Hey
The cycle of binge eating or dieting is familiar to many of us. And we're often left wondering who is running the show, and why do we always fall back into the same old habits that keep us stuck and unhealthy?
It's not really a food habit, rather, it's a thought habit. Here's how it goes...
- A negative emotional event occurs (like a fight with a loved one).
- This leads to poor thinking and coping mechanisms like "I can't handle this, this is crap".
- This leads to feelings of anger, shame, guilt, fear...
- This leads to a need for a distraction, to avoid, counter-act or numb the negative emotion. So you overeat, indulge, splurge or, in the long version, you return to another diet as a way to 'gain control' and 'lessen your anxiety'. (Yes, dieting is not healthy, but at least you know that landscape. There is comfort in the knowing, and this is how you have always coped, right?)
- This leads to at least a short term sense of emotional 'relief and release', and also a sense of control. Although it's not real. But you have set in motion (or deepened) another emotional pattern to respond to the original emotion, not by controlling it, but by indulging in it.
- Now your brain shifts to 'what am I doing' and to weight control, negating the original emotion and circumstance that needed another kind of attention, a shift in perspective. It (the fight) needed to be dealt with in a calm, assertive way, to induce the same feelings of control, with effective communication and new ways of working through emotionally charged areas. Yet, few of us were ever taught this incredibly important life skill. (It's not too
late).
- But you do what you know to do, you reach for food again, and then the shame and guilt and lack of control feelings come in, and once again, the call to subdue, to lessen that pain is now hooked in to bingeing or dieting.
The stage has been set. And unless we learn another way, we'll keep doing what we've always done. (Denial or trying harder will not work, 'that which you resist, persists' is important to note here). The 'cue, habit, reward' cycle is ingrained deeper every time, so we have to cut those ties, once and for all.
This is where Empowerment Coaching will shift up the 'story', break the cycle. It is about a new strategy where you feel in control and learn and grow and see other results from a fresh approach to it all.
And this gets easier with time. But it does require a different coaching approach. Because it's not really about the food, afterall.
Food freedom ladies!
I liberate the 40+ woman out of her food and body prisons by teaching simple, life-long strategies to shed the weight, sculpt the body, and lift the spirit, to live with health, energy, confidence and joy!
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