Tuesday, December 10, 2024; that’s the day The Sane Food Solution:Transform Your Relationship with Food and Change Your Life hits the market. This book, Summit Press Publishers‘ latest release, captures Theresa Wright‘s nearly 40 years of experience treating food addiction, and her deep understanding of the issue.
If you’d like an example of how well you should understand the problem that you solve so you can describe it to a T right out of the starting gate, then look no further.
The following is an excerpt from the introduction. (Perhaps it even resonates with you.)
If you have struggled with food, eating, and body weight for years, you have come to the right place. If you have tried every diet on the planet—from high carb to low or no carb then Paleo—without lasting results, you have come to the right place. If you have gone from fasting to binging, if your eating is out of control and you are fed up and frustrated, you have come to the right place. If you just want to learn how to nourish your body well; if you want to eat in a rational, sane, and healthy way, you have come to the right place.
If you are powerless to control your food intake, resent those who don’t understand or fail to support you, are sick and tired of the roller coaster and want nothing more than to give up and curl in on yourself with a pint or three of ice cream, welcome to what this book has to offer.
For the last thirty-seven years, I have helped people break free of the compulsion to abuse themselves with food. This is now being called food addiction. While there is a lot of new and exciting information coming out about refined and ultra-processed foods, this disorder combines our sensitivities to such foods with other issues in our lives, which makes it very powerful.
Jill and Patricia (and many of the others I work with) have a physical sensitivity to certain foods. This sensitivity has been named lots of things, but it really means that your body has changed in a significant way. It’s an addition; we may hate the word because of its ties to heroin and other illicit substances, but that’s what it is. Food addiction is an umbrella term meaning a physical change has happened with certain foods.
Americans—my clients included—face a major struggle with food, eating, body weight, and a host of horrifying diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension. As a society, sixty to eighty percent of us are overweight or obese. Weight loss diets abound, and we go on and off them with abandon. These diets all work for a bit, but the weight invariably comes back, along with a ton of shame. No doubt, you can attest to this as well.
But here’s the thing: until you find and solve the underlying problem, the battle with food and the scale will keep you in a chokehold. You can yo-yo diet all you want; the problem will return.
Think about it. If you go to your doctor with an ear infection and he gives you a decongestant and a pain reliever, you will feel better right away, yet only temporarily. Unfortunately, the problem (an ear infection) will remain until you deal with the root cause (a bacterial disturbance) with an antibiotic. Solve the actual problem and the symptoms go away for good.
Similarly, obesity is often the symptom or the result of some other problem or group of problems. Until you find and resolve the other problems, obesity will respond to diets, but quickly return.
That’s why, to permanently free yourselves from the pain (and shame) of obesity, which is the number one symptom with which Americans struggle, you must go after the root cause—food addiction. Other things may also play a part, but an eating program that doesn’t illuminate addictive substances may not provide true relief.
Food addiction is a physical, genetically inherited biochemical glitch in the way the body handles carbohydrates. (Yes, you can also be sensitive to fats and salts and crunchy or creamy foods—even the need for more!)
If you are a food addict, you handle foods differently than others. First, your brain chemistry has been altered by allergens you’ve ingested. Scientists don’t know why; you’re simply susceptible. Your body handles differently all the processed, refined, ultra-processed, and man-made foods that stock our shelves these days. These food stuffs are hard to avoid, and they are harming you. They make the manufacturers oodles of money and make your situation worse; they make your addiction worse. You will never break free of your food obsession until you eliminate these allergens from your diet, until you practice abstinence.
This book is all about helping you do that: find and eliminate the foods you can’t eat because they throw your brain chemistry off. Your addiction to these substances is what’s keeping you caught in an endless loop of consumption, malaise, and suppression. And it is preventing you from solving the real problems.
