Our Plan:
Food, Mind & Body
Our plan is simple:
We commit to a food plan for accountability. We do not consider our food plan as punishment, instead we are grateful for it's suggested restrictions as it helps us to eliminate poor eating habits and promote healthy eating.
We engage in active continuing support where two or more like-minded individuals gather together for sharing experiences and encouragement.
We use education and tracking to focus on healthier food choices. No foods are off-limits and no foods are bad. We recognize that some foods fuel our bodies in healthy ways while others do not and because of this difference we choose to limit and/or eliminate, when possible, that do not promote health.
We explore our relationship with food and overeating even when it becomes uncomfortable or personal. We recognize that for many of use shame has eroded at our true identity; we are a person, not an addiction. We focus on rebuilding, reinventing, and reemergence.
We begin to move more today than yesterday. We recognize that moving our bodies promotes better mental and physical wellbeing. We do not set expectations but do encourage goals. Exercise is not a punishment but rather a tool for a happier and healthier lifestyle.
FOOD Freedom
We learn to be mindful of the choices we make each day.
We discuss how certain foods such as sugar, salt and fat are reactive in triggering queues that set forth undesired routines or habit and how to abstain from these foods as often as possible.
We share ideas for maintaining nutritious meal portion control and time-saving ideas for eating healthier with busy schedules and eating on the go.
We use a food plan for accountability.
MIND Matters
We are discovering how we have created unhealthy relationships with certain patterns of thinking. We learn how to identify the queues that trigger our routine behaviors. We discuss ways to change old habits routines into new healthier routines.
We start with gratitude. Gratitude begins to fill the voids in our lives that we often use food to fill. Gratitude allows episodes of refrain from overeating while we begin our journey with, "Steps & Keys".
We discuss "Steps & Keys" designed to examine our reasons for overeating. We begin to peel back the layers or self-protection we've built up and examine our true intentions and negative characteristics. We explore our true identity outside of our food addictions.
Through personal inventory we gain a better awareness of "self": current life issues, patterns of thinking, and ways of living that have been detrimental to a happy healthy lifestyle.
BODY Basics
We are developing an understanding of our bodies. “Move more today than yesterday” is our daily goal. We discuss how to create daily routines of movement in our lives that are sustainable. Through daily movement we bring strength, stamina, stability and agility to our lives.
Food Addiciton
According to NCHS Data Brief published February 2020, nearing half of people in the United States in 2018 were considered obese.
It's obvious that many of us have an unusual relationship with food and the relationship is a compulsory one. Our daily struggle with an inability to control our overeating leaves us with painful feelings of shame and embarrassment.
A common misconception is that we as overeaters do not have any self-control, we are lazy or unconcerned about our appearance. Yet the truth is we have dieted with great success, lost hundreds of pounds in our lifetime, have exhibited immense self-control and we are constantly concerned about our appearance and how others perceive us. The unfortunate reality is however, that until we learn to deal with our additive behaviors we will inevitably return to excessive overeating.
We recognize there is a wide spectrum of food-related addictions with varying manifestations at every level. Whatever level or part of the spectrum you identify with, you are welcome at FORWARD RESET.
Common signs of compulsive overeaters:
- Uncontrollable cravings.
- Irritability & restlessness.
- Binging & restricting.
- Eating when not hungry.
- Fast eating.
- Depression, moody, fatigue.
- Secretive eating.
- Guilt & shame.
As compulsive overeaters we spend excessive amounts of time thinking about food. We might feel detached, like in a trance during our overeating episode, somehow removed and unable to gain control.
For a time we might be successful with our promise to not again overeat, but as the pressures of daily life build we become irritable and discontent longing for comfort that a binge of our favorite trigger foods will temporarily provide. We finally breakdown into an overeating episode, consume thousands of calories, and emerge guilting and shameful with a firm resolution to never overeat again; this is, "The Cycle of Insanity".
Determination and Willpower
We have often decided to take control of our eating habits usually with a promise to ourselves or by dieting. Full of determination and willpower we begin restricting our eating. Unable to differentiate between the foods we need for nutritional purposes and foods we need because it feels good, we set off on a path destine for failure.
Irritable, Restless, and Discontent
We eat certain foods because they bring us momentary satisfaction and relief. When dieting and restricting we become irritable, restless, and discontent feeling deprived. It becomes more difficult to ignore indulging in a treat or comfort of our favorite trigger food.
Never Again, Repeat
Our trigger foods have provided our addiction a temporary relief in a familiar way. Now with restriction of these foods we find ourselves struggling to find new ways to cope without overeating. In time we breakdown and indulge once again in our "forbidden foods". We feel as if we've cheated, remorseful and defeated. We make a firm resolution that we will never overeat again. Yet, after a time we
emerge from our binge ready to attempt the "cycle of insanity" once again.
Diet (di-et) /dī-it/
noun: kinds of foods we habitually eat.
verb: refers to restricting oneself to small amounts or to certain types of foods in order to lose weight.
Restrictive eating plans and dieting have given food even more power over our lives as we attempt and fail at these plans over and over again.
We're here to help!
At FORWARD RESET we offer our experience and support as you begin your journey to a happier healthier lifestyle.
We examine trigger foods and how they react to pleasure centers in our brains. How eating healthier can help to prevent further overeating episodes and how movement assists us in living life happier and healthier for today.
FOOD, MIND & BODY - A Simple Plan For Simply Living.
