Sometimes at night, a minute or two after I’ve turned off all the lights and climbed into bed, I hear a sad mewing coming from the hallway. It is not the happy meow I get when I come home or the demanding meow when Krupke swipes my nose to demand food. It’s that sad, lost child, meow.

When I go out into the hallway to see if Krupke needs something, I turn on the lights to find him holding the feather toy in his mouth which is attached to a piece of string and a plastic wand. He’s also kneading his front legs back and forth. When he sees me he’ll stop meowing, pause for a moment, and then run the other way as I approach, either under a table or behind the couch.

I’ve tried picking him up and taking him back to my bedroom, but then he just skedaddles the other way. I’ve tried just talking to him in the dark from my bedroom when the meowing starts. This usually silences him for a moment [...]

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Here are three tips:

1) Start writing things down

2) Steer clear of unnecessary temptations

3) Find healthy alternatives

I bet you assumed those were weight-loss tips, what with this being a weight-loss blog and all. WRONG! These are tips about how to overcome compulsive shopping. However, when I read the list of tips and the companion article, I was amazed at how similar compulsive shopping seems to be to compulsive eating.

Compulsive Shoppers

Compulsive Eaters

Set up secret post office boxes to receive overdue bills and new credit card offers

Hide stashes of food around the house and binge in secret

Spend more than they make, accumulating piles of debt

Eat more calories than they burn, accumulating piles of fat

Buy a power drill when feeling stressed, experiences euphoria, then regret it

Eat six powdered donuts when feeling stressed, experience euphoria, then regret it

Live in a consumer-driven society and still have to buy things to survive

Live in a world of convenient, fatty, high-calories foods and still have to eat to survive

By the time I’d gotten to the copyright notice at the end of that article, I [...]

• Continue reading "Compulsive behavior"