• The book explains how emotional eating is a psychological dependence on food that can be broken by changing the way we think about food and ourselves.
• The book exposes the myths and dangers of food addiction and dieting, and reveals the benefits of natural food, water, exercise and sleep.
• The book provides a practical and proven method that helps the reader quit emotional eating easily, naturally and permanently, without any rules, restrictions or willpower.

Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Quit Emotional Eating (2019) guides compulsive eaters past the mental traps that lead to overindulgence. It applies the “Easyway” method which has already helped millions quit smoking and expands on it to uncover the psychological roots of our unhealthy impulses, freeing us to rediscover balanced eating habits.

Introduction: Escape the cage of emotional eating.

Do you ever find yourself turning to Food to cope with stress or boredom? Perhaps you reach for cookies, chips, or ice cream not because you’re hungry, but for emotional comfort? Many of us fall into this habit without realizing it. We use food as a pick-me-up, reward, or distraction from difficult feelings. Before we know it, emotional eating has become an automatic response that’s hard to break.

In this Blink, we’ll draw on a successful method that’s typically used to help people quit smoking to help explain the nature of addiction and the psychological underpinnings of emotional eating – one that doesn’t rely on simple willpower.

Using Carr’s “Easyway” method, you’ll discover that it’s possible to change your fundamental mindset around food. And from there, you’ll learn about a method to unravel the brainwashing that hooks you on junk food all while adopting a more empowered relationship with eating.

Please note that if you feel you may be struggling with an eating disorder like anorexia or bulimia, make sure to contact your doctor or professional therapist to get the professional help you need.

The cage of addiction

Emotional eating is like a cage: although it seems to provide a temporary escape from feelings of stress, loneliness, and anxiety, in fact, it traps us in endless cycles of false pleasure and pain. We mindlessly consume junk food to numb difficult emotions we don’t want to feel. But in doing so, we only really succeed in amplifying those same emotions.

And no matter what you tell yourself, this cage can’t be escaped through sheer self-control alone. To break free, you need to dismantle the very belief systems and programming that keep you trapped to begin with.

Allen Carr’s Easyway method has helped millions of people quit another dangerous addiction – the addiction of smoking. Like tobacco, junk food addiction is also built on lies and illusions: the lie that we’re giving up something precious by abstaining.

Since childhood, you’ve been conditioned to equate junk with happiness – candy as a reward, cake as celebration. You’ve been programmed to see quitting as deprivation. But in fact, by escaping, you lose nothing but suffering.

Don’t worry, the path ahead isn’t one of white-knuckled deprivation, but joyful liberation. With a positive mindset focused on freedom, you can dismantle the illusions and conditioning that have long kept you trapped.

Millions have succeeded before you. If you’re willing to unlearn what you believe about food and pleasure, you too can break free into a new future. And you’ll find, as so many others have, that the cage that once trapped you has vanished entirely. You’ll emerge to a life bigger and brighter than the one you left behind.

Willpower isn’t enough

Let’s consider Nick’s story. He tried to resist temptation. He managed to abstain from cakes, chocolate, and candy for a whole year by avoiding situations and resisting urges through sheer determination. But Nick’s cravings never went away.

On New Year’s Eve, after a year of deprivation, Nick finally caved. By doing so, he felt like he’d undone all of his hard work.

Nick’s story illustrates a common struggle – the constant battle between willpower and cravings when trying to break an addiction like emotional eating. On the surface, Nick’s year-long story of resisting temptation might look like a successful feat of self-control. But while Nick had abandoned the physical habits of binge eating, the mental hold of addiction remained. His cravings never fully went away, even after months of abstinence. With no change in mindset, it was only a matter of time before urges overpowered Nick’s depleted willpower reserves.

Willpower can only carry you so far. In order to truly end the arms race of resistance and indulgence, you need to address the root of your cravings. When it comes to emotional eating, there are three central components:

First, the use of willpower and restraint to avoid destructive behaviors like binge eating. This takes huge mental effort and can only be sustained short term.

Second, the eventual exhaustion of willpower, leading to abandoned restraints and full surrender to cravings. This creates guilt, self-blame, and a sense of powerlessness.

And third, the addictive biochemical hook of junk food itself. How sugar, fat, and processed carbs chemically fuel your constant cravings.

The cycle of willpower and failure to resist cravings is the core trap. It fosters an adversarial relationship within yourself, sapping you of energy and happiness. And it’s reinforced by the addictive hook of junk foods and sweets themselves.

So what’s the way out? Well, it requires unraveling the root addiction. Not through more white-knuckle resistance, but by permanently removing the desire to indulge in these foods at all. This is possible by going straight to the source – your emotions and mental programming around eating.

Creating stress to escape it

Nobody starts out in life dreaming of becoming a smoker. And very few people actually enjoy their first cigarette. So how is it that countless people become smokers?

It starts innocently enough. Perhaps you bum a cigarette from a friend at a party or take a few drags out of curiosity. Although many find that first experience unpleasant, the addictive nature of nicotine soon changes this. After a few more tries, you begin to enjoy the sensations – the taste, the head rush, the feeling of calmness that washes over you as you inhale the smoke. This experience becomes locked in your memory as something pleasurable.

Before you know it, you’ve bought your first pack. And soon cigarettes become your shortcut to stress relief and relaxation after a long day.

But the actual pleasure of smoking is an illusion. An insidious lie. In fact, the seeming pleasure caused by the cigarette is simply the removal of stress that nicotine withdrawal created in the first place.

The more regularly you smoke, the more your brain begins to associate smoking with feelings of ease and contentment. But what is this relaxation? Well, in reality, you’re simply just chasing a memory – trying to recapture what life felt like before you started smoking.

This is the insidious trap of any addiction, whether to cigarettes, emotional eating, or something else. We engage in behavior that provides short-term relief or comfort, not realizing that it’s the very addiction itself causing the stress and discomfort that we’re trying to alleviate.

Perhaps you come home after a stressful day at work and dive into a pint of ice cream or order a pizza. In the moment, it feels soothing and comforting. But over time, you end up trapped in a cycle of stress and emotional eating, using junk food to fill a void that your addiction originally created.

Even someone resisting temptation can still be caught in this trap mentally. They believe certain foods have the power to provide relief, despite consciously trying not to give in. In order to break out fully, you must dismantle this erroneous belief completely. So the first step in regaining control is to stop seeing smoking or emotional eating as a source of comfort. View them for what they really are – a trap keeping you stuck in a cycle of craving and relief.

Freedom tastes sweet

When it comes to breaking their addiction, many people are intimidated. They’re held captive by the fear that they’ll fail in their efforts to change. Others fear success – they’re afraid of life without their vice, convinced that abandoning their addiction means sacrificing pleasure and comfort.

But in truth, neither fear reflects reality. When it comes to emotional eating, there’s no comfort to sacrifice. Rather than struggle against yourself, recognize the deeper truth: you lose nothing of value by breaking this addiction.

Understand that you’re not depriving yourself, you’re elevating yourself. You’re not trading short-term satisfaction for long-term gain, you’re embracing a lifestyle that grants more energy, vibrancy, and enjoyment day after day.

Focus on the benefits you’ll reap from ending this addiction. Revel in the abundance mindset of adding vitality, not depriving yourself of fleeting pleasure. Let positivity and inspiration crowd out thoughts of deprivation. Each small victory and healthy choice becomes its own reward, gradually reshaping your habits and mindset. Progress compounds as you prove to yourself just how wonderful life can be without junk food ruling it.

You’ve already taken the most important step – deciding once and for all to break free. When temptation looms, let your confidence wash away your doubt. Keep coming back to this feeling of elation. You’re free!

To eat and not to eat

In seeking to upgrade our eating habits, two key areas demand our attention: what we eat, and when we eat.

To start, build your diet around diverse fruits, vegetables, and other whole foods brimming with nutrients. Take time to mindfully appreciate their textures and flavors. Notice how eating wholesome foods enlivens your senses and energizes your body in a lasting way. Junk foods can never compare to the variety of tastes and the sense of nourishment that comes from healthy food.

Comfort foods offer only hollow solace. Refined sugars in particular spell disaster for mindless eaters, lighting up reward pathways and fooling your brain into craving more nutritionally bankrupt foods. To break free, you have to reframe your relationship with eating. Food is for physical nourishment, not emotional sustenance.

Next, you need to look at when to eat and when to stop eating. In doing this, you need to rediscover what hunger really feels like in the body.

Think of your appetite like a fuel gauge on a car. On a scale of one to 20, with one being utterly famished and 20 being painfully stuffed and unable to take another bite. Light hunger falls in the seven to ten range, while real hunger that signals a need for food is more like three to seven.

Start listening to your body’s wisdom. Only start eating when you reach about a seven – that is, let yourself feel truly hungry before digging into a meal. Learning to tolerate and even appreciate the feeling of true hunger is freeing. You realize how seldom you previously let yourself get hungry enough to actually need food.

Equally important is stopping when reasonably satisfied. You should normally stop eating when you hit around a ten. Continuing to gorge after that brings no pleasure and leaves you sluggish. Eating mindfully and slowly allows you to tune into your body’s satiation signals. You may be surprised at how little it takes to feel content and fueled when eating high-quality whole foods.

By doing this, you’ll be able to reconnect with your body’s innate eating rhythms. Ditch the emotional eating and follow genuine hunger to guide when and how much you eat. This will open the door to a new world of flavor and vitality.

Conclusion

Emotional eating is like a ball and chain, holding you back from living life to the fullest. The cycle of emotional eating and junk food addiction traps you, suppressing your ability to find joy, deal with stress, and overcome challenges. Addiction traps you in a cage of your own making – limiting your potential.

But freedom awaits. You hold the key to this prison of your own making. All it takes is the courage and clarity to use it.

When you quit these harmful habits, it’ll feel like walking out of a prison cell and into the light of a new day. The possibilities stretch out before you. With clarity and energy, you can start each morning by creating habits that serve you, not entrap you. Healthy foods, prepared with love – these are the building blocks of a life lived fully.

There’s no better day than today to start this new life. Repeat these words again until their truth resonates in your core. This is the beginning of a happier, healthier life. And hold on to how good it feels!

About the Author

Allen Carr

Genres

Health, Nutrition, Personal Development

Table of Contents

Introduction 09
Chapter 1 The Key 17
Chapter 2 A World Of Temptation 29
Chapter 3 Why You’re Reading This Book 41
Chapter 4 First Steps To Freedom 61
Chapter 5 The Trap 73
Chapter 6 Buying The Con 95
Chapter 7 Fear 105
Chapter 8 Willpower 117
Chapter 9 What If I Have An Addictive Personality? 129
Chapter 10 Getting Hooked 139
Chapter 11 Watch What You Eat 151
Chapter 12 Hunger 159
Chapter 13 Your Favorite Food 169
Chapter 14 Lingering Questions 181
Chapter 15 You Are Not Alone 191
Chapter 16 Withdrawal 199
Chapter 17 Taking Control 205
Chapter 18 The Final Feast 217
Chapter 19 Enjoying Life Free From Emotional Eating 229
Chapter 20 Useful Reminders 235
The Instructions 238
Allen Can’s Easyway Centers 240

Review

The book is based on the author’s successful method of helping people quit smoking, drinking, gambling and other addictions. The main premise of the method is that emotional eating is not caused by physical hunger, but by psychological dependence on food as a way of coping with stress, boredom, unhappiness or other negative emotions. The book aims to help readers break free from this dependence by exposing the myths and misconceptions that keep them trapped in the cycle of binge-eating and comfort-eating. The book also provides practical advice on how to deal with cravings, triggers, social situations and weight management.

The book is divided into four parts:

Part 1: The Easy Way to Quit Emotional Eating. This part explains the nature of emotional eating and how it differs from physical hunger. It also challenges the common beliefs that food is a treat, a reward, a friend or a source of pleasure. It shows how food actually causes more harm than good to our health, happiness and self-esteem.

Part 2: The Easy Way to Enjoy Food. This part reveals the truth about food and how it affects our body and mind. It exposes the dangers of sugar, processed food, artificial sweeteners and additives. It also explains the benefits of natural food, water, exercise and sleep. It teaches readers how to eat mindfully and enjoy food without guilt or fear.

Part 3: The Easy Way to Be Slim. This part addresses the issue of weight loss and weight maintenance. It debunks the myths of dieting, calorie counting, willpower and deprivation. It shows how emotional eating leads to weight gain and how quitting emotional eating leads to weight loss. It also gives tips on how to set realistic goals, measure progress and deal with plateaus.

Part 4: The Easy Way to Stay Free. This part summarizes the key points of the method and provides guidance on how to apply it in daily life. It covers topics such as how to handle cravings, temptations, social occasions, holidays and special events. It also advises readers on how to cope with stress, boredom, loneliness, anger and other emotions without resorting to food.

The book is written in a clear, simple and conversational style that makes it easy to follow and understand. The author uses examples, anecdotes, analogies and humor to illustrate his points and engage the reader’s attention. The book is also interactive, as it asks the reader questions, invites them to do exercises and challenges them to test their assumptions.

The book is based on sound logic and evidence that supports the author’s claims. The author draws on his own experience as a former smoker and emotional eater, as well as the testimonials of thousands of people who have successfully used his method to quit their addictions. The book also cites scientific studies and research that back up his arguments.

The book is persuasive and empowering, as it helps the reader realize that they are not weak, hopeless or doomed to be an emotional eater forever. The book shows them that they have the power and the choice to quit emotional eating and enjoy food without guilt or fear. The book also offers hope and encouragement, as it assures the reader that quitting emotional eating is easy, natural and permanent.

The book is effective and helpful, as it provides a practical and proven method that works for anyone who wants to quit emotional eating. The book does not require any special equipment, medication or therapy. It does not impose any rules, restrictions or limitations on what or how much the reader can eat. It does not rely on willpower, motivation or discipline. It simply changes the way the reader thinks about food and themselves.

Overall, I think this book is a great resource for anyone who struggles with emotional eating or wants to improve their relationship with food. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to quit emotional eating for good and live a happier, healthier and slimmer life.

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