If Only I Was Skinny – End Weight Waiting – Part 1 of 2

We’ve all seen those diet commercials where a beautiful, happy, slim woman talks about her weight loss alongside a life-size photo of herself “before” going on the diet. In the photo, she looks sad and miserable. Then, at some point, she looks at her “before” picture of her with such disgust and disdain and pushes it away from her, out of her sight, showing that she has no feeling or connection to that picture. Can you relate to that?

My experience of wasting over 33 years waiting for perfection

Of course I can. Despite having felt this way in the past, having wasted years hating and resenting my fat thighs and curvy body, now when I see those commercials it makes me want to cry. Like most women, I was raised to believe that my value was related to my appearance and my ability to be attractive, which is why I was so hell-bent on losing weight.

For years, from the time I was 11 until a few years ago when I turned 43, I pinned all my hopes on the belief that losing weight would make me happy. So I procrastinated, postponed and avoided so many things. I canceled the vacation because I didn’t want to be seen in a bathing suit. I avoided parties, weddings, dances, social occasions, because I thought I was too fat. I never had anything nice to wear, because I didn’t go shopping until I got down to my ideal weight. I kept waiting and saying, “If only…”

During those 30 years I wasted a lot of precious time thinking about how much I weighed, what I looked like, how big I was, how much I was eating, if I could eat and when. All the things that had nothing to do with what my real problem was, a painfully low image of myself.

Being fat is just a symptom, it’s not the real problem

For most of my adult life, I was completely fooled into thinking I was miserable because I had fat thighs. I never considered the possibility that I had fat thighs because I was miserable. How about you? If you are struggling with being overweight and you are not happy, do you know why you feel so miserable? Well, I’ll tell you one thing. Depriving yourself of the foods you love won’t help, it will only hurt you. Here is the proof:

Why diets don’t work for most people

According to the latest results of a composite study conducted at UCLA, Traci Mann, an associate professor of psychology at UCLA and the study’s lead author, said: “We found that most people regained the weight, and more. sustained weight loss in only a small minority of participants, while the majority fully regained the weight. Diets do not lead to sustained weight loss or health benefits in most people.” push you to eat when you’re not hungry.

In the last few years that I have stopped dieting and committed to focusing on controlling my emotional eating and changing my life from the inside out, I have learned several truths that have successfully freed me from my body/food hatred. nurturing beliefs that I would like to share with you. Are here:

It’s not what you’re eating; It’s what’s eating you! In her book, Breaking the Link Between Abuse, Stress and Overeating, Doreen Virtue, Ph.D, says: “Every extra pound you carry in your body equals a pound of emotional pain you carry in your heart.” If you consider excess weight, those extra pounds and inches that you carry on your body, as a measure of the emotional pain that you keep in your heart, you are more likely to find a way to be more compassionate with yourself.

The food is not what you really want: Your cravings are really unmet emotional needs in disguise. When your brain fires with the urge to eat, it’s not because you lack willpower or discipline, it’s an instinctive survival-based response to deal with your stress. Your desire is not actually to eat the food, but to recreate the happy emotions that you have associated with the foods that you enjoy. As an emotional eater, your brain is wired to recognize that eating those foods will relieve your stress. During those times when you overeat, forgive yourself, let it go and move on, being willing to start again, and again, and again.

it is a process: Unfortunately, there is no magic wand or quick fix that will get you back to your ideal weight in an instant short of sustained tortuous deprivation. And 9 times out of 10 your weight will go back up after a long period of deprivation. Losing weight is going to take time. To do this successfully, his body has to reorganize itself to think and feel differently about food. Since it is a learning process like riding a bike or dancing, you will have to fall many times before you get it right. Diets keep you focused on thinking like a dieter, which only perpetuates the deprivation response, feelings of scarcity, and focus on food. Dieting reinforces the diet. They do not encourage self-control around food.

No more diets: As long as you continue on the diet, you will continue to be afraid of certain foods, thinking they are fattening. Desperately trying to avoid them, you will only want them more. Diets focus on depriving yourself and that only fuels the compulsion to get more of what you don’t think you can have. I recommend learning to feel safe with real food and eating in response to your body’s natural hunger. Eat the foods you crave guilt-free to break out of diet prison. Legalize all food.

Make peace with your hunger: Contrary to what the diet has probably taught you, your hunger is nothing to fear. It is completely natural. It is a physiological response that indicates that your body’s energy reserves are running low. It’s not dangerous and if you don’t eat something right away, you won’t suffer. And there is no benefit in trying to avoid it by constantly snacking and eating all the time. Doing this will only numb your senses and make it harder for you to tune into your body when it’s actually hungry. To lose weight without dieting, it is important to eat when the body is very hungry. Generally speaking, the three squares a day + snacks rule is too much food for the average person. It is important to remember that our bodies only need to recharge every 6-9 hours. This is the amount of time that food stays in the stomach after a meal. If you feel the need to eat more often, your hunger is not physical. it’s emotional

Be willing to dig deep – To break the emotional food = comfort link, you need to start being aware of when you are eating to calm your emotions. Unless you address why your body has the need to subconsciously hold on to your weight, your ravenous hunger and tendency to mindlessly eat will continue to be a problem. That means that even if you lose weight like 98% of the people in the study, your body will find a way to put it back on. You must be willing to dig deeper to find out what is really behind your emotional eating. To get to the bottom of why you’re eating, be curious, not critical.

Really stop to consider what additional benefit you are getting from being overweight. For me, as a woman who was sexually abused, being fat created a barrier of protection and allowed me to feel safe and invisible and avoid all the attention I didn’t want from men. In terms of my relationship with my husband, because I felt so uncomfortable just refusing and saying “No” to sex, I used food to set boundaries for myself. At one point, I had gotten into the habit of eating a pint of ice cream every night. Smiling and saying, “Not tonight, honey, my stomach hurts,” was my way of distancing myself and feeling safe without risking rejection. And as a business woman, being overweight allowed me to create the illusion of being strong enough to deal with the bigwigs ‘throwing my weight’. Consider that there is more to your thighs than meets the eye.

Put the emphasis on how you feel: To break the comfort eating connection, you need to reset your focus and become aware of the emotions you are experiencing. Many people like to keep a journal to be more aware of what is going on in their head. This can be helpful as long as it is done without judgment. Your goal is to look for patterns and notice when your eating gets out of control and what events in your life preceded the binge.

Cope with your stress: No matter how you look at it, it’s still about dealing with your emotions instead of stuffing them. Instead of keeping a journal, I prefer to use a process called the Emotional Freedom Technique or EFT. It is a simple tapping process derived from the ancient healing art of acupuncture. It works on the basis of breaking down the energy blockages in your body that are the cause of all your negative emotions that push you to eat when you are not hungry.

The bottom line is that in our rip-and-slip culture, thin is in, beauty in a bottle, we’ve come to devalue the person in favor of the package. Remember that you are much more than a number on the scale and there is much life to be lived between the spaces where you are now and where you want to be. Please don’t waste a moment waiting for it to be perfect.

The truth is that none of us is perfect; We all have our flaws, and accepting them means we have the power to overcome them. As I continue to learn and teach my clients every day, if you open your heart and accept the ‘before’ girl you are right now, you will be ready to love the ‘after’ girl you will be. I urge you to follow my advice and use the advice I have shared. They will help you melt away your resistance and fear of losing weight by giving you the time and space you need to lose weight slowly and effortlessly without going on a diet once and for all.