Breaking free from emotional eating to lose weight is to start by under?standing 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 you were a child, how many holidays have you celebrated? 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, at?tention, 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 Sundays would be celebrated with Daddy taking the family, where? 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 over?ture 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.” Certainly, 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’ve had a rough day,” or “Eat, you got a lot done today,” 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 some?thing 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 condi?tioned to eat in response to pleasure and/or survival.

Little wonder then when you feel

• confused
• rejected
• frustrated
• down
• upset
• bored
• irritated
• glad

… your brain suggests having something to eat. It’s simply the program.

It would seem obvious that all we need do to eliminate emotional eating–stop overeating is to be aware of our emotions and correct the program.

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 rather than 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 dieting 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 by focusing on emotional eating produces results. Stop emotional eating empowers you in all aspects of your life. Podcast of this article is at http://hypnocast.podbean.com/

Richard Kuhns B.S.Ch.E., NGH certified, a prominent figure in the field of hypnosis with his best selling hypnosis and stress management cds at http://www.DStressDoc.com and http://www.PanicBusters.com. His aim is to make it possible for anyone to manage emotional binge eating. For more information please visit http://www.dstressdoc.com/BingeEatingEbook.htm

Share

Share

Everyone of us realizes the importance of a good healthy exercise leading towards a healthy body. But how many of us really make the effort of taking it badly and to make it a part of our life. I am sure not many of us. Most of us need a health scare to actually make us realize the importance of good health in our daily life. Once we have the realization we begin scouting for the perfect exercise program to helps us. Most people think that to get good exercise you want to enroll yourself in a gym. This is so not factual . One can begin off by making usual walks as a part of your perfect exercise program and can slowly work on it to raise its strength and pace.

A good exercise program should permit you to enjoy the whole process of exercising as you move ahead . You can get the aid of a professional to help you identify the perfect exercise program for you or alternatively search for one on the internet. There are present here several exercise programs here which can allow you to select and choose your preferred from it. There are also obtainable several exercise program software to assist you chalk out the best possible exercise regime for yourself.

One of the interesting things I found out about exercises concerning the opportunity to lose weight quickly was that the procedure of exercise doesn’t matter so much as your approach to it. There are many exercises to lose weight quickly but generally the general point is that you keep your heart pumping for an extended period of time. You do a warm-up session, a mid-intensity session, a high-intensity session, and then differ the strength until you’re ready to cool down. That way, your heart is always beating even when you aren’t giving it your all. Apparently, this is much more effectual for weight loss than a short burst of peak exercise. Another important technique shared by most exercises to lose weight quickly is cross training.

Can you Use Exercise to Lose Weight Yes

One of the most important points towards losing weight is to try and reduce your caloric intake. This when shared with exercise to lose weight you will perceive the results on your own! If you reduce your daily intake by 500 calories and carry on doing exercises to lose weight then you’ll lose about a pound a week. When you don’t go down the sugar laden foods, those calories turn right back into fat. When you put in plenty of fiber-rich, complex carbohydrates, you get a reversal of this effect. The calories these foods contain often require that your body burns more calories than the food contains . This combined with the right exercises to lose weight will aid you attain your aim of a slimmer and fitter you!

Share