Think about the number one reasons why people are overweight nowadays. Overweight people fall into one of two different categories. Either they have an unhealthy lifestyle working long hours, eating out all the time, not getting enough exercise or they simply eat too much, often in a compulsive way. This type of eating eating when one isnt hungry, for example, or eating for emotional reasons rather than physical hunger is really a type of addiction. It should be understood as an addiction, and it often is. For example, the group Overeaters Anonymous functions on many of the same principles as AA or other twelve step programs. Excessive eating is treated like an addiction because thats exactly what it is.

But if thats the case, its easy to see why this addiction might be harder to treat than some others. The way to deal with an addiction is to stay away from the behaviour thats out of control alcoholics cant touch alcohol, for example. The idea is to not do it at all until the addiction becomes a thing of the past in fact, for many addicts, they can never indulge in their addictive behavior again, not even once.

With food addiction, though, thats obviously impossible. People have to eat theres no getting away from it. Thats why food addiction, though its an addiction to a non-lethal substance, may be the hardest of all to deal with. And thats also why companies such as Slim-fast, who produce and market meal replacements for people to use while dieting to lose weight, actually do succeed in helping some people.

The idea behind meal replacements is that you dont really eat at all for a good part of the day instead, you have a special shake or other product that gives you all the nutrients you need, and stops you from feeling hungry. This works in two ways: first, it controls the calories you take in, because the meal replacements are quite low calorie. Second, it breaks the cycle of addictive behavior because youre not really eating. You can get away from the behavior much as an alcoholic can (and must) get away from alcohol, and that gives you a better chance of breaking the addictive process.

Though most meal replacement plans do recommend that you eat one normal meal per day, some people who are serious about losing weight dont do even that. Thats precisely how Oprah Winfrey once lost a lot of weight about fifty pounds. She said that she found it easier not to eat at all (subsisting on meal replacement shakes and bars) than to control her eating. When you know that you wont be eating real food at all for a while, it takes the guesswork out of it. Everything becomes very straightforward, and its a fact that many people have lost weight using this method of weight loss.

There are drawbacks, though. For one thing, while a weight loss program is supposed to teach you about how to eat for the rest of your life to establish healthy habits, in other words using meal replacements clearly doesnt do so. Once you go back to eating real food, you might find that your problems with controlling your food intake are still there. Though you will have lost weight, you are more likely to gain it back if you havent learned healthy eating habits.

Also, theres a danger that some people will keep on using the meal replacements for extended periods of time, just because its easier and more convenient. Thought they re designed to give you a minimum level of calories and nutrition, meal replacement bars cannot substitute for real food over an extended period.

However, if you know or suspect that your problem with food resembles an addiction or compulsion, it may be worth your while to think about using meal replacements for a while in order to lose some weight. Try to make the time you spend using them as productive as possible, though. Really come to terms with your past behaviour, and learn what it feels like to be full but not stuffed. Figuring out the answer to these and other aspects of healthy eating will help make your weight loss permanent.