#there's no more lizards even they've been driven out

[therealvinelle]

How does Norway view it’s royal family I’m from Canada and lets just say that we are not big monarchy fans. But I wonder about other countries because commonwealth countries are kind of in a unique situation where their royalty is actually royalty of another country (Britain) and we just pay for it. (no seriously, we pay more for the monarchy in canada than the uk does)

I can't speak for everyone, but I personally am in favor of having a royal family and would find it disappointing and a change for the worse if we became a republic.

The monarchy in Norway came about the right way, when the country became independent in 1905 the people voted with an overwhelming majority in favor of getting the Danish prince Carl to become our king. It was in order words not something imposed upon us by a thousand years of feudalism, but a newly independent people's choice to have a king of our own.

King Haakon proceeded to, when Norway was occupied by the Germans, refuse to accept our government's formal request to disband (as they had been driven into exile and could no longer govern), as well as refuse to surrender. Did this lead to war, yes, but it also meant that through the war we remained an occupied country with a legitimate government overseas broadcasting to every citizen by radio that we could look towards in place of the occupying government imposed upon us.

After King Haakon there was King Olav, who took the bus during the 1973 energy crisis so as to lead by example, and went skiing in the woods like everybody else, he was an immensely popular king. Now there is King Harald, who married a commoner in Queen Sonja and whose children have made even more scandalous marriages (Princess Märtha married an artist and author, Ari Behn, while the crown prince Haakon married a single mother of a child out of wedlock who was and in certain circles remains viewed as very low class), but both Harald and Sonja are very loved. Harald famously is very witty, and more importantly he is a very inclusive and kind-hearted person who made it explicitly clear he is as much the king of immigrants and LGBT people as he is everybody else. He has also competed in the Olympics seveal times, we love an athlete.

The big eyesore is Princess Märtha, whose sins and scandals are money but in a nutshell, she made the choice to be financially independent (good!) only to then do so in the worst ways she could manage. There was the angel school, where you would go learn how to speak with angels (I once went to a party where we read her book and followed her instructions on finding your aura, great fun and I recommend this for a party game), which had everyone laughing at her, to the much less funny adventure she is now on, where she has... gone full Gwyneth Paltrow. As in, she is engaged to a shaman who says children with cancer must have wished the cancer upon themselves and he will also cleanse women's vaginas of evil if they've had too much sex, and she has toured the country with this man using her princess title (The tour was called "The princess and the shaman") which... yes. When they are criticized, they say it's racism because he is black, this has not endeared them to many either.

She can live her life how she wishes, the fact that what she wishes is to give a platform to a man who talks about being a lizard who contains ancient spirits and also the 5G net is bad is what makes people upset and lose respect for the monarchy as a whole.

Personally, I remain in favor of the monarchy because she'll never be on the throne, she is already irrelevant in every way that matters. The relevant royals we do have do their jobs well and responsibly, which is where my wanting to have a monarchy in the first place comes in: I believe in the constitutional monarchy as we practice it in Norway.

The people who make the decisions will be elected by the people, but the person representing the country, whose job is only to represent and better the country through charities and strengthened diplomatic ties, has an advantage if he isn't political and gains a continuity from not being replaced every time he loses the election cycle. In these times of rising populism I think the advantage to having an apolitical head of state and military is even greater. We could in theory vote a populist party into power but we wouldn't have a populist president, the way certain countries experienced not too long ago and stand to do now. As for how one should go about finding such a non-political, continuous leader of the country, I think inheriting the position is as good a way as any to keep the transferrance of power from one sovereign to the next from getting political. In other words, monarchy but keep it constitutional.

(I'm also colored by how King Haakon handled the occupation, as well as how the King of Spain as recently as in 1981 prevented a military coup in Spain by denouncing the military's actions. How relevant these events are to the present day can be debated, but I think the past couple of years have proven that we should not take the status quo for granted and our democracies can come under threat. When they do, I prefer to have every safeguard imaginable in place for them. If that safeguard spend their time promoting art and charity that's just a big bonus.)

#monarchy #politics #americans incoming in 3... 2...

[the-hoarse-bard]

I found Brynjolf in one of the back rooms of the cistern, one of the training rooms with dummies and archery targets set up. He lowered the bow he was using to practice on seeing me enter, and said, "Well well, word on the street is Sabjorn has found himself in Whiterun's prison. How unfortunate for him." I crossed my arms as he drew up his bow again, and took aim at the target, "Yet very fortunate for Maven..." He loosed the arrow, and it struck the bulls-eye, "Aye, lass. Now you're beginning to see how our little system works. Maven sent word ahead that you discovered something while on the job, yeah?" He drew another arrow and I smiled, "You mean the rat man in the brewery's basement?" He looked shocked, and let the arrow go, getting it stuck in the wall behind the target, "The what? You're kidding right?" I shook my head, "Nope. Some kook was living under the brewery raising a 'rat army' to conquer Skyrim." Brynjolf laughed, "Okay, you've gotta tell me all about that some time, but you know that's not what I mean. The note, lass. Hand it over." He put the bow down and held out his hand.

I handed over the note from the safe, and he looked it up and down, "Hm. This is more than coincidence. First Arngoth, and now Sabjorn... Someone's trying to take us down by driving a wedge between Maven and the guild." I asked, "So what do we do about it?" Brynjolf smiled, "Well, Mercer thinks he's got a way to identify this little thorn in our side. Best go see him. I'd hurry if I were you. Never seen him this pissed." I took a short bow and hurried over to Mercer's desk on the far side of the cistern.

He was leaned against one of the empty shelves, and looking quite pissed indeed. He spoke up as I approached, "I've consulted all of my contacts regarding the Goldenglow note, and no one can identify that symbol." I told him, "I found the same symbol on a note at Honningbrew." I could hear him grinding his teeth across the desk, "It seems our adversary is trying to take us down indirectly by angering Maven. Very clever." I scoffed, "Maybe we should hire them." Mercer sighed, "You jest, but they've been able to evade identification for years. They're obviously well funded, driven, and patient... Don't mistake my admiration for complacency; our nemesis is going to pay dearly." He smiled, and it sent a shiver down my back. A smile like a serpent, "Because, even after all the posturing and planning, they've made a mistake. The parchment mentions 'Gajul-Lei'. That's an old alias of one of our contacts. His real name is Gulum-Ei, slimy bastard. He's our main man inside the East Empire Company warehouse in Solitude. If he acted as a go-between for the sale of Goldenglow, he'll be able to finger the buyer." He slammed his hands down on his desk, "Get out there, shake him down, and see what he knows. You got that?" I nodded, and Mercer smiled, "Good. Now get to it."

Brynjolf was waiting by the secret exit up into the graveyard, and he spoke up as I passed by, "I can't believe Gulum-Ei's mixed up in all this." I gave him a confused look, and he clarified, "Don't get me wrong. He could scam a beggar out of his last septim... But he's no mastermind. Couldn't find his own tail with both hands, get me?" I asked, "So you think he'll give me trouble?" Brynjolf smiled that wry grin of his again, "Trouble? He's one of the most stubborn lizards I've ever met. You're going to have to buy him off. Gold's the only thing that catches his attention. That fails? You're gonna have to follow him to see what he's up to. If I know Gulum-Ei, he's in way over his head, and you can use that as leverage." I told him, "Well, either way I'll let him live." He laughed softly, "Well, I'm glad you're embracing our methods. It'd be a waste to lose a contact at the East Empire warehouse before we got the whole story. Just keep on his tail. He's sure to step in something he can't scrape off his boot sooner or later."

As I moved toward the ladder, I suddenly remembered, I still had that decanter from the brewery, and I turned around to go hand it in to Delvin. So I decided I'd go through the ratway instead. Delvin was impressed with the grab, and paid out handsomely. It'd more than cover the carriage.... But remembering my last ride, I decided to walk instead.

#story post #shirazzha #skyrim special edition #khajiit #thieves guild

[omegawizardposting]

Actually, the "feral cats destroy their local ecosystems" thing appears to be increasingly based on faulty data, driven by a handful of researchers who genuinely have a disturbing fixation with destroying the concept of pet ownership.

That notwithstanding, I'm not sure that domestic cats would consider their lives to be the ideal. "Safer and healthier*", maybe, but cats aren't cattle. They don't just want to be SAFE. They're obligate carnivores. This is like the classic sci-fi 'enslaving humans to keep them from making dangerous decisions' setup.

*the overwhelming majority of housecats are sterilized, so I think there's a STRONG case to be made against claims of 'health', in light of the fact that reproductive capability is a significant part of what constitutes health

I think you're anthropomorphizing animals a tad too much--and underestimating the effect domestication has had on cats.

Cats aren't like, for example, exotic pets. You can take an exotic animal out of the jungle, but they haven't been domesticated for thousands of years for human companionship. They are still, at their cores, wild animals.

Cats, on the other hand, have been domesticated for thousands of years for human companionship. They are adapted for living indoors, with human care. Just like you wouldn't let your dog run loose without a leash, you shouldn't let your cat run loose. They may be able to survive, yes, but they would need to get lucky. The world outside is not built for cats, and cats are not built for the world outside.

(I, personally, had indoor-outdoor cats as a child, and we also cared for a small colony of stray cats. Our indoor-outdoor cats frequently ran afoul of dangers such as dogs, stinging insects, and inclement weather. Our strays were lucky enough to have relatively safe shelter in our carport, but that didn't stop them from climbing where they shouldn't, eating what they shouldn't, fighting what they shouldn't, and falling ill more often.)

They also don't, generally, care about being sterilized, and as someone who is becoming increasingly less fertile due to PCOS, your feelings on sterilization are...concerning, to say the least. Sterile creatures, both human and non, are capable of living perfectly happy, healthy lives, and reproductive capability is not a necessity, especially for animals that are never, ever going to be bred or miss their junk.

The depiction of spayed/neutered cats in the Warrior Cats series is also extremely disconnected from reality. I have had cats my entire life. Some things do change after spaying/neutering, but my cats have never become "fat and lazy", as the books describe. They have continued to be active, loving, and perfectly healthy.

Also, humans have their tubes tied all the time, so, again, your view on sterilization is...concerning.

Yes, cats are obligate carnivores--which is why we feed them meat. I'm not sure what kinds of cat owners you've met, but my cats have always eaten meat. They've also always had ways to express their prey drive. Cats don't care whether the prey they're hunting is real or not. Most don't know any better, having lived their entire lives indoors, away from prey. They'll hunt lizards, or bugs, or mice that enter their (indoor) territory, but they're also perfectly happy to hunt shoe strings. This expends energy and engages their prey drive.

Again, cats do not think like humans.

That said, there have been many studies done on the impact of feral cats on local ecosystems, done by many different people. This isn't a new topic of conversation. It's been around for quite some time. Science is always correcting itself, so it's possible that new data will come to light that disputes this.

However, even if cats don't significantly impact your local ecosystem, your local ecosystem can significantly impact them. Again, dogs, coyotes, foxes, birds of prey, even other cats can seriously injure or kill your pet. Cats are both predator and prey. They can also very easily fall victim to cars, poison, and human cruelty.

Cats belong indoors. They are safest, happiest, and healthiest indoors. They are not wild animals.

Warrior Cats are not real. They live in a fictional world and do not accurately represent real cats. They are hyper-intelligent compared to real cats, with a concept of morality and even their own religion. Perhaps from their perspective, what you've said may be true. My post wasn't meant to be taken seriously, given the fantastical nature of the books. I just thought it would be funny to imagine a grand cover-up by StarClan meant to keep the Clans alive and the Clan cats feral.

I am extremely passionate about animals, cats in particular. Cats have been a part of my life quite literally since I was born. They have been my family. My current cat, Chester, is so like a son to me that I would truly give my life for him. If asked to choose between him and another human family member, I would struggle to make that choice. There is no one more important to me.

I hope you understand why I've gone on this long tangent. If I misunderstood anything, please let me know. I'm not good at reading tone over the Internet (or even IRL at times), but given your references to real life, I assumed you sincerely hold all of the beliefs you expressed, rather than expressing them from the view of a Warrior Cat.

#anonymous #asks

[featheredcritter]

tw animal injury\animal death mention

so our cat got hurt outside, some nasty injury that reached the muscle. thankfully she’s all right now, a bit dizzy but she will be alright, however i am still very upset at what happened to her, at how she could have so easily avoided this suffering if we had kept her inside, and once she had healed my parents will send her back outside. same with Rufus, he looks so sick and frail sometimes it makes me think he’s dying, and it makes me feel so bad  for him, he went through so much shit that he would have never had to deal with if we had kept him inside, safe, but nooo they deserve their “freedom”, if they die a painful death, the animal that relies on you for everything, that’s just how it is, they die “happy” so whatever i want to keep them inside so bad, keep them safe and keep the wildlife safe, but i can’t, because of my parents, and i hate it please keep your cats inside

#my sister was crying as they operated on her #i can't imagine how she'll react if she never comes back #or if we find her dead i can't imagine it pains me #she's such a sweet dummy kitty they're all sweet dummy kitties #and i'm tired of finding dead birds and mice at my doorstep #there's no more lizards even they've been driven out #i wish i could do something #vent #outdoor cats

[whisperitoutloud]

This article got me out of my latest and worst binge episode, so I figured it’s worth a share. It breaks down how to argue with the compulsive urge to eat that hits you and convinces you that this one snack, or this one time, is okay. And destroys the theory that binging is emotion driven, or that it’s your childhood trauma. Which I’d always believed and thought there was no way for me to fight back. What a life saving 5 minute read! For my fked up kind, at least…

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/never-binge-again/201901/how-stop-binge-eating-in-three-unusual-steps?amp

If I said I could show you how to permanently stop binge eating and overeating today if you wanted to, would you think I was crazy? Many people would, especially if they've been struggling for a lifetime. Some even report feeling compelled to binge, as if someone were pointing a gun at their head saying "keep eating or I'll shoot!" Others feel they 'need' their junk, not so much for pleasure, but just to feel normal.

I know this pain all too well...

Not only from my 27 years of experience as a psychologist, author of a popular weight loss book, and a consultant to the food industry—but from personal history as well. I'll spare you the full story, but let's just say there’s probably nothing you've done with food I haven't done myself...

Eating out of the garbage...

Stealing my roommate's food without telling him...

Driving to multiple fast food restaurants just so no one person would know how much I was eating...

Eating off the floor...

And repeatedly stuffing myself way past the point of physical pain.

This went on for almost thirty years while I tried to fix my problem from the vantage point of a psychologist. "Must not be what I'm eating but what's eating me", I thought. But this was NOT the case, and this paradigm really slowed down my efforts to fix the problem.

There's an abundance of misinformation and misunderstanding which prevents the majority of our population from losing weight for good. You need to confront this head on if you don't want to be one of them. Let's go through the myths one by one:

MYTH: "It's not what you’re eating, it's the emotions eating you!"

TRUTH: It’s actually a part of your brain that isn’t primarily responsible for emotions that’s doing the damage!

It's common to assume people overeat primarily for emotional reasons. The idea is that we're looking for "comfort food" to escape painful emotional states and fill the empty hole in our hearts. From this idea stems the notion we must first nurture our "inner wounded child" back to health if we ever hope to lose weight for good...

But there’s a big problem with this idea: The reptilian brain is very involved in food addiction, and the reptilian brain does not know love. Instead, when it evaluates something new in the environment it thinks "Do I eat it? Do I mate with it? Or do I kill it?" Love seems to exist much more in the higher, more recently evolved parts of the brain—the parts you think of as "You." So do spirituality, music, art, friendship, work, and all your long term goals like diet and exercise.

We think a large part of what happens when you "lose control" or change your mind about your diet in the face of a tempting treat is that survival mechanisms in the reptilian brain have been mistakenly activated and misdirected towards the treat. This is why people feel like all their best laid plans go out the window at the moment of temptation. Those plans are in their higher brain, but the reptilian brain is taking over.

MYTH: If we can’t control ourselves around food, we don’t have willpower!

TRUTH: There are EXTREMELY powerful economic-persuasion systems that are set up to get us to binge and overeat. These systems are so successful that almost 70% of the population in the United States are overweight and almost 40% are OBESE!

The food industry spends billions of dollars engineering food-like substances to target our lizard-brain with hyper-palatable concentrations of sugar, starch, fat, oil, salt, and excitotoxins which hit our bliss point without giving us the nutrition to feel satisfied. Then the advertising industry spends billions convincing us we need these things to survive (both physically and mentally). Of the 5,000+/yr food advertising messages beamed at us through the internet and airwaves only a handful are about eating more fruits and vegetables. And many of these are targeted at us from the time we are small children!

For example, psychologists Millner and Olds wired an electrode directly into rats' brains and allowed them to activate it by pressing a lever. In experiment after experiment rats pressed the lever thousands of times per day. Starving rats ignored their food. Nursing mother rats abandoned their pups. Rats would crawl over painful electrical grids to press the lever. One could argue their survival drive was hijacked by the chance to obtain this artificial pleasure.

Now, I'm not saying anyone is putting electrodes in our brains. At least not physical ones - chemical electrodes are another story. That's not stretching the truth too far, I think, when in most cities today you can walk out of one fast food joint and see another one directly across the street! It's no wonder so many people insist they no longer like fruits and vegetables. Their survival drives have been hijacked by the artificial pleasure buttons the food industry has to offer.

The point of all this is, our reptilian brains are under attack by enormous forces, and while this part of us doesn’t know love, it does have access to our fight or flight mechanism, which can convince us we need these things as a matter of survival.

In my own experience, as well as thousands of readers and clients I've helped, the best way to deal with this is more a game of unflinching domination than one of loving yourself. When an alpha wolf is challenged for leadership by another member of the pack it doesn't look at that member and say "Gee, I think someone needs a hug!" Instead, it bares its teeth and snarls aggressively as if to say "Look, I'm the boss here. Get back in line or I'll hurt you!"

It's like that.

Now, don't get me wrong. There is definitely an association between food and emotion, but emotions do not "make" you overeat. Mammals in the studies above over-stimulated themselves with artificial pleasure regardless of whether they were stressed, and people overeat when they're happy as well as when they’re angry, sad, lonely, tired, anxious, or depressed. It seems the engineered intensity of pleasure available for minimum effort can bypass all these feelings.

MYTH: Guidelines are Better Than Rules. Eat Well 90% of the Time, Indulge Yourself 10%

TRUTH: Guidelines wear down your willpower by requiring constant decision making. Consider well-thought-through rules for your most troublesome trigger foods and/or eating behaviors.

As discussed in my previous post, guidelines wear down your willpower by forcing constant decision making. Every time you’re in front of a chocolate bar at Starbucks you have to ask yourself "Is this part of the 90% or part of the 10%." Rules, on the other hand, preserve willpower by eliminating decisions. Decision making has been consistently shown to deplete willpower in studies. Better to use a rule like "I'll only ever eat chocolate on the last weekend of each calendar month" because it eliminates your chocolate decisions most of the time!

MYTH: Avoid tempting food and environments.

TRUTH: Cultivate confidence, not fear.

Sometimes overeaters are told to avoid fast food restaurants, birthday parties, etc. Many believe they need a separate pantry and/or shelf of the refrigerator where other people’s tempting treats are kept. Sometimes they even ask their spouses and children to keep tempting treats in a locked drawer. The underlying belief behind this idea is that external temptation is the problem.

While there's no reason to hang out in a bakery all day if you’re trying to lose weight, and while some people might find it helpful to avoid temptation as a kind of "training wheels" exercise to get started, I find it's much better to cultivate confidence vs. fear. I have good reasons to hang out in Starbucks. Yes, there are many tempting treats on the counter...but my friends go there. Sometimes I like to just sit there and read or do a little work. So I define clear rules for myself regarding those treats and confidently follow them while I enjoy the rest of what the environment has to offer. You can't avoid temptation without seriously shrinking your life.

STEP TWO: Make At Least One Clear Food Rule.

What's your single most troublesome trigger food or eating behavior? For example, if you tend to overeat in front of the television you might make the rule "Except for Saturdays I'll never eat while watching television again." Or perhaps you reliably have healthy days when you drink pure water in the morning so you say "I will always drink 16 oz of pure spring water before I eat anything in the A.M." Or maybe you just eat too quickly without really experiencing your food. In this case you can say "I'll always put my fork down between bites."

Any rule you create is fine—as long as it doesn’t restrict your overall calories and nutrition too much—and provided the rule is crystal clear, such that if ten people followed you around all week they'd all 100% agree whether you followed it.

Also, you can change your rule(s) whenever you want, provided you take at least a half hour for written reflection and are clear why you want to make the change, and allow at least 24 hours before the change takes effect.

Last, it's very important to note that despite the fact we can change the rules, we write them as if they were set in stone. It's kind of like telling a two year old they can never ever cross the street without holding your hand, even though you know you're going to teach them to look both ways when they're older. You say "never" because you know they're not anywhere near mature enough to even entertain this dangerous idea. Similarly, you can say "never" to your reptilian brain, even though you know you might change the rules later on. Turns out our reptilian brains act like two year olds around tempting foods!

STEP THREE: Separate Your Constructive vs. Destructive Thoughts About Food

OK, now here’s the weird part. The last and most powerful part of this strange method involves deciding that all your destructive, impulsive food thoughts no longer belong to you. Instead, they belong to a kind of inner enemy associated with your reptilian brain. (You can call it your "Food Monster" or "Binge Lizard" or anything else that’s not a cuddly pet.)

Then, come up with a name for your Food Demon's voice. For example, my Food Demon doesn't talk, it Squeals. Any thought, feeling, or impulse which suggests you will ever break your rule again is that voice, which you will learn to recognize and ignore.

Finally, come up with a crude name for everything your inner enemy craves. For example, my Demon Squeals for Demon Slop.

The idea is to help you more easily recognize and ignore the inner voice which has to this point been responsible for all your bad choices around food.

Let's illustrate in a little more detail so you can see how this works. Suppose I have a rule which says I never eat chocolate on anything other than the last Saturday and Sunday of the month. Then, when I'm standing on line at Starbucks and there’s a chocolate bar calling to me at the counter, I become aware of a thought like "Gee Glenn, you worked out really hard this morning so you can definitely afford a few bites." Or "Hey Glenn, chocolate is made from cocoa beans, and those grow on a plant, therefore chocolate is a vegetable." At that point I'd say to myself "I don’t want that, my Food Demon does. It's Squealing for Demon Slop. I never eat Demon Slop!"

And that’s it.

As crazy as it sounds, this very crude, very primitive technique can give you the extra microseconds you need at the moment of impulse to wake and remember who you are and why you made the rules in the first place. It’s not a miracle, and most people have to experiment with a variety of rules and behaviors before everything really comes together for them...but it really can quickly restore your sense of power and agency with food, especially if you’ve been struggling for a long time.

"I don’t eat Demon Slop and I don’t let my lizard brain tell me what to do!"

Try it. What have you got to lose? After all, what if I’m right?

How to Stop Binge Eating at Night

Night time overeating is a very common problem, and it's often the last one people solve as they are recovering from binge eating, but it doesn't have to be as difficult as it feels. The most important thing to do first is identify the cause. Which of the following might apply to you?

Over-restricting during the day: More often than not I find people who struggle with binge eating at night tend to have had too little to eat during the day. Perhaps they are trying to stick to a diet that's is too rigid, or which causes them to lose weight too quickly. When that's the case, the brain often fires the "be less discriminating with food and feast" at nighttime, when willpower is lowest.

Not enough self-care during the day: Just as over-restricting calories during the day can cause the brain to rebound with a feast response at night, so too can too little self care. In particular, subjecting yourself to constant pressure and decision making without enough input-and-decision-free breaks can wear down your willpower too. There are only so many good decisions you can make in a day. If this is you, try to add another two five minute breaks completely away from other people, electronic devices, and the necessity to respond and/or make any decisions. It can make a big difference. So too can a short period of meditation, and journaling or free-writing.

Not enough sleep: Paradoxically, night time eating can be exacerbated by not getting enough sleep. And of course, eating at night can interrupt your sleep too, creating a downward cycling snowball. Pay a little more attention to your sleep patterns, consider going to bed at a standard time, make the bed for sleep only, consider talking to your doctor about supplements and medications, etc.

If you struggle with night time overeating, you might also want to try making your night time food decisions in the morning. Plan out your evening meal and be sure it's substantial enough for you to look forward to, then prepare it and leave it in some Tupperware or a plate, so you'll know all day that it's just sitting there waiting for you to eat. You might even consider taking a picture of it and carrying it around on your smart phone all day, glancing at it a few times on breaks to remind you what's waiting at home.

How to Stop Binge Eating After Work

To stop binge eating after work, you must do similarly to the instructions above to stop overeating at night. The only difference is, most people who complain of overeating after work are talking about stopping at fast food establishments on the way home and binge eating in their cars.

To overcome this, prepare something substantial for yourself in the morning and take it with you to work, all sealed up in Tupperware. If it's cool enough outside that you can leave it in the car, leave it on the driver's seat so it's the first thing you'll see when you get back in the car, otherwise put it in the refrigerator at your job. Then, take a different route home for the next thirty days. It should be one that doesn't require you to pass all your old haunts. You should be fine to go back to your standard route soon, but protect your new habit by creating a cocoon in which it can develop.

If it's impractical to take a different route home, or you're unable to find the time and energy to prepare food for yourself to take with you in the morning, you can still implement the above method by stopping at a different restaurant and establishing a new routine there. For example, if your overeating after work routine habitually takes you to McDonalds where you get a cheeseburger and fries, you might consider going to Wendy's and getting a baked potato with nothing on it, and a salad with the dressing on the side. (Any different restaurant which serves healthy options will do. We are just trying to break the routine.)

How to Stop Binge Eating Sweets

You can very effectively use the standard method described in the video and text above to stop binge eating sweets. The key, I find, is in how you define what a sweet actually is. See, your Food Demon (reptilian brain) is always hard at work looking for loopholes in your food rules. So if you say something like "I will never eat sweets on a weekday again", it will immediately say something like "Honey doesn't count, right? What about muffins? They aren't technically just a sweet. Oooooh, what about mounds of ketchup on french fries? The sugar in that doesn't count either, right!?"

The solution to this is to define exactly what "sweets" means inclusively rather than exclusively. In the above example, I'd ask a client to fill in the sentence "The only sweet tastes I will ever consume on a weekday again are (fill in the blank)." For me personally, the only sweet tastes I include in my diet are whole fruit and berries. For other people it's whole fruit, berries, stevia, ketchup, and any sauce which is primarily intended to be savory vs. sweet.

You don't have to limit the list to any specific number, but you do need to be very specific about what's on the list. Then, you assume everything else is off limits and your Food Demon can't argue.

How to Stop Binge Eating Sugar

You can stop binge eating sugar in the same way you stop binge eating sweets above. It's necessary to be very specific about what sugar actually is, and what sweet tastes you will include in your diet.

In the case of sugar in particular, if you still wish to allow processed foods in your diet, you may wish to define where a sweetener must appear on the label in order to qualify as sugar. For example, many of my clients don't consider a food to have "sugar" in it if there are no sweeteners at the 4th position or above on the label.

How to Stop Binge Eating When Stressed

It's an odd thing, when you think about it, that we would even entertain binge eating when stressed, because we know recovering from the digestive bloat and self-loathing which occurs after we overeat will make us feel more stressed. I tell my clients "If you have six problems and you overeat, you'll have seven problems." Moreover, the time and energy it takes to recover is time and energy which could've been used to solve the problems we felt stressed about in the first place! "If you're in a hole, stop digging." Overeating causes stress, it doesn't fix it.

To stop binge eating when you're stressed it can be helpful to think of two things. First, research the physiological effects of the food you gravitate towards overeating. For example, if you love sugar, it might be helpful to know that the average sugar high lasts only 18 to 36 minutes. Thereafter your blood sugar will have been destabilized, and it will take hours for you to recover. In the meantime you'll have low energy and quite possibly depression, anxiety, and/or jitters. Or, if you love salt, you might wish to know that excess sodium can be associated with hemorrhagic strokes even in the absence of high blood pressure.

It's also helpful to remember we do not just overeat for "comfort." See, most of us aren't binging on whole, natural foods. Instead, we turn to some sort of industrially concentrated form of sugar, starch, salt, fat, oil, or excitotoxins. These are supersized doses of pleasure things which didn't exist in the tropics while we were evolving. A better word for them might be "drugs." What we are actually doing when we overeat things we know aren't good for us is "getting high with food."

Knowing that helps many people to think twice about overeating when they're stressed because they don't want to think of themselves as abusing drugs. I know it's a bit of a stretch, but there's at least some truth to it, and I find when clients can tell themselves "Wait a minute, I'm about to get high with food again" in the moment of temptation, they can often stop and make a healthier choice.

How to Stop Binge Eating Forever

The key to stop binge eating forever is in the recognition of the fact that you can only ever eat now. Now is the only moment you can use your hands, arms, legs, mouth and tongue to put food in your mouth. Now is the only moment you can choose to chew and swallow anything.

Your Food Demon will tell you that you simply cannot maintain your food rules forever, but this ignores the fact that forever is an infinite string of now moments. For example, as you are reading these words, you don't know what the next ones are going to be. All you know is that now you are reading, and as you process each successive word on the page, you realize it is still now. It is, isn't it?

It would be silly for me to tell you that you couldn't ever hope to read this whole article because it's way too long, because you know that if you only keep focusing on the passing words as you encounter them now, eventually the article will be done. A good reader doesn't even entertain the thought that they couldn't read the whole thing, because if they did, that would distract them from integrating the meaning and significance of the words as they read them. In order to concentrate on reading, the reader must remain focused in the present moment, and in so doing can read even the longest book.

That's how this works. You focus on eating healthy and following your food rules now, and ignore the Food Demon's attempts to distract you. That way all your energy can remain targeted at the goal. You can only ever use the present moment to eat healthy, so if you always use the present moment to do so, you will always eat healthy. Forever!

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