WaterFilter.com

Healthy Relationship: Is It Possible To Have A Normal Relationship With Food?

Do you sometimes feel like food is the enemy? If you?re overweight, the odds are high that you view food with deep suspicion. But even if you?re not overweight, you might have the same dim view. Many normal weighted people do.

Defining food as the enemy can only lead to unhappiness and problems, according to obesity experts. When you think about it, it?s to your advantage to put a friendly face on food because you can?t get away from it. You need food to live. Food is energy and is the fuel that runs our bodies. Food is a necessity ? without it we become ill and eventually cease to live. Wanting to eat and needing to eat is not a judgment call, it?s part of being human.

So what does a healthy relationship to food look like? You recognize you have a need for food and you feel good about filling that need. This contrasts to the food-as-enemy viewpoint where your self worth is determined by how little you eat.

You may be surprised to discover that someone with a healthy relationship to food can and does eat healthy food, but also occasionally enjoys a treat food like cake or cookies. The richer, calorie dense foods are actually enjoyed by someone with a healthy relationship to food, and they don?t put themselves down for eating it. Imagine that. It?s when the majority of our food is of the treat variety without substantial nutrition, and when the majority of our enjoyment and comfort comes from food, we?ve flipped to the unhealthy side of the spectrum.

Dr. Caroline Cederquist, bariatric physician and medical director of the Cederquist Wellness Center in Naples, Florida, points out that our relationship with food, be it healthy or not, is often determined by our body chemistry.

?A lot of people in my practice have a constellation of symptoms that we call insulin resistance,? Dr. Cederquist explains. ?Insulin is the hormone that gets the blood sugar into the cells to be utilized. If someone is resistant to their own insulin, the body compensates by secreting extra insulin and the extra insulin present in the blood causes the person to change metabolically.

?Insulin aids fat storage and the more insulin you have, the better you store fat.? Dr. Cederquist points out. ?I?ve always believed, and now we have scientific proof, that if you are insulin resistant or are a diabetic, you have a lowered thermic effect of food. That means if you?re insulin resistant and I?m not, if you and I eat the same meals with the same calories, I will burn more of those calories than you will.?

Dr. Cederquist explains if someone is insulin resistant and they eat a high carbohydrate meal like a bagel, the bagel is easily digested and quickly turns to sugar. Insulin is then secreted in over abundance. This causes a sharp rise in blood sugar level followed by a dramatic plunge. Ravenous hunger automatically follows this cycle.

?It?s so important to know that you can?t willpower away physiological symptoms, but you can control them by eating in a helpful way,? Dr. Cederquist says. She encourages her weight loss patients to eat small amounts of protein spread throughout the day in order to stabilize blood sugar. She helps patients understand how helpful it is to be aware of the type of carbohydrates they are eating, to eat more fiber and to eat fruit rather than fruit juice in order to keep blood sugar under control.

One of the easiest ways to develop a healthy relationship to food is to eat the types of food that will keep your blood sugar steady so you avoid feeling ravenous. ?If you eat sugar when you?re insulin resistant, then you?re going to crave more sugar, ? Dr. Cederquist notes. ?This creates a roller coaster effect of your blood sugar level and you have less and less control over your food choices. This erodes a healthy relationship with food because when your body is on a biochemical roller coaster, you truly cannot control your food choices.?

Yet people end up putting themselves down and think they are horrible and without willpower when they feel out of control because their blood sugar fluctuates. Dr. Cederquist emphasizes that it?s not a question of being a bad person or lacking willpower, it?s a question of having a physical reaction to eating food that triggers irregularity in blood sugar levels.

Dr. Cederquist counsels not to view foods as bad or wrong, but rather to focus on foods that will benefit you. Nonetheless, even while her patients are actively losing weight she encourages them to have one meal a week when they eat everything and anything they want, including dessert. She feels it is empowering to view any food as acceptable and none as forbidden, but to keep certain foods as treats and not a regular part of your diet.

The good news is, according to Dr. Cederquist, it?s absolutely possible to develop a healthy relationship with food. She?s witnessed patients making the switch countless times. These patients are slimmer, healthier and happier as a result. Just like you can be!

Caroline J. Cederquist, M.D. Board Certified Family Physician and Board Certified Bariatric Physicians the medical specialty of weight management) Founder of http://www.bistromd.com formerly Diet To Your Door, a home diet delivery program that specializes in low calorie gourmet food that is delivered to your home or office.

MORE ARTICLES:

Coffee - Pros and Cons of a First Time Java Date
Grabbing a coffee is a seemingly great date solution for that awkward first date problem However, there are also some disadvantages to this classic fallback date standard

Check The Rating Of Coffee Machine Before Buying
These days an essential part of life is coffee. Anything that becomes increasingly essential can be the cause of headache when you do not have it right or do not have it at all. For java that definitely is true. A day can become flavorless if the coffee is not of good taste and a gray day is a day with no coffee. This leads to the fact that it is essential to purchase the correct kind of coffee maker. By buying the coffee maker with thermal quality you can relieve yourself from any headache. You must check the thermal coffee makers ratings before finally purchasing one. The market study helps to know the price range and qualities of the thermal coffee maker.

Exercises the Safe and Healthy Way
Exercises the Safe and Healthy Way

Measurement Ltd. Launches New Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) – An Affordable “Clean Hands” Alternative to Costly Wheel-mount
Measurement Ltd. today announced the launch of a new product that combines their trademark Accutire® sensor-based digital technology with an easy-to-use and cost-effective Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS). The new product, called Accutire Monitor™ (Model MS-4359), retails for under $70 and is an affordable alternative to the wheel-mounted TPM systems that will be mandatory in all new cars in the U.S. by 2008.

DS Waters Hopes to Dispel Rumors about Bisphenol-A (BPA) in Bottled Water Products
Series of Expert Lab Tests Confirm that BPA is Safe for Human Use

Boston Dentist Dr. Helaine Smith Releases "Healthy Mouth, Healthy Sex!" E-book
"Healthy Mouth, Healthy Sex!" covers oral health and sexual issues from young adulthood through old age and includes the latest research concerning teens and the rise of STDs and throat cancer, the connection between smoking pot and gum disease, and how gum disease is thought to negatively affect pregnant women and their unborn fetuses.

How to Clean Rust From Motorcycle?
What do you do when you see your bike getting rust after the winter There is no doubt that bikers are mad about their bikes and hardly want to get down from it

New Teen Craze - Healthy To The Max?
A green powdered tree leaf eagerly sought out by students and athletes nationwide is neither smoked nor illegal. Used to lose weight, stay up late, cure acne, blow away hangovers, and enhance athletic performance, pure moringa leaf capsules are both safe and nutritious.

Aquarion Water Company Gears Up to Celebrate Its Sesquicentennial
2007 Marks Company's 150th Year of Providing Quality Drinking Water

Specialty Gourmet Coffee
Specialty gourmet coffee is a very hot commodity in today's market. The consumption of gourmet coffee has steadily grown with consumers enjoying the more sophisticated tastes of gourmet coffee beans.

LV Ranch Estates Finishes Phase II Wells, Tapping Into Exceptionally Abundant Water Supply
The thought of living in the desert is enough to make some people thirsty, which is why long-term water supply is always a consideration when it comes to making an arid habitat a home. Fortunately, LV Ranch Estates perches above plenty of water - water that Garth Owens and his company, Drill-Tech, Inc., have brought to the surface. "It doesn't matter where you drill out there, there's water everywhere - and a lot of it," says Owens, the owner of Prescott-based Drill-Tech, the company drilling the wells for each of the 120 ranch parcels in this 4,900-acre community.

Intromark Incorporated Introduces The UDS® -- Umbrella Draining Solution -- A New Accessory To Drain Water From Wet Umbrellas
Intromark Incorporated, a new-product licensing and marketing firm, is seeking marketers and distributors for The UDS® -- Umbrella Draining Solution. By placing the umbrella into a high cup, the UDS® prevents a just-used umbrella from scattering water droplets.

Rev up Your Body With Natural Healthy Foods
We have all heard our body grumble when it needs to be fed; it growls and screams at us for not looking after it and supplying it with proper nutrition.

Eat Healthy Organics If You Want To Live Well!
Organic food is grown according to definite legally regulated principles For crops, it means they were developed and planted without the use of fake fertilizers or sewage sludge, conformist pesticides, and more importantly they were developed without food additives or ionizing radiation