care of you and 2) doing a body RESET for the New Year. Shifting the ways of thinking that reinforce your obsession with food, binging and body dissatisfaction is also an important part of the process of transforming your food addiction, binge eating and emotional eating.

The New Year often brings a plethora of detoxification diets, smoothies, teas and fasts. Most of the products you see in health food stores and advertised on the internet that say they are "detoxifying" are really code for weight loss. Often individuals with food addiction, binge eating or emotional eating can get roped into to trying one of these products which can trigger them to relapse or to develop an eating disorder.

When you find soul satisfaction you will be able to bring it into all areas of your life, including your relationship with food and how you feel about your body.

Unconscious core beliefs can stand between you and your goal to put an end to your food, body image. When first formed, usually when you were younger and during times of transition, trauma, or emotional upheaval, core beliefs are solutions to problems you couldn’t solve—perhaps because you didn’t have the resources at the time.

Body image is the picture you hold in your mind of your body. When you hold a negative picture or are dissatisfied with your body, it can be a significant predictor of compulsive overeating, binge eating, emotional distress, depression, problems in your relationships, or the use of steroids in men.

Did you know that there is a hidden force that drives your behaviors associated with food addiction, emotional eating and binge eating? Here’s a patient’s story to illustrate that: Maryann just turned sixty years old. She is married and has a successful career in nursing. Although she feels good about most things in her life, she continues to struggle with her food and body image issues. When she feels happy, she overeats. When she’s sad or angry, she overeats. When her husband has to work late and she’s home alone, she overeats. She describes food as "my best friend." Her husband is very health conscious and often makes disparaging comments about her size just as her mother did when she was younger. She really believes that if her life were just less stressful, she could stop overeating.

Many of the clients I work with in The Anchor Program have told me that they’ve finally given up on dieting as the solution to the food and body image issues and come to realize that their food addiction, binge eating and emotional eating will not be solved by losing weight, dieting or focusing on the number on the scale.

I'm often asked by patients how they can know whether or not they have Binge Eating Disorder, Food Addiction or Emotional Eating? So the question is: What's the difference? Let me share some patient stories to help you understand the differences?

Despair can be defined as the complete loss or absence of hope. Are you there yet? The sources of despair are many. It can come after a significant loss or after smaller losses that seem to pile up. It can be caused by battling situations in your life that never seem to let up. Despair and depression can be exacerbated by loneliness which affects 20% of Americans and has been rising in significance during the pandemic quarantine.

Self-sabotage is common and happens to people from all walks of life -celebrities as well as us "regular folks." Just think about how over 80% of people who make New Year's resolutions in January are unable to keep them by February. Self-sabotage is not uncommon also in those who struggle with food addiction, emotional eating or binge eating.

You've realized that diets don't work. You've been on a lot of diets and even though you lose weight, it doesn't last. After many diets, you've come to the conclusion that there's more to your food and body image issues than a diet can fix. You feel good about this insight. You may even be working towards taking steps to make peace with food and your body.

There's been a lot of talk about whether foods can be addictive or not. Sugar addiction has many converts who cut back on sugar or eliminate it entirely from their diets. But if all food were truly addictive, how would we manage? Someone with a substance use disorder can give up cocaine, for example; but we can't stop eating. I think it's important to really look into this question in more detail.

I don't know of anyone who hasn't experienced more than the usual amount of stress in their lives over the past year. Whether you've been stressed about your health, suffered losses, had financial stressors, working long hours or had a relationship breakup, stress has become a constant irritant for many of us. If you're struggling with binge eating, emotional eating or food addiction, your eating behaviors may be the first sign that you are stressed to the max.

Body image is the picture you hold in your mind of your body. When you hold a negative picture or are dissatisfied with your body, it can be a significant predictor of compulsive overeating, binge eating, emotional distress, depression and problems in your relationships. Having positive feelings about your body if you are in a bigger body may be difficult in a culture filled with images of the thin "ideal," but it’s not impossible.

The New Year is usually a time when we make resolutions, express our hope for the future and shake off our past troubles to make a new start at whatever we want to change. We see the New Year as a fulcrum for change. Whether or not our New Year's resolutions come true (and most don't), we don't let that bother us as we power through our lives with the hope that just having made a resolution will eventually enable it to come true. But 2020 was a much different and more challenging year!!

Are you struggling with food cravings? Well, you're not alone. At least 50% of people experience food cravings on a regular basis. If you have binge eating, emotional eating or food addiction, these cravings come from your brain. If you crave chocolate, your brain will light up at the taste of chocolate, or even seeing a picture of chocolate. This response is not as strong in those who do not have food and body image issues.

The COVID-19 pandemic has turned our lives upside down and has caused an increase in depression, anxiety, substance use disorders and eating disorders. It has been difficult and stressful to manage having to stay home and be socially distant from others. It is especially difficult if you have experienced losses during the pandemic. Grief is a normal reaction to any major loss.If you've lost a loved one during the pandemic, you may have experienced complicated grief. The normal feelings of yearning and sadness may have been complicated by not being able to be with your loved one or not even being able to go through normal rituals that can bring a sense of comfort and closure. I have a close family member who has been seriously ill and hospitalized multiple times during the pandemic. Because of the pandemic, I have had to provide whatever support I could via phone or facetime which has been very unsatisfying.

Food addiction affects a large number of individuals, even though it's not accepted as a true diagnosis (yet) in the medical profession. Using the Yale Food Addiction Scale, 5-10% of the general population test positive for food addiction. People with food addiction struggle with food obsessions, binging, body image issues and often experience depression and anxiety. Listed below are 5 things you may not know about food addiction that can help you gain perspective on this problem. Under each is a recommended practice to get you started on your journey to recovery.

You may divide foods into "good" and "bad" categories. You may deprive yourself of foods you think are bad for you and then end up craving them and overeating them at a later time. If you have obsessive thoughts about food, those thoughts may be related to how you use food to numb your feelings or deal with stress or to use food for comfort. Perhaps your focus on food is all about fixing things you don’t like about your body, rather than enjoying the food you are eating.

"Diet is the most important thing you can do for your health." David L. Katz, MD First, please notice, Dr. Katz didn't say "going on a diet" is the most important thing you can do for your health. He also didn't say "losing weight" is the most important thing you can do for your health. Dr. Katz is the Founding Director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center and a world renowned expert on health and nutrition.

There are a lot of reasons to be depressed right now (smile)...but if you have binge eating disorder, food addiction or emotional eating, you may also struggle with depression and anxiety that can leave you feeling tired, isolated, anxious and on edge and...engaging in unwanted eating behaviors.

It's been a tough day, week, month! You've been struggling with your eating behaviors and you've been upset that you've starting binging more often.

Food addiction, like addiction to drugs or alcohol, often begins as a way to manage stress, turn up the volume on pleasant emotions (like happiness or comfort), or dampen uncomfortable feelings (like anxiety, anger, or sadness).

Have you ever thought about traumatic experiences as having their roots in the lives of your parents or grandparents? Trauma can be defined as the loss of an essential part of ourselves - a sense of safety, of trust or security. Trauma ultimately has the ability to define our behaviors, actions and our sense of self. More and more research is also showing the destructive effects of trauma being passed down from generation to generation in our DNA and cultural nurturing.

Health, particularly behavioral health, has become bound up in morality. The term for this is “healthism” based on a philosophy that everyone is responsible for their health but in a way that makes “healthy behaviors” seem to be more morally superior. This is particularly a problem when it comes to body size. There is a feeling that if health is under your control, then that meansyou must be “choosing” to be obese (as defined by body mass index). Often people living in larger bodies, thenare blamed for not fitting into the “healthy ideal.

While eating disorders have long been considered a predominately “white woman” problem, recent findings show that eating disorders are becoming a major health issue for black women. In fact, binge eating occurs at higher rates in the black populations than white ones. Black women also binge more frequently than white women according to a recent study of two populations of white and black women. Obesity is also rising at an alarmingly fast rate for this group. Over the last 35 years, black women have reported rates of obesity prevalence at twice the rate of white women, and black and white males.

Deprivation Only Makes Food Cravings Stronger. Have you ever made a New Year’s resolution to stick to your diet and change your lifestyle once and for all? And only weeks or days later, have you broken those resolutions – and maybe felt that you’ve failed yet again? If so, don’t beat yourself up. The problem isn’t that you lack willpower. It’s that dieting simply doesn’t work.

If you’re like many people with food and body-image issues, you may believe that relentless self-discipline is the only thing keeping you from being obsessing about or binging on your food fix.You’re tough on yourself when you “make a mistake.”

If you’ve struggled with food and weight issues for most of your life, you may have come to see your body as something separate from yourself. You may feel embarrassed by your body. You may feel it is not your ally, but rather a recalcitrant and stubborn enemy you’re trying to beat in the game of weight loss.

Reward deficiency syndrome may be the culprit. Do you ever wonder why it is that your friend can eat just one little scoop of ice cream and feel satisfied, while you end up eating all the way to the bottom of the carton and feeling sick and miserable afterward? Does it seem that everyone else can use chocolate recreationally, when you crave it like an addict and can’t take one bite without going on a full-on chocolate bender? Have you ever caught yourself daydreaming about stopping by the bakery on your way home from work to get your next pastry fix?

If you struggle with out-of-control eating, there’s a good chance that you also have a history of romantic relationships that don’t workout well or that don’t truly satisfy you. Perhaps you have a tendency to obsess about your partner, holding fast to the idea that this is the one person in the whole world who can finally make you feel safe and whole. Maybe you feel that you’re truly alive only when you are in love. But one after another, your relationships fall apart.

Picture this: You’re standing in your kitchen after a lousy day at work. Your boss gave you an assignment that really should have gone to your coworker. Worse yet, the report is due tomorrow, and you don’t have all the information you need to complete it. Your mind is churning with thoughts like “What a jerk! It’s not fair. How am I supposed to do this?”

Eating can serve many purposes that have nothing to do with the food itself. Often, we eat to manage stress. Just about everyone can relate to this scenario: You’ve come home from a terrible day at work. Maybe you had a confrontation with an especially difficult coworker. You start in on a carton of ice cream or a bag of chips, and you feel a little better. Before you know it, you’ve eaten the whole thing.

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