WELCOME, Clarissa!!!
Who
Hi, my name is Clarissa and I'm a Food Addict. The problem was that for most of my life I didn't know it. I just always thought that something was wrong with me or that I didn't have enough will power when it came to how much I ate. I fought daily to control my weight and my obsessive-compulsive thinking about food. In my early 20’s I struggled with one eating disorder after another and was plagued by the knowledge that no matter what I did, it was likely this problem would never go away. So every day I ate with little or no idea how the foods I was eating affected my body or my mind and ultimately every day I felt like a failure. I had accepted that this was just how life would always be.
Then I was introduced to the concept of Food Addiction and it was like someone finally switched on the lights in my mind. I went to Iceland to participate in an intensive sugar detox and it was in this environment that I realized how the processed, low fat "foods" I had been eating were triggering me to over-consume and why I always craved MORE. I learned about the dangers of sugar, how negatively affects all aspects of our overall health, and how it is in absolutely everything we consume today. I had been working in the field of addictions and mental health for years and the concept that certain types of foods (sugar/flour/grains) had the ability to activate the pleasure center of the brain, exactly like drugs such as cocaine and/or heroin do, was fascinating to me. It was the key to stopping the addictive cycle.
Today I have a SOLUTION and practical strategies to maintain that solution. I have freedom with real food now that I never thought was possible and I am fortunate enough to get to work with others to help them find this solution too. Food is not your enemy, diets are. When you learn how and what to eat it will merely complement your life not define it.
I have worked alongside the top addiction doctors who practice in the field of Food Addiction to develop this program. Weight loss WILL occur but most importantly my clients report that their biggest achievement from eating this way is the relief they feel when the mind chatter with food STOPS. The goal of this treatment is for you to find peace with food.
What
What is Food Addiction?
Food is one of our most basic needs . . . But for some people, certain foods trigger overwhelming ‘feel-good brain chemicals’ that overtake their brain’s reward pathway. And they can’t stop eating. Literally.
In the same way that a smoker craves a cigarette or an alcoholic can’t stop after one drink, for some people food acts like a drug and stopping after the first bite becomes unmanageable. They feel like their brain is hijacked. They obsess over food, what they should be eating, what they want to be eating, not wanting to eat anything, how many calories, how much fat, why I am I always feeling hungry, or why do I always feel too full. The list and the thoughts seem to never end. We call this food addiction.
Can a Person Really Be Addicted to Food?
There's a lot of controversy surrounding the causes of obesity. Some believe it's simply a lack of willpower; that a person just won't control what they eat. Others contribute weight problems to genetics or lack of exercise. Now, in the scientific community, there's growing support for the idea of food addiction (people being addicted to food). It comes from animal and human studies, including brain-imaging research on humans.
Food Addiction Defined
Although there is no official definition of food addiction, it is defined in much the same way as other drug dependence:
Eating too much despite consequences, even dire consequences to health
Being preoccupied with food, food preparation, and meals
Trying and failing to cut back on food intake
Feeling guilty about eating and overeating
Why
Normal Eaters can diet. Their issue with weight is primarily physical. After checking with a doctor for medical complications, they have to eat fewer calories, fat, and sweets while increasing their exercise. This often requires attitude and behavioral changes that are not easy but can be done alone, with a counselor or in a commercial weight loss program.
Emotional Eaters cannot diet successfully. Their problem is not just physical but also psychological: something is “eating them.” These clients need help learning to identify and communicate feelings, be assertive, reframe societal notions of beauty, make peace with family, and resolve abuse issues, in addition to changing their eating behaviors. Many of these people experience success after intensive therapeutic work for a few months or years.
Then there are Food Addicts. These people find it impossible to stop abusing food. At first, they binge once in a while but over time there is increasing loss of control. Many try therapy for underlying psychological problems but this doesn’t change their relationship with food, at least for long. They are chemically dependent on food in exactly the same way alcoholics or drug addicts are dependent on their substance.
Unlike normal eaters and emotional eaters, food addicts need to abstain from their binge and trigger foods completely. Food addicts often need professional support because diets and talk therapy alone don’t work over time for food addicts. The recovery process for a food addict begins with abstinence from the one or more specific foods over which they have lost control.
This often includes challenging food addiction denial and being rigorously honest about difficult thoughts and feelings. For long-term recovery, food addicts frequently need to work on deep emotional and spiritual issues while abstaining from their addictive foods. A therapist working with a food-addicted client deals with the food first; everything the therapist does is directed at maintaining physical abstinence.
How
Screening for Food Addiction
Screening for Food Addiction helps you examine your current relationship with food and identify what stage of Food Addiction might be in. This allows us to work together to create a treatment plan that best supports your food goals. It often brings up some behaviors surrounding food that you may not be aware of.
4 Session Food Consultation
I arm you with the knowledge of how some of the foods you are eating will ALWAYS sabotage even your greatest desire to lose weight, will keep you stuck in the addictive cycle, and leave you feeling fatigued all the time. I also demonstrate how eating the wrong types of foods affect your cognitive function in a negative way. We discuss how and what you are currently eating, what you SHOULD be eating and some tips and tricks that can help get you where you want to be while making the challenging transition to eating in this new way. We live in a world where we are triggered by food, "drug foods" I call them, all the time so it makes sense that we all need a little extra support!
What I hope that you will gain from this experience is that being in this situation is not your fault and it has never really been about your will power at all. I will provide you with a food plan for life that will help guide you and detox you from some of the addictive foods you have been consuming. Then we will work together to help you develop is a food plan for life that you love so you will feel full, your cravings will be eliminated cravings and food will complement your life again rather than feeling that food is controlling it at times.
One-on-One Individualized Food Addiction Recovery Program
Typically it runs about 8 sessions but it can be more or less depending on your focus and what you think you need. In these sessions you will learn to:
Adopt a meal plan for recovery and eliminating trigger foods
Identify Food Addiction and understand its definition
How to Eat to stabilize your hormones and achieve appetite correction (Understand normal Hunger and Satiety and the roles Ghrelin, Leptin, Insulin play)
Understand how highly processed foods affect your brain which propels you compulsively overeat
Examine the Limbic / Reward pathways (Recognize the foods that give you massive hits of dopamine, serotonin, endorphins)
Manage cravings
Eat mindfully
How to deal with intense feelings when addictive eating stops
Navigate your relationship with food in recovery
How to Create a support network to ensure success
Prevent relapse and maintain recovery
Complete a SUGAR®
At this time Clarissa is the only certified professional in Canada. SUGAR® is an assessment and mapping tool for professionals working with people who have a problematic or chemical dependence on sugar/flour/food. This diagnostic tool is a structured interview that examines the client's relationship with sugar, flour, processed food, and related consequences. Currently the only diagnostic instrument available for "food addiction." This tool is based on the diagnostic criteria for harmful use, pathological use and addiction to mind-altering, (psychoactive) drugs as described in the ICD-10 (International Classification of Diseases) and DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).
Qualifications
SUGAR®
This is an assessment and mapping tool for professionals working with people who have a problematic or chemical dependence on sugar/flour/food. This diagnostic tool is a structured interview that examines the client's relationship with sugar, flour, processed food, and related consequences. Currently the only diagnostic instrument available for Food Addiction.
Nordic-Baltic Regional Certification Board (NBRCB) Diploma as FOOD ADDICTION COUNSELLOR
This Certification process demonstrates competency and achievement of the professional education needed to work in the field of food addiction treatment and recovery. This is the first and only internationally accredited food addiction counseling program that currently exists. I participated in clinical education, a 5-day intensive sugar detox and worked alongside the leading professionals and physicians in the field of overeating & food addiction treatment.
LAURENTIAN UNIVERSITY
Honours Bachelor of Indigenous Social Work cum laude 2013 - 2016
MCMASTER UNIVERSITY
Addiction Careworker Diploma, Addiction, and Mental Health 2011-2013
UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH
Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com), Hospitality and Food Administration 2001-2003
NIAGARA COLLEGE
Honors Diploma, Hotel, and Restaurant Management 1999-2001
Website: https://foodaddictionhelp.ca