For the second week, the Oprah Winfrey Net has hosted a live chat after Addicted to Food.  Here are a few Tennisims and comments from Tennie during tonight’s after the show chat on Oprah.com/OWN…in case you missed it…enjoy!

Tennie on Food

• “Normal people eat a variety of food and don’t think a whole lot about a specific food… People who have addiction have mental obsession. They think about the food all the time…”
• “Caffeine is a stimulant. it makes you want more food. You will over eat on an ​unconscious​us level because it ​overstimu​lates you . We recommend clients detox from caffeine, sugar, tea to get a feel for what your system feels like free of caffeine.”
• “It’s really best to detox from all sugar. If you DO use substitutes, don’t use over 3 a day…it’s really best to detox from all sugar. We recommend going off all sugar when you first detox as you can get addicted to sugar substitute don’t eat sugar in any form and you will detox in about 5-6 days…”
• “I hate to be the barer of bad news, but night time snack addiction is the worst… I had it the worst. I would wake up and not even know I was in the kitchen eating! You have to really be willing to eat the 3 balances meals at night and perhaps have a metabolic snack around 9pm…”
• “Emotional hunger in between meals is often boredom, not hunger.
• “If you feel yourself craving night time snacks pick up a pen and start writing. Get yourself busy. It often does not have to do with being hungry at all.”

Tennie on Self-Image and Acceptance

• “I can understand the difficulty in facing yourself. I could barely comb my hair in the mirror… its self loathing. Acceptance has got to start right where we are. Not wait until we get to that magical number …on the scale… love yourself right now”
• “Body dismorphia calls for work that can be done in group therapy so you can have others share what they see. What we see in our minds is very real for us, so it’s important to have people we trust to tell us the difference.”
• “One thing that is hard for eating disorder patients to do is to write 5 things they love or like about their bodies. Not their personality​ or their character – but their body most eating disorder patients can’t come up with one… but try it! Find 5.”
• “Addicts like to love from the neck up.  It’s important to love the whole thing. Take a bath and rub lotion on your body and own your body. You must learn to love yourself the whole way and embrace yourself as you are now. Start at the beginning.”

Tennie on Treatment

• “I encourage you to still get help, it is never too late! The oldest bulimic we ever treated was 72.”
• “You must be willing to do the work to recover.”

Tennie on Meditation and Affirmations

• “Yes meditation is very powerful. Everyone who worked on Addicted is on their own spiritual journey.”
• “We really recommend doing affirmations. Write down 50 affirmations. Do it. Look in the mirror at the dark part of your eye and read those 50 to yourself. A remarkable change can begin to take shape. ​Affirmations are so important to your recovery.
• “It is one day and some times one minute…” Camilla @Shades
• “A good source of affirmations is Louise Hays – Hay House Publishing” 
• “Start the affirmations. Whether you believe them or not the brain doesn’t know the difference​e!”
• “Recovery is God’s grace; all we have to do is reach out and receive it.”