Our refrigerator and pantry have specific foods we eat on the regular. Maybe its peanut butter, oatmeal, cereal, cookies, potato chips or soft drinks, ice cream, or bread, milk, eggs, butter, and frozen pizza. We tend to fix many of the same dishes over and over.  Even better we drive through the fast-food lane and order the same burger and fries.  If we are feeling healthy, we might occasionally eat the quinoa and kale salad from Panera bread.  Just kidding.

My point is this, we are way too busy, so we default to what we most often cook, buy or dine out on as a habit.   Our brain likes sameness and efficiency.  Think about the last holiday, when you cooked all that food.  It required lots of extra energy to shop, prep, cook, and serve that big meal.  You were exhausted afterward.  No way would you want to do that every day.

I’m not saying habits are good or bad.  They make life run in a routine manner.  Less effort is good if you don’t ever want anything to change.  If you like it, why change it right?

It gets a little tricky when we decide we want to lose weight and that means we must change our eating habits.  Our brain and body are kind of ADDICTED to staying in the don’t change it, give me more mode.  If you feel good, have a healthy weight and don’t suffer from foggy, sleepless, or stressed filled daily routine, then, by all means, don’t change your food habit.

But if you are overweight, out of shape, and have a host of other problems you can’t seem to control, I’m saying you are addicted to some bad for your food habits.

Let’s be real.  EVERYONE knows we function better if we eat a healthy diet consisting of some kind of quality protein, fruits and vegetables and good for you fats.  Of course, we must drink lots of clean water.  If we did this from early childhood all the way until today, we would not be talking about our bad habits or food addictions. There would not be an epidemic of obesity and diseases such as diabetes, heart failure.

We are flat out addicted to certain foods.  Sugar is number one.  We love our bread, sweets and sugary drinks.  We eat way too much-processed food full of additives,  chemicals, pesticides, and other nasty and highly addictive stuff.  Our body is like a machine with thousands of moving parts.  To operate it needs nutrients based whole food.

Cutting right to the bottom line, we have things like hormones, organs, neurons firing and blood flowing in our brain and body all for the purpose of keeping us alive. How well we function depends on what we feed ourselves.  The fuel we choose to shovel in our mouth and our mind determines our well being.

Why we start down the path of addictive foods is another topic for another day. We medicate ourselves with feel good in the moment food.  We overeat and load up on SUGAR for sure.  It’s probably the most addictive substance in the world wreaking havoc on our health.

So, we have this operating system inside of us that gets jacked up on too much insulin and demands more feel-good dopamine.  The more we overfeed ourselves the more jacked up, numbed out and out of whack we become.  We are stuck now with a malfunctioning body and brain.

Will power does not work. Google says so!  Seriously you are now fighting not only your addictive love of the sweet taste of fattening non-nutritious food, but your brain and body systems are also out of balance, addicted and 100% committed to keeping you in the same groove. You have numbed your body’s ability to function properly. You reprogrammed your brain with your very own fingers and thoughts.

Don’t blame this on your past circumstances.  Life is 50/50 and sometimes it can really get sticky, even fugly. Nobody forces food in your mouth no matter how bad you think your life is.  You used food as a way to escape your pain and now you are addicted to overeating and a system that is now malfunctioning.

You love what you eat. Of course, that’s why diets don’t work.  We just want to lose weight, but we do NOT want to stop eating foods we are in the habit of eating.  If you are overweight, maybe even obese, and headed for a potential future of dis-ease, it’s time to create new food and thought habits.

That is a little bit harsh but true.   So how do you turn it around?  It is totally doable.  What if I told you that you get to be in control and choose everything you want to eat?  Would you be interested?  No more dieting ever sound doable?

Sign up today for a 1:1 free consultation. It’s past time to empower your weight wellness.

Your Midlife & Beyond Certified Life Coach

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