What makes us eat?

I am a fan of The Biggest Loser. This season one of the episodes featured Jillian's mother, a psychologist, who interviewed Jillian's team members. The emphasis was on resolving the emotional problems that caused the overeating and binging. Just today I received an email message from Daily Net, entitled, What makes you eat?

Most overweight people do eat as a reaction to stress or emotional problems. Been there, done that. Food becomes the drug of choice.

I am all for resolving our emotional difficulties. Emotional health is just as important as physical health and spiritual health.

However, what if the emotional difficulties take years to resolve, as they did in my case? Or, some may never be resolved, as also in my case. The sad fact of the matter is, resolving our emotional difficulties most often requires the cooperation of at least one other person, and that person or persons may not be very cooperative at all.

Are we stuck with obesity in the meantime? Is there nothing we can do on our own?

Yes, there is much we can do on our own. We can change the way we respond to the stress and emotional struggles.

No one else can interfere with the changes we make in ourselves. We can train ourselves to react differently when those "emotional buttons" are pushed. We do not have to turn to food. We can maintain a normal weight and be healthy and fit.

When we are faced with an emotional crisis, we can turn to exercise or a fun activity instead of to food. We can turn to doing good deeds and kindnesses for others instead of to food. We can turn to God instead of to food. The choices are numerous.

If emotional troubles are the reason we started overeating and binging, they don't have to be the reason we continue.

To break the cycle, to establish a new pattern, we must first admit some things:

1. I am in control of how I react to emotional stress
2. Overeating is self-destructive
3. Overeating is drug abuse
4. I alone am responsible for my overweight

If we pay attention to when we binge or overeat, we can identify the "triggers." Then we can actively prepare ourselves to react differently to those triggers.

Mental imaging is a very powerful tool. Once you've identified an appropriate response to an "emotional button," imagine it happening and you reacting in the appropriate way. It's like rehearsing a role in a play or movie. You keep going over it and over it until it becomes a natural response. If you slip up, start the imaging all over again.