How to Break a Food Addiction

When people think of food addiction, they often think of those shows that showcase those who are highly overweight and yet they can’t seem to stop eating. That is what most people think is a food addiction. However, everyone may have something that they are eating that is not really that great for them, yet they can’t seem to stop eating it. Food addiction can be a serious problem, especially if this starts to affect your weight and health.

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Food Addiction Symptoms

There are several food addiction symptoms that people need to be aware of. In most cases, they are surprised that they fall into these categories as they never knew that they did have a food addiction.

• Getting a craving for that food despite being full.
• Eating more of this food that what you intended to eat.
• Eating this food until you are excessively full, to the point of almost pain for some people.
• Feeling guilty after eating this food.
• Making excuses for why you need this food.
• Setting a rule to not eat this and repeatedly failing at sticking to this rule.
• Hiding the eating of this food from others.
• Unable to stop eating this food despite health issues or physical problems.

6 Tips to Overcome Food Addiction

For those who notice that they have one or even all of the above food addiction symptoms, the key is to make changes that allow for this food addiction to go away. It will not be easy, but you can do it with these tips.

1. Write down a list of the foods that are causing your food addiction. These are going to be your trigger foods.
2. Make a list of restaurants and even fast food places that serve healthy foods so that you have this go-to list to use when you are not wanting to cook instead of resorting back to the foods on your trigger list.
3. Think of the foods that are healthy that you like to eat and focus on these.
4. Make a pros and cons list that detail the food addiction you suffer with and why you want to quit eating these.
5. Don’t pick up a new diet to avoid these trigger foods. Doing so often creates relapses for those who are addicting to food.
6. Consider talking with a professional. Believe it or not, food addiction is a mental issue that therapy can help you to overcome.