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Came across this video the other day while traversing digital glaciers on YouTube.  What struck me in particular was what she says toward the end of the video: finding her value as a person and that was the thing that ultimately made the difference for her to lose the weight.

The trick, of course, is how do you get the lesson without having to go to the dark place she wound up?  In any event, I think she nails it in her remarks at the end.

I wanted to write an article so people who are just getting to know me and my work can have a frame of reference for why I focus specifically focus on emotional eating.  Yes, I cover other weight loss and personal development related topics, but my particular interest and focus as a coach and writer is emotional eating and the various synonyms that come with it (binging, night snacking, overeating, etc).

As a quick side note, I’m writing this, I’m sitting on the back porch of my mother’s home in Asheville, NC and a big, beautiful butterfly just flew in front of my face.  I’m relaxed after a run and swim in the river with the dog…a nice cup of earl grey tea by my side, and the bullfrog resident of her little pond just surfaced to make himself known.  I think it’s mating season for him…he’s been around a bunch this week.

Why am I talking about this in the middle of the post?  Because it illustrates a point I’ll come back to which is that we get so absorbed in ourselves and our struggle and the incessant thoughts/activity in our heads, and we neglect to appreciate the simple things in life.  We get way out of the habit of slowing down and getting involved in the world that is going on outside of our head.

Reminds me: Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh says something to the effecct that if you can’t meditate when you’re washing the dishes, then you can’t really meditate on a cushion either.  In other words, savor and rejoice in the mundane.

So here we go, Why I Focus on Emotional Eating (hopefully in some sensible order):

1. I struggled with it myself. There was a period in my early 20’s when I was food obsessed.  I was not in balance in my life.  I was avoiding dating and relationships because I was scared of commitment, and food was my outlet.  I was actually rail thin because I was obsessive with healthy food and exercise.  Crazy amounts of my mental energy were absorbed by food and my body. I had some distorted body image issues as well (I was somewhere between chunky and meaty growing up and had an internal image of myself as fat).   It was finally when I began really confronting the underlying issues (for me it was intimacy) and started dating in particular that the issues with food and my body finally normalized- and quickly at that.  They have been normal and in balance ever since.  I enjoy food, but I don’t think much about it when I’m not hungry.  In fact, even when I’m hungry, I often find preparing food and eating it to be something of a chore rather than a source of anticipation and excitement.  More than anything food is fuel to me- which I think is a normal and healthy relationship to have to food.
2. I’ve always been into health, fitness and mind/body wellness. Since my days as a high school athlete, I’ve always been interested in fitness and nutrition (well the nutrition part came later at the hippie college I went to- you can learn more about those days in my full bio if you’re interested).  I’ve also been very interested in mind/body stuff like meditation, yoga, martial arts and guided visualization work since that time as well.  In the course of learning all these things, I’ve learned a lot about how to help people make powerful shifts in their life.
3. I’ve always had ‘the ‘therapist gene’. Since around the time I was 16, I’ve been very interested in personal growth work.  Someone once said to me that I have ‘the therapist gene’, and I think that’s pretty accurate.  I was the kind of person who others naturally came to for personal feedback, and it’s no small wonder that I went on to get my Masters Degree in Counseling.  As I’ve evolved in my work and transitioned to what I call Personal Development Coaching, focusing on weight loss challenges- and emotional eating in particular- has  been an obvious and natural fit for me.
4. I “get it”- meaning I instinctively get what is involved in losing weight and keeping it off, both from the mental/psychological point of view and also from the physical point of view (how to exercise, what to eat).
5. A lot of people struggle with emotional eating. Of all the various aspects of the weight loss process, I think the strong emotional attachment to food dogs people the most and is one of the most difficult to overcome, because it’s almost always symptomatic of deeper issues going on.  As I’ve gotten deeper into working with clients on their weight loss issues, it’s become apparent how much an imbalanced relationship to food is so many people’s achilles heel.   (more…)

In Part 1 of this series, I talked about the weight loss mindset necessary if you have a lot of weight to lose- say 50 or more pounds.  In this second part, I will begin breaking down a 6 step process for losing the weight and creating the health and happiness you desire.  But before I get started, a necessary quick disclaimer before reading this article:

I am not seeking to diagnose or treat any physiological or mental disorder that would require the services of a trained and licensed physician, psychiatrist or mental health counselor.  The information I am sharing is intended to be strictly educational in nature.  If you think you may have either a physiological or mental disorder that requires the treatment and/or supervision of a licensed physician, psychiatrist or mental health counselor, I highly encourage you to seek out that consultation.

1.    Create a picture of the person you want to become.

This may sound like a simplistic step, but it’s actually very important- and it’s important to begin here.  Always start your self-inquiry on a positive note.  Do this by envisioning the person you want to become.  Write it down or create a ‘vision board’ with some images that represent the life you want to be living.  This is important because it’s easy to get bogged down in your problems and the things that aren’t working well in your life.  Having this picture gives you a positive, forward-looking image to inspire you, and also gives you something positive to return to again and again when the going gets tough.

2.    Determine what you need to let go of and what you need to address

As you travel along the journey of becoming the person you want to be- as outlined above- your issues are of course going to come up.  Consider that you need to do one of two things with them: 1) let them go, or 2) address them head on.

First, very often we continue to carry old, false beliefs that hold us back from the happiness and success we desire.  Often these false beliefs are about our degree of worthiness or desirability to others.  More often than not we adopted them when we were young- either because unconscious people around us put them in our heads or we invented them ourselves because we were stressed and scared and didn’t know any better.

Little by little we need to let these false beliefs go because they do nothing but limit our potential for happiness.  It’s like somebody put rocks in our backpack and we’re just carrying this dead weight around unnecessarily.  We need to let it go and step into the life we want to be living.

Other times there is just no alternative but to address our issues directly.  Maybe we have challenges in our relationships that need to be confronted directly; maybe our self-esteem is very low and we need the help and support of a therapist to help us work through it; maybe we are in unhappy in our career or job and need to get disciplined about making some changes.

How do you know the difference between what you need to let go of and what you need to address?  Simply put: if you can’t just let go of it, you need to address it.

3.    Don’t be shy about working with a therapist or coach

It’s interesting that in a society where having a therapist or coach has become quite commonplace, many people are still hesitant about seeking this kind of help.  They may foolishly think it’s a sign of weakness, or they may be mortified by what their friends would think.

Nobody needs to know you’re working with a professional to sort through your issues.  It’s strictly between you and that professional. If you feel you could benefit from the outside input and support but you’re holding back for one of the reasons I just mentioned, then with full care and compassion I offer this: get over it.

It doesn’t have to feel comfortable to make the appointment or walk in the door and share what’s really going on in your life.  In fact, if it doesn’t it may be a sign that you’re on the right track.  Regardless, if you need the support, get over whatever limiting beliefs you have that prevent you from taking action.

4.    If you do work with a therapist, make sure you find one that wants to get you out of therapy

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{Disclaimer before reading this article:  I am not seeking to diagnose or treat any physiological or mental disorder that would require the services of a trained and licensed physician, psychiatrist or mental health counselor.  The information I am sharing is intended to be strictly educational in nature.  If you think you may have either a physiological or mental disorder that requires the treatment and/or supervision of a licensed physician, psychiatrist or mental health counselor, I highly encourage you to seek out that consultation.}

Do you have a lot of weight to lose- meaning more than 50 pounds? Or perhaps even 100 or more pounds to lose?  Have you tried to lose that weight many times before- and perhaps successfully lost some of it- only to find yourself losing focus and gaining it all back again?

If this sounds like you, then in order to have the lasting success you desire, you may need to look at what is emotionally “below the surface” of the extra body weight you are accustomed to carrying.

Very often- not always, of course, but often- people who are carrying significant extra weight (50 pounds or more) have a deeper psychological issue (sometimes it may be more than one issue, but for grammatical simplicities sake, for the duration of this article I will just refer to it as an ‘issue’) that the extra weight is a symptom of.  In order to experience sustained, successful weight loss, very often they must unearth and address that deeper psychological issue at the same time.  They must deal with what’s beneath the weight.

If you fit the profile I describe above, then it’s possible that you already know what that deeper psychological issue is.  Perhaps you have even been working on it for some time- by yourself, in a support group of some sort, with a trust friend or with professional support.

If so, then good for you!  Being willing to look at your personal issues is an important and crucial early step to resolve or let go of what stands in the way of having the health and happiness you desire.

If you don’t know what that issue may be, then it’s an important thing to consider as you move forward on your trajectory to lose weight.

Here is the first crucial question to ask yourself:

What do I get to avoid in my life by carrying this extra weight?

If you are carrying significant extra weight on your body, there is something you ‘get’ out of it.  We could say that the extra weight has a ‘positive purpose’ in your life.  That may sound strange because it costs you so much in terms of your health and happiness, but nevertheless it is most likely true.  The ‘positive purpose’ is what it allows you to avoid dealing with.  So ask yourself, “What does this extra weight enable me to avoid?”

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