Diet Rehab: 28 Days to Finally Stop Craving the Foods That Make You Fat (18 page)

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Authors: Mike Dow,Antonia Blyth

What does it mean to feel out of control? Below are some possibilities. Not all the descriptions will apply to any one person; they are a range of ways that you might feel or behave. Do you recognize yourself in any of the descriptions?
 
As you can see, when both your serotonin and dopamine levels are too low, you tend to crave both the sweet starchy foods that indicate a serotonin deficiency and the high-fat foods that denote a lack of dopamine. Because your brain chemistry is so out of whack, your cravings may be even more intense than those of the person who lacks only
one
vital chemical, as might your other responses. Where someone with a mild serotonin deficit might feel a little clingy, you burst into tears when a friend says she has to get off the phone; where someone with a moderate dopamine deficiency might be irritable, you find yourself erupting in rage when your spouse forgets to buy the milk. Both your internal and your external worlds may feel beyond your control, exacerbated by your frequent or continual cravings for food and your seemingly boundless appetite.
Whether this is a familiar condition or a recent development, it’s profoundly dispiriting and has led you to fall into the seven pitfall thought patterns described on page 53. You may have tried to regain control of your eating, your life, or your own responses, and if you weren’t 100 percent successful, or if you couldn’t maintain the control you had won, you probably felt even worse about yourself. These bad feelings depleted your stores of serotonin and dopamine still further, sending you into yet another version of a downward spiral:
 
If this is your situation, don’t worry. The more intense, overwhelming, and out-of-control your feelings toward food have become, the more likely that a brain-chemistry imbalance is involved. That’s actually good news, for two reasons: One, the problem isn’t an essential one about you, your personality, or your strength of character but is rather a fixable problem that can be addressed with different food and lifestyle choices. Two, I’m offering you an approach to eating that starts by adding booster foods and activities,
not
by taking anything away. Unlike diets that have failed in the past, adding foods and activities rather than asking you to give something up is going to allow you the sustainable benefits of gradual detox. Previously, any diet was almost bound to fail because it put you into a state of withdrawal that would be especially painful for someone who was short on both serotonin and dopamine. Diet Rehab will ease you through the withdrawal period without your even realizing that it’s happened. So let’s get started. It’s time to help you shift your mantra from “I’m out of control” to “I know my strengths and weaknesses, and I can make healthy decisions.”
Rewriting Your Mantra
 
If necessary, review the sections on mantras in Chapters 4 and 5 (pages 84 and 118). Then identify your current pitfall mantra. Here are some possible choices:
• I can’t handle anything—I’m just a mess!
• I’ve really screwed everything up, and I’m paying for it now.
• Why does everything in my life always go wrong?
• No matter what I try, it’s just no good—and I’m getting tired of trying.
• Help! I’m out of control.
You can also write your own unique pitfall mantra, one that describes your own personal mental and emotional state.
Next, choose a new booster mantra that will support you in your efforts to restore your brain chemistry and take back your life. Here are some possible choices:
• It’s time I started dealing with my problems, and with some help, I’ll be able to handle them.
• There are things that have happened to me that weren’t my fault, and now it’s time to address the things that are within my control.
• My life has not been perfect, but I’ve learned many lessons and have become stronger. With this growth, I’m ready to create the life I want to live.
• I have many strengths and qualities that make me lovable. I will start by loving myself.
• I won’t always feel like this. These unpleasant feelings are information to create something different and better for myself.
• The more things I do to feel in control of my life, the better I will begin to feel.
• I’m going to be okay.
Or, once again, you can write your own specific new booster mantra—one that will help you create exactly the life you want. Take a few minutes to word it just the way you want it, and write it down.
Finally, take that new mantra and add some “because” statements to it. I’d like you to keep adding new ones as they occur to you, but take a few minutes to add at least three or four now:
I am going to be okay . . .
. . . because this time I’m going to do things differently and get the help I need.
. . . because I’ve felt this way in the past, and I got through it.
. . . because I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get me to the place I want to be.
. . . because I am loved, capable, and beautiful.
Now, as I’ve said already, I don’t expect you to just jump on board with this new way of looking at the world and your life. It will take time for you to create the experiences that prove to you that your new mantra is true. I am going to help you with four exercises that can support your efforts to boost your brain chemistry.
 
Hindsight Is Twenty-Twenty
Remember the pitfall thought pattern called permanence? When you’re gripped by any intense, unpleasant feeling, permanence is usually right there making it worse. Permanence says simply, “You’re always going to feel like this!” and it’s very hard not to believe it.
But it isn’t true, and I’m going to help you prove it to yourself. Think back to a time when you felt really worried or angry about something that ended up being a short-lived problem. Maybe it was a nasty breakup that you thought you’d never get over. Or perhaps it was a fight with a friend, an argument at work, or a conflict with your family. Somehow or other, the matter eventually was resolved. Maybe you even thought, “What was I so worried about?” But when you were in it, the problem felt all-consuming. Impossibly heavy—and permanent.
Sit quietly for a minute and try to relive that painful time—including the memory of how nothing truly awful happened in the end. Allow yourself to absorb the truth: Those feelings were not permanent at all. Give yourself an image or a word that you associate with this lesson, and next time you’re sure that you’ll never feel any better than you do right now, picture the image or say the word. Don’t let permanence sap
your
brain chemistry—use this exercise to fight back.
 
Talk to Your Heart
Imagine that your mind and your heart each have a voice and that they are having a conversation with each other. Your heart represents the way you feel, which sometimes includes pitfall thought patterns and unpleasant feelings. When you’re hearing a voice telling you “It’s always going to be this way” or “You can’t possibly get through this,” that’s your heart talking. It might even be saying “Why bother?”
There’s a reason the heart is giving us this message. Feelings are important information, and sometimes these despairing words are our way of telling ourselves: Make a change! This isn’t working! Do something else!
So please don’t ever ignore your heart. But do listen to what the mind is saying in response. When the emotional heart says, “I’m a terrible person and I hate myself,” imagine the logical brain saying, “You’re not terrible. You have good intentions in your life.” When the heart says, “Why bother? Nothing will ever change,” let the logical brain reply, “But we’re embarking on a twenty-eight-day journey where we’ll be doing things we’re never done before. Imagine at least the possibility that we might feel different in ways we can’t imagine now.”
 
Let Your Feelings Float By
Imagine that you are sitting beside a peaceful river under a tree on a beautiful day. Feel yourself actually sitting there with the grass beneath you and your legs touching each other as you sit. Now, imagine that this river represents your mind and contains all of the thoughts and feelings you are experiencing at the present moment. Feel the separation between yourself and the river. What’s floating by may be what you are thinking and feeling, but it is not
you.
You are here on the riverbank, not there in the water.
Notice the difference between this
essence
of you, and your thoughts and feelings. Just observe them, letting each thought or feeling flow by. Look, there goes
I’m not good enough!
There goes
Nothing will ever change!
There goes
You can’t lose weight, so don’t even try.
There goes
No one will ever love you,
and
You fail at everything,
and
What’s the point?
You might recognize all those thoughts and feelings, but sitting here on the riverbank, can you see that they are not
you
? Don’t argue, scold, or try to change them. Just watch them flow on by....
 
Just Do Something
I’ve saved the simplest exercise for last:
Just do something.
On days when you feel yourself falling into every one of the seven pitfall thought patterns and your life feels completely out of control, just add activities that bring the booster attributes of pleasure and productivity into your day. Pick a task, no matter how small—putting a book away that’s been lying on your coffee table, taking the garbage out, maybe even just taking a shower. Tell yourself to do it and let yourself accomplish it. Then pick some form of pleasure—a silly movie, a five-minute walk, a phone call with a friend—and do that. If you’re not sure what to do, look at the list of booster activities on page 208 and 223 and pick one. Any one. Sometimes it’s just the doing that matters.
My personal favorite thing to do on a really bad day is to go to the movies in a baseball cap, by myself, in the middle of the afternoon. If going to a funny movie helps at least 20 percent of my brain to stop worrying, I’ll take it! If doing something simple such as going to the car wash helps me feel productive, I’ll take that, too! Sometimes just a little step forward is all you need.
 
Restoring Balance, Regaining Control: Michaela’s Story Michaela was the kind of person to whom everybody turned in a crisis. As an emergency room nurse, she was used to handling high-tension situations, perhaps because she had grown up in a home with an alcoholic mother who was constantly creating crises for the rest of the family to solve. This early experience had accustomed Michaela to what I think of as the dopamine roller-coaster, a continual pattern of jolting to attention in order to cope with an emergency, followed by a massive letdown as the crisis passed . . . only to be followed, sooner or later, by yet another crisis.
As a child, Michaela medicated against the constant assault on her dopamine reserves by developing a taste for fatty meats, french fries, and rich cheeses. Her high-fat diet didn’t lead to weight gain because she was also an athlete, but I believe she developed the beginnings of a food addiction at that time.

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