Psychological Blocks to Weight Loss
How often do you say “Diets don’t work!” and still stay on the dieting treadmill? Why do people who want to eat properly permanently, and know that dieting will only work for a short while, still diet? Well I think it is because they believe it is the only option they have.
That is not strictly true – you can pay a fortunes for useless tablets, you can exercise for a while and then give it up, or you could pray – or curse!) But mostly that doesn’t work too well either. You will be pleased to know that there is a perfectly logical and workable alternative! It’s all in the mind – it really is!
Almost the first thing we learn as babies is that eating makes us feel better. If nature followed it’s natural course, as it does in the animal world, we would learn that eating takes away the uncomfortable hungry feeling. We would stop eating when we had eaten enough. Babies and small children naturally do this . Then well-meaning adults screw it all up. Baby crying? Shove a boob or bottle in her mouth – that’ll stop her for a while. Cool, she likes that …oh, no, now she’s over full and even more uncomfortable. Oh well, no problem. Put something sweet on her dummy, that’ll keep her quiet, maybe she will go to sleep.
Two year old not happy? Give him some sweeties! Grandchildren coming to visit? Better buy chocolates! When you begin to see the light you will start to become horrified at how often people shove crisps, lollipops, ice creams or anything into children’s mouths just to shut them up. Or even worse, to reward good behaviour!
Can you see the intrinsic learning going on here? If you are miserable, eat. If you are bored, eat! If you are angry, eat! If you are happy, eat! It’s a celebration! If you are good, reward yourself! Eat! No wonder we have such a lot of baggage tied up in our relationship with food!
After a while the whole cycle becomes unconscious and we aren’t even aware of the pain we are feeding. A lot of the emotions and baggage is buried deep.
I can just hear you saying “Oh, yeah? well I knew that and it’s just too damned hard to change!” I am not saying go off your diet – by all means if you like it, stick to it … but if you want to maintain your weight, read on….
There is a way to change your subconscious learning and belief system!
In order to relearn proper eating habits, we have to do a number of things:
- Get in touch with our real hunger / fullness and learn to interpret our body’s signals properly again.
- Heal the inner emotions we are feeding through some form of therapy. Preferably one which is able to access the subconscious mind, like hypnotherapy or EFT.
- Discover and amend the beliefs (misbeliefs) we have regarding our weight. e.g. “I will always have a weight problem.”
- Feel good about ourselves. The worse you feel about yourself, the more you self-sabotage your efforts. The better you feel about yourself the more likely you are to look after your own needs.
- Correct any chemical imbalances we have in our body. Excess insulin, for example, will keep you hungry and no amount of willpower will overcome the basic survival instinct of hunger!
- Change our attitudes and intentions. There is no doubt that the single most important thing we can do is see ourselves as healthy, attractive and capable. When we are constantly lamenting about needing to lose weight we are actually perpetuating our story that we are fat, and the subconscious mind will keep your story about yourself true and alive. You are what you think you are!
- Change your beliefs about food and learn to love eating healthy foods that make you feel good!
Appetite Triggers
We will find out which foods trigger your appetite. These may well be foods you have developed an intolerance to.
Food intolerances
This is an optional step, and one that we will only attempt when you are ready. Some people find the detox just too difficult to start with while others are already at the stage where they just want to find some relief from their weight and health problems as quickly as possible! Starting with a detox is the best way to achieve this. See more about nutrition and food intolerances.
For personal sessions: Contact Gayle – Psychotherapist, Hypnotherapist, EFT, CBT, London, Guildford, Woking, Farnham, Surrey, Middlesex, Hampshire
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