Gillian Riley - Eating Less: Say Goodbye to Overeating

Contents

EATING LESS

Say goodbye to overeating

GILLAN RILEY

Praise

Gillian Rileys approach is clear, simple and powerful in its effect on peoples lives. For smoking and overeating, her work is excellent in both areas. Simply the best.

LESLIE KENTON, HEALTH EXPERT AND WRITER

Immensely interesting and helpful. Empowers those who previously have felt themselves to be the victims of dieting and dietary advice.

DOROTHY ROWE, PSYCHOLOGIST AND WRITER

The utter simplicity of its message and techniques makes Eating Less easy to start and continue with a programme that revolutionises your attitude to eating and weight.

SARAH LITVINOFF

Whereas most diet books have you focus on the latest fad and fashion in dieting, this book has you focus on YOU. Make a covenant with yourself Eat Less! This is Gillian Rileys simple message. Through Gillians no-nonsense approach to the nature of desire and addiction, you will gain wisdom about how you can make such a covenant your living reality.

MITRA RAY, PHD, CELL BIOLOGIST AND WRITER

One woman I worked with recently had undergone therapy at a NHS funded clinic and she said your book gave her more insight in the few days she took to read it than months of counselling.

MAGGIE PRESTON, MA, COUNSELLOR

Excellent marriage guidance counselling for those with a difficult relationship with food.

PATRICK HOLFORD, AUTHOR, AND FOUNDER OF THE INSTITUTE FOR OPTIMUM NUTRITION

Eating Less combines a refreshingly realistic analysis of weight management and food addiction with sound advice on how to take control of overeating. Riley is an excellent debunker of the myths that have grown up around food.

TIME OUT

This book will be invaluable not only to people with an overeating problem but to those who are counselling them as well.

JOE GRIFFIN, PSYCHOTHERAPIST AND WRITER

I like the simplicity of the Eating Less system; the basic principles are amazingly easy to understand and follow. Most importantly, Ive lost many of my fears around the topic of food fear of going out of control, fear of failure and this gives me confidence that this is the permanent solution to my problem. Ive found that I really can trust myself around food even regaining my sense of humour about it all!

MIRJAM BOLLAG DONDI, PSYCHOTHERAPIST, INSTITUTE OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY, ZURICH

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to everyone who gave their permission to quote from research papers and books, especially Drs Nathaniel Branden and Jeffrey M. Schwartz. I have made all reasonable efforts to contact copyright holders for permission, and apologise for any omissions or errors in the form of credit given. Corrections can be made in future printings.

My thanks also go to my clients and readers who wrote their stories for this edition.

Introduction

When it comes to making changes in your eating whether you think of it as dieting, losing weight or healthy eating certain approaches are usually suggested. This book will have you question them.

MYTH: Wait until youre hungry before you eat . Using hunger as your guide can be inconvenient, impractical and very difficult to interpret accurately. Much research has shown that hunger is unreliable as a signal to eat.

MYTH: Stop eating when youre full . Most people dont feel the fullness of what they ate until quite a few minutes after finishing their meal. If you tend to overeat, this is too late.

MYTH: Sugar is addictive, so the only solution is to abstain . Its a very tall order never to eat sugar again. If your success depends on abstinence it will be fragile, and once broken theres no other strategy to use.

MYTH: Stop eating sugar, wheat and/or processed food, and your cravings will disappear . There are plenty of yo-yo dieters who have kept to healthy regimes for months at a time but returned to overeating because their desire for these foods resurfaced.

MYTH: Eat anything you fancy and trust your body to tell you what it needs . If this worked, there would be none of the many ailments and diseases associated with poor nutrition. This book shows you how to overcome your attraction to the manufactured non-foods that can make you ill.

MYTH: Avoid temptations and keep yourself busy to stop thinking about food . As you may already know, this strategy will only take you so far. As with any problem in life, evading it doesnt resolve it in the long term.

MYTH: Dont eat while watching television . This advice is to keep your attention on your food, but nobody suggests you shouldnt have a conversation at a meal! You can eat less at meals and talk, read a newspaper or watch a programme at the same time, if thats what you want to do.

MYTH: Overeating is the result of unresolved emotional issues . Yet many people overeat when theyre happy and enjoying themselves. It can be liberating to discover a way to overcome overeating without delving into your past.

Welcome to a completely different solution.

CHAPTER 1

Food Addiction

I have just given up spinach for Lent.

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

ARE YOU ADDICTED to food? If you struggle with your answer, please know that addiction isnt necessarily extreme. A two-a-day smoker can be described as addicted. It would be fair to say that they are less addicted than a chain-smoker would be, but the same process is involved.

Food addiction comes in a vast array of shapes and sizes. It can apply to those of normal weight as well as to the overweight and obese. It can even apply to those who are underweight, because some people can stay very slim on nothing but highly addictive junk food.

This book explains how to overcome food addiction, large and small. One problem we face is that food addiction is such a pervasive and established part of our culture, it can be hard even to see it in the first place. See if any of these characteristics come close to describing the way you are with food:

you know you eat way too much at mealtimes but dont feel satisfied with smaller portions

you continue to snack after an evening meal

you open a packet of biscuits intending to eat one or two but rarely leave anything but crumbs

you think about food too much of the time

you feel hungry much of the time

you feel hungry after eating a substantial meal

you often feel uncomfortable or even unwell after eating (sleepy, bloated or nauseous, for example)

you rarely, if ever, feel a genuine, natural hunger

you are fearful of feeling genuine hunger

you eat much too quickly and find it tough to slow down

you go into a kind of trance sometimes and dont even know you are eating