February is Heart Month in North America. Yes, Valentine’s Day falls in February which speaks to the emotions of the heart. However, Heart Month’s focus is on the physical health of our hearts. “Heart Disease” (a general term that simply means the heart is not working properly) is the number one cause of death for men and women. The best defense for heart disease is controlling the risk factors such as:
- High blood pressure
- Diabetes
- High Cholesterol
- Being overweight
- Stress
The above risk factors are preventable and manageable. I know this first hand as I suffered from every single one of the above conditions and was on a plethora of medications to treat each one of them. The treatment that finally worked for me was treatment for food addiction; specifically a food plan that supported abstinence from all foods my body had become chemically dependent on and therefore was powerless over stopping to eat them.
Within twelve short months of food addiction treatment, I was free of all of the above conditions, taking no medications and am now extremely healthy according to my doctor. This is not an uncommon result for those recovering from food addiction by following an abstinence based treatment plan. So while “heart disease” is often listed as the cause of death on the death certificate, the truth is this is often the secondary cause with food addiction being the primary cause. So let’s include food addiction education when we talk about February being Heart Health Month!
For those starting food addiction abstinence and for those experiencing chronic breaks in abstinence or relapse, many of those in ACORN’s network have found it useful to do rigorous food slip inventories and create very specific practical changes that a food addict can make the next day – physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
