Lose Weight by Breaking Free From Emotional Eating Lose Weight by Breaking Free From Emotional Eating Lose Weight by Breaking Free From Emotional Eating

Breaking free from emotional eating to lose weight is to start by under­standing that the brain has two built in directives: pleasure seeking and survival. Which one influences our eating behavior? Both! 

The Pleasure-Seeking Program 

First, since having been a child, how many holidays did you celebrate? Add to that the birthdays and other special occasions, such as weddings and anniversaries, and you may total between eight and fifteen per year. All of these occasions brought with them friends, relatives, at­tention, love, warmth, and what else? You got it--wall to wall food! 

What happened when you ate your peas or cleaned your room? You were rewarded with what? Dessert! Or on Sunday Daddy would pack up the family and take you to? Dairy Queen? 

Little wonder your brain often says, "Eat, you'll feel better; be nice to yourself; it tastes good; you deserve it." 

The Survival Program 

When you were a baby and you cried-for most any reason-what was the answer? The bottle, right? Anytime you were frustrated or upset, the bottle was there. Food and frustration being connected together was the result. And when you ate your baby food-especially carrots and peas, you were rewarded with kudos and related food with pleasurable feelings. 

Later when you were a toddler, maybe you made an over­ture toward another little boy or girl and were rejected, or you lost or broke a toy, or the teacher yelled at you because you didn't have your homework, or you didn't have a date for the first dance, or some other calamity happened, and you ran home crying, "Mommy, Mommy, the world's coming to an end." And what did Mommy say? "Come have some milk and cookies. You'll feel better in a little while." And sure thing, a little while later you felt better. All this time you have thought it was the cookies and milk, when it was really just the passing of time. No wonder your brain often says, "Eat, you got a lot done today," or "Eat, you've had a rough day," or "Given all the bull you've put up with today, you deserve something," or "Eat. If you don't, it'll get thrown away and you'll be wasting money," or "Eat. Be nice to yourself and treat yourself to some­thing good!" 

The Result 

For many years this was OK. Then at some point you discovered that you had a weight problem. At what age? Seven, fifteen, thirty-five? The age is irrelevant. The first five or six years of your life are the most formative. By the time you realized you had a weight problem and needed to lose weight you had already been perfectly condi­tioned to eat in response to pleasure and/or survival. 

Little wonder then when you feel 

glad 
confused 
down 
excited 
rejected 
frustrated 
irritated 
happy 

.. your brain suggests having something to eat. The result is the program. 

The obvious answer would seem to be cognizant of our emotions, and stop overeating by eliminating emotional eating. 

However, because most of us have been trained to deny our feelings, the brain doesn't say, "Eat, you're happy." It says, "Eat because it looks good." Even when we're bored, the brain doesn't say, "eat because you're bored;" it says, "eat because it would taste good," or "eat because there's nothing else to do." 

Because of this, the emphasis is on having an eating problem as opposed to a problem handling emotions which which are actually a reaction to our nefarious stressors in life. The irony though is that our emotional reactions to stress become stressors in themselves and this is because of our limited experiences in managing emotions. The goal to breaking free from emotional eating is to learn to acknowledge emotions as they are felt--end eating emotional--stop diluting emotions with food. 

A progressive approach to losing weight involves asking questions "What is missing here? Why are people not getting the results they are promised? It is clearly insane to keep using the same techniques when the results are so poor. It's more important to gain a grasp on breaking free from emotional eating than it is to read the scale. Besides focusing on the scale doesn't empower you to be a better more enlightened person, whereas results are there by learning about emotional eating. Stop emotional eating empowers you in all aspects of your life. 


Source: www.articlecity.com
Author:Richard Kuhns