No Thanks, I’m Not Hungry
by Carole Gotlieb © 3/2010
letti@zahav.net.il
NO THANKS, I'M NOT HUNGRY
INTRODUCTION
Imagine a breakfast of eggs fried in butter, a well-dressed salad, toast dripping with your favorite jam or flower scented honey, all topped off with a cup of coffee laced with sugar and fresh cream. Or how about bacon, eggs, fried bread and sausages? Or a French breakfast of fresh croissants, butter, creamy cocoa? I've been eating morning meals like that, if I've fancied them, if I was hungry, for the past ten years and I plan to continue. I've lost twenty pounds and remained the same weight for seven years. I will never diet again. Even more important, I know that I'll never be fat again.
Sounds impossible ? Like a dream come true ?
Well, it's not. And if you're a compulsive eater and dieter, as I was for thirty years, this natural, alternative approach will free you forever from hunger, the frustration of dieting, losing weight and then gaining it all back again, and then some! The familiar accordion syndrome.
But, to be effective, you have to be prepared to GIVE UP DIETING. Forget everything you ever believed about food and what makes you fat. Ice-cream, chips, fried foods, cream cakes and chocolate do not, in themselves, make you fat. 5,000 calories a day will not make you fat, if you use 5,000 calories a day. What makes you fat is eating them when you're not hungry. Eating them when you're bored, lonely, angry, miserable, under stress, needing love, sexually frustrated, or a hundred other reasons which are not connected to physical hunger.
Using a diet to deal with your overeating is like treating a toothache with Aspirin. A toothache is a symptom. If you ignore the cause and treat only the symptom, then the pain will return again and again until you tackle the root canal problem. Overeating is a symptom, and dieting is like Aspirin. Unless you treat the cause, your weight problem will be with you forever. If dieting were the solution, why are there so many to choose from? Why do new ones appear on the market every week? And why do 98% of the dieters gain back the weight they've lost within five years?
You certainly wouldn't be reading this book, if your diets had succeeded in keeping you slim and happy, would you? The key to eating good food, losing weight and staying slim lies in discovering and treating the underlying causes of your overeating,
This book will teach you how to STOP DIETING, to distinguish emotional from physical hunger, to eat with awareness, to listen to and trust your body and its messages, release negative thoughts, forgive and value yourself, manage stress by relaxation and meditation. Finally, you will find liberation from your obsession with food, and be in control of body and mind. You will lose weight naturally, and stay slim for life.
*****
PART ONE
WHAT IS COMPULSIVE EATING ?
If you're not hungry but you eat, is it because:
a) You can't bear to throw food away? (What about the starving millions?)
b) Your mother/ lover/girl-friend/husband cooked it and she/he would be hurt if you refused it ?
c) You've eaten a good lunch, but you continue to eat because youג€™re going to the pictures straight from work and there won't be time for a meal beforehand?
d) It's one o'clock in the office, and everyone else is eating, and you always eat at one?
e) The food at the wedding is simply delicious, totally irresistible. How can you say no?
f ) You must have something sweet after lunch ?
g ) You've been `good' on your diet and you deserve a reward ?
h ) You're unhappy, bored, frustrated, lonely or under pressure?
If you answered `yes' to any or all of the above questions, and if, in the past, conventional diets have not worked for you, maybe it's time to take a fresh look at the issues, explore some alternative ways of dealing with the problem.
Compulsive eating has nothing to do with hunger. It is a physical response to an emotional, psychological or social problem. Like the alcoholic who drinks to avoid thinking about his troubles, so the compulsive eater uses food to escape the loneliness, the conflict, the boredom, the emptiness, the tension or the pressure that are a part of everyday life for all of us.
The image of somebody raiding the refrigerator every hour, stuffing herself to bursting, but still continuing, is only the extreme end of the scale. Most of us, at some time or another eat compulsively. But, if your eating habits lead you to feel out of control, if you don't know what true hunger feels like, if you are driven to extreme diets, lose weight rapidly only to gain it all back again, and more, then , without doubt, you are a compulsive eater. And, until you treat the root cause of the problem, all the dieting in the world will not, ultimately be of any use.
DIETS DON'T WORK!
The messages we receive about hunger when we are born are about survival. They are totally accurate and reliable. Try feeding a baby when he's not hungry. He shuts his mouth, shakes his head in an unmistakable gesture of refusal. Within a few hours of being born, that baby KNOWS. It's almost as if he has an inner voice, or a clock which gives the command. I believe that inner voice does not disappear. It stays with us throughout our lives. But, for several different reasons, which I will discuss later, we learn to ignore or mistrust it.
When we use diets as a means of controlling our weight, we are denying that instinctive knowledge. We begin to doubt the natural, healthy messages we receive from our bodies. Influenced by the media, by accepted wisdom, we learn that our bodies can't be trusted; they betray us with their demands.
So, denying our own power to decide what's right and good for us, we hand over the responsibility to the `experts'. They become our gurus. We listen to, obey and respect their orders. If they tell us that 1000 calories a day is right for us, we tend to believe them. There is something very comforting about having a structure to your day, having all your meals planned in advance, knowing exactly what to eat and what to avoid. It's very safe and reassuring to have somebody around to check your progress, weigh you in at the end of the week. You know where you're going when you have a specific goal to reach in a specific number of weeks. The gospel according to Weight Checkers has to be right. After all, it's scientifically proven. Everyone agrees that if you eat butter, sugar, starches, you'll get fat. If you eat lettuce, low fat cottage cheese and lots of cucumber, drink diet Coke, you'll get thin.
Nobody talks about hunger. If you are hungry after your breakfast of tuna {in water}, dry toast, black artificially sweetened coffee, well, why not munch on a carrot ? Banish all thoughts of a big bowl of chicken soup and matzo balls, or a bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon for lunch. Now, it's indisputable that if you eat more food than your body needs, you'll gain weight, and if you eat less, you'll lose. I have no argument with that, it has to be true. However, it's misguided to think that someone can do experiments somewhere in a laboratory and come up with an accurate diet plan for you and everybody else. As if we were robots. We all differ in our needs; we all have varying rates of burning up fat; hunger patterns; lifestyles; timetables; family histories, daily rhythms. It's totally illogical to believe that one diet can be effective for everybody.
Our natural hunger, instead of being respected as a basic human need, becomes a source of anxiety, something to be denied, ignored, resisted. Going on a diet is just about the most unnatural, and negative thing you can do to your mind, your body and your spirit. Setting you up for failure, it creates the urge to binge. A diet will evoke feelings of guilt and inadequacy, a need to rebel, a sense that other people manage it, so there must be something wrong with you if you `fail'.
Most organizations that offer diets as the solution, communicate the idea of `sinning'. If you've lost weight, then it follows that you must have been `good' the past week; you've been strong willed, resisted the `illegal', `forbidden' foods. There is a generally held assumption that all that's needed to lose weight is will power, self control. And that, if yours isn't strong enough, you will `fail'.
When I was at Weight Watchers, they told me I was `allowed' one thousand calories a day. Sometimes, when I'd been `good', I'd discover that I'd only eaten seven hundred and fifty. So, I'd rush out and buy a Mars bar. I don't know if I was hungry or not, but I had to eat my required number of calories. Silly ? Probably. But, in those days, I needed somebody to control me, to punish me if I sinned. A framework to keep me from running wild. None of the scores of diets available mention hunger. But, if you are constantly trying to deal with hunger, at some stage you will binge.
From the time of Adam and Eve, we've recognized that forbidden fruits are sweeter. It's also clear that once something loses its forbidden character, it also loses much of its attraction. After all, when you're on diet, what do you crave most of all ? You'll go mad, all the more mad because of the deprivation. It will be chocolate for breakfast, five ice creams at a time, chips, biscuits. Need I continue ? The idea of bingeing only exists in relation to dieting. If you don't diet, how can you binge ? Bingeing means taking the most `forbidden' foods and stuffing yourself full to bursting with them. I've never heard of anyone bingeing on raw mushrooms or grapefruit, have you?
It seems to me that the only people to succeed are the manufacturers of diet foods, the writers of books on diets, the producers of `slimming aids'. If diets are so effective, why does a new one come out nearly every week ? Conventional slimming diets with their focus on limiting calorie intake; banning the most tasty food; the idea that all it takes is self control; their obsession with weighing scales as a measure of success or failure; their dismissal of hunger, and their self - punishing lists of `does' and `don'ts' are essentially negative in their content. Encouraging dependency on the experts, they help you to avoid taking responsibility for yourself. If you already have low self esteem, failure on a diet will make it lower. Success will make it higher, that's true, but how true is a self esteem that goes up and down with the pounds? If you already hate your body, torturing it by alternatively depriving or over stuffing it, denying its natural needs will lead to feelings of impotence and despair.
WHERE DOES IT START?
Psychological factors:
A few hours after we're born, we are yelling for food. If we get it, then it's not only milk we receive. Under normal circumstances, along with the milk, we experience the warmth and comfort of being held, physical contentment, feelings of security that somebody is there to nourish and love us. A natural intimacy grows between baby and whoever is feeding him.
If, for whatever reason, food is denied us, we experience it not only as a physical deprivation, but also as a loss of love, of intimacy. The body suffers, but we hunger too for the love that has inexplicably disappeared. So food and love become inextricably linked in the way we perceive our environment. These ideas are further re - enforced when perhaps, as toddlers we cry, unable to express what we really want. If we are then given sweets to eat, slowly we come to associate food with the short term comfort we experience. However, if we have not received whatever it was we really needed, a pattern of substitution is established, and we discover a means of escape from our pain.
As very small children or babies, we are subjected to and dependent upon those taking care of us. They have all the power. Their behavior, attitudes and values affect and influence us completely. Very few of us receive totally unconditional love, acceptance and approval. Neither are our parents, or those caring for us always happy, relaxed or loving towards us.
They can abuse us in many ways, physically, sexually, emotionally. They give us messages, often non - verbal ones, about what they expect of us, how they want us to behave, how they feel about us. These messages differ according to whether we are boys or girls, what class, color or culture we are born into. Every family has its own moral code, ideas about work, money, relationships and feelings. Some, very few, allow the open expression of all feelings. Within a happy family environment, children will grow up free to express spontaneously what ever they are feeling, without fear of punishment or the withdrawal of love. Look at a healthy baby, or a toddler. She laughs when she's happy, screams when she's angry, clings to you like a monkey when she's frightened and cries when she's miserable.
Of course, we can't go around like that as adults, so we become `socialized'. We learn quickly that we have to be careful about how we express certain feelings, especially the ones that mummy and daddy or our teachers do not approve of. In general, as girls, we learn that it's not safe to display too much anger, selfishness or independence. Boys are generally discouraged from being overly tender, vulnerable or frightened.
We all need love and approval from our parents, but it would appear that if we behave `naturally', we run the risk of not receiving it. Furthermore, we may well be punished for it. This is our first experience of the most painful feeling of them all: Rejection.
Unequipped with logic and reason, we interpret rejection as meaning that we are not good enough. The judgments and criticism that come from our parents as they try to socialize us, confirm our suspicions that there are conditions attached to receiving their love and acceptance. In conventional, Western households, a little girl soon learns to behave gently, take care of others, be unselfish and nurturing. Watch her playing with her dolls ! Whatever would happen if she decided to scream and shout, expressing her angry feelings? A little boy is encouraged to be tough, adventurous, independent. His toys are often connected to survival. Guns and war games. If he felt sad, dared to cry or say he was frightened, chances are he'd be dubbed a sissy.
Sociological considerations:
Until now, all that I have said about human development and childhood conditioning can be applied equally to males and females. However as women, we would appear to be more vulnerable and pre-disposed to so-called eating disorders. Anorexia and Bulimia are rarely seen in men. I base these assumptions on my professional experience. The advertisements I have placed in newspapers for clients, have never been `gender specific'. And yet, I would estimate that ninety nine percent of the responses I receive are from women, whose compulsive eating and weight problems lead them to seek professional help. As overweight women, they often believe that they are:
1) Not sexy, unattractive to men, not in the marriage market.
2) Weak willed
3) A failure, not to be taken seriously.
4) Unlikely to succeed in business.
5) Social outcasts.
On the other hand, fat men receive messages that, whilst not always positive, are often linked to ideas of strength, prosperity and achievement, such as the following:
Big and strong;
Fat and prosperous;
Powerfully built and successful
I am not suggesting that men don't suffer as a result of their conditioning, but their means of escape are more likely to be an addiction to work, or gambling, or alcohol.
Since the shopping, preparation and cooking of food are more usually tackled by a woman in her traditional role of caretaker, access to food is a contributory factor in her choice of escape. Being overweight as a woman is too often interpreted as being not as good as the thin ones, not as important, not as valuable. Your outward appearance reflects your lack of care for yourself (Look how she's let herself go!) Thus the combination of psychological factors and social conditioning create a `special' case for compulsive eaters who are women.
Let's take a look at how these psychological and social factors interconnect:
Maybe you're having problems with your mother; you suspect your husband is cheating on you; a love affair ends; your children are problematic; perhaps there are financial difficulties. Long ago you learned about the soothing properties of food, and how, in the short term, it helps you to numb the pain of rejection, the guilt, the fear and the anger. And, as the alcoholic drinks away his misery, so you swallow it all down with chocolate and chips. But the real problems go unresolved and you gain more weight. Your overweight then becomes a focus for your worries. A focus now shared by over 80% of women in the Western world.
The weighing scales determine your mood for the day. Food becomes your obsession and the enemy. You hate yourself, believe you're weak, can't bear to look in the mirror, you avoid social occasions, the beach, the disco, making love. You stuff away in secret, envying thin people you see as better than you. Eating all day long, you forget what it's like to be hungry, to enjoy a good meal, to feel the satisfaction that comes from fulfilling a basic, human need.
So, you decide to diet. All of your worries then get transferred to the `success' or `failure' of the diet.. You go to the weekly group meetings, get weighed in, lose or gain a couple of pounds. You have something in common with the other women there. It's so much easier to talk about your weight than your unfaithful husband, your guilt provoking mother, your bank account or your uncontrollable children. Anyway, you can put off dealing with all that until you get thin, can't you?
FAT AS A SYMPTOM
You swing from starving to stuffing, from one hundred and twenty pounds to one hundred and sixty pounds but your compulsion remains. All you have done by dieting is to treat the symptom - fat. And, like treating the symptom of the pain of a toothache with aspirin, the symptom will return unless the cause is discovered and the problem treated at its root.
A diet may help you to lose weight. But if you are just blaming your unhappiness on your fat, you may be surprised to find, on getting thinner, that you are no more contented with your life than you were before. And you thought that all your troubles would be over, if you just got rid of a few pounds. If only it were that simple !
Fat is the symptom that results from eating compulsively. Eating compulsively is a means of denial and escape from a problem, which could be psychological, emotional or social in its nature. If you fail to pay attention to the problem inside, you will continue to use food as a junkie uses heroin and, like the numbed, but untreated toothache, the pain and the symptom will return again and again and again. DIETS ARE NOT THE SOLUTION TO YOUR TENDENCY TO OVEREAT.
There is another way of looking at the issues; a natural, logical, holistic approach to eating disorders.. All of us got fat by eating too much. All of us decided to overeat, whether consciously or unconsciously. None of us got fat overnight. Therefore, we cannot logically expect to drop those excess pounds overnight. The method I am about to describe is not a feel-good, quick-fix. However, the benefits that can be expected are far wider reaching and longer lasting than losing a few pounds. Have faith, use the recommended tools.. You will find yourself eating less, naturally. And you WILL lose weight.
*****
WHAT IS A HOLISTIC APPROACH ?
Applied to the healing of the problem of compulsive eating, we could say that a holistic approach takes into account the several parts, or levels contained in one human being. So that the causes of compulsive eating can have their roots in either the physical, the emotional, the social, the psychological and the spiritual planes, or a combination of all of these. Here are a few examples to illustrate some of the above:
We may eat excessively because of an undefined sense of emptiness, a vague feeling of something being missing. That `something' could be a loss of spiritual direction, the end of a love affair, a lack of intellectual stimulation, absence of `meaning', or the empty nest syndrome after the kids have grown up and left home, and you no longer have a role.
On the other hand, we may be social eaters, facing business dinners, attendance at banquets, or impressing the husband's boss with our exquisite cooking. We may not be assertive enough, or come from an overweight family with a history of loving good food. Psychological reasons for overeating would include excessive guilt, feelings of inadequacy, repression of anger, fear of exposure, fear of intimacy, undue stress.
A holistic approach concerns itself with the spirit as well as the mind and body. Special attention is paid to stress as a trigger for compulsive eating. The practice of meditation offers an effective and regenerating means of combating the harmful effects of stress. It brings a sense of balance, stability and unity to the other recommended methods of resolving the problems faced by compulsive eaters.
Special techniques and practical exercises designed to help you to find the causes of your compulsive eating, are described and constructive ways of dealing with them are suggested which include the following:
Meditation. To calm the spirit, and bring you to a state of inner peace.
Ridding yourself of negative ideas, thoughts and feelings.
The use of positive thinking creative visualization, guided fantasy.
Loving your body, as it is now.
Relaxation techniques to relieve physical tension.
How to distinguish head hunger, from tummy hunger, and stop swallowing down your feelings with food.
Asking for what you want. Being assertive.
Payoffs and fears
*****
PART TWO.
STOP DIETING, THROW AWAY THE EXERCISE BICYCLE, THE CALORIE COUNTERS.
If you want to break the desperate vicious circle of dieting, bingeing, gaining, losing, gaining, you have, from today to STOP DIETING. And eat as a naturally thin person eats. A naturally thin person eats when she is hungry and stops when her hunger goes away. From today, you can eat your favorite foods, as much as you want of them. But ONLY when you're hungry, truly hungry. Another thing you must break is your addiction to the scales. Please weigh yourself when you begin this new method of eating. And then NOT AGAIN FOR ONE MONTH. Decide on a date, and weigh yourself, not more than once a month on the date you've chosen.
" What ? " I hear you cry. " Give up dieting ? I'll get as big as a mountain ! AND give up weighing myself ? Impossible! "
No it's not. But you have to be prepared to take a risk, change the habits of a lifetime. Stop thinking of certain foods as `legal',` slimming', or `forbidden' and `fattening'. They aren't.
All foods are fattening if you eat them when you're not hungry. Even lettuce! And if you eat ice cream and chocolate when you are hungry, they are will not make you fat. Sounds ridiculous? I'm sorry to destroy all your previous illusions about what makes you fat. But, what have you got to lose by believing me ? After all, you've tried many ways to control your weight. And they haven't worked, not in the long run. If they had, you wouldn't be reading this.
It may take you many weeks to rid yourself of the legacy of conventional diets. You may believe that you LIKE diet coke, prefer saccharine in your coffee, dislike greasy, rich food. Maybe. And how long is it since you really enjoyed a cream cake without feeling guilty ? How long has it been since you went to a restaurant to eat, looked at the menu with the idea that you could choose absolutely anything you wanted ? A long, long time, I'd guess.
So what do you do now that you've decided to stop dieting ? First of all, don't panic. You will not get as big as a mountain when you stop dieting. Believe me. However, learning how to eat when you're hungry and stop when you're satisfied takes time. It very much depends on how carefully you listen to and trust the messages from your body.
You receive messages from your body all day long, and generally, you don't argue with them. You believe, trust and act on them. When you need to empty your bladder or your bowels, there's no debate. Neither do you doubt the signals about when to sleep, or make love. However, over the dieting years, you've learned that your body betrays you, that you can't possibly be hungry, after all you've only just had breakfast. It doesn't matter if that breakfast really wasn't of your choosing and didn't satisfy you.
Start exploring these new ideas in this way:
1) Make a list of your favorite foods ( Ignoring their calorific content, of course ) Buy whatever you can afford of them .
2) Spend a few hours waiting to get hungry. It could even take a day, or a couple of days. Please don't worry if it takes some time. Nothing terrible will happen, I promise. If the weather is hot, make certain to drink plenty of water or juices. But don't eat until you're really hungry. How will you know ?
3) When you're really hungry, and experience that hunger as a growling voice, just above your waist, between your ribs, sit down. (You, or somebody else, has already prepared a lovely meal) 4) Serve yourself a small portion, knowing that you can always have second or third helpings. EAT SLOWLY. Do not watch television, read a book or engage in telephone or other conversations. In other words, don't do anything that will distract you from the sheer pleasure and joy of eating your favorite meal when you are really hungry. Allow yourself plenty of time. See how much better the food tastes after building up an appetite..
5) Enjoy what is on your plate. Tasty, delicious food. Food that you have deprived yourself of during those miserable, mean - spirited diet years. Savor every juicy, luscious bite. Tell yourself that you deserve the pleasure, the satisfaction that comes from fulfilling of one of the most important, sensual human needs.
6) Continue eating until you're satisfied. Remember that the mouth and the stomach are very closely connected. If you eat too quickly, the stomach doesn't have enough time to absorb the fact that the mouth is receiving food, chewing it and swallowing it and that soon enough it will arrive there. This is one of the reasons why we often feel hungry soon after a meal, if we've eaten it too quickly.
7) Now, you're beginning to feel good. But, learning when to stop is even harder than learning how to eat only when you're hungry. But, you MUST. You see, if you eat that last roast potato, or the third helping of Yorkshire pudding that's on your plate, THIS WILL MAKE YOU FAT !!!
8) Now's the time to check in with yourself. Just how full are you ? The signals for stopping are as clear as the signals of being hungry. In the same place, between your ribs, at the waist, fullness can be felt. You may need to open your belt, or a button on your pants. If you experience pain there, as well as fullness, you probably should have stopped a few moments before. There is more food on the plate. It's just about the best food you've had in years.
9) IS THERE ROOM FOR MORE ? If there is, then eat it. If there isn't, don't. Simple ? Logical ? Impossible ?
Before you decide, ask yourself if you're wanting to go on eating beyond your need for any of the following reasons:
1 ) You grew up believing that you must NEVER leave food on your plate. Throwing food away is wasteful and wrong.
2) The person who cooked it put so much effort into it, she/he will be hurt if you don't finish it.
3) It tastes so delicious that one more bite can't possibly hurt. IT WILL. THAT'S WHAT WILL MAKE YOU FAT, EVEN IF IT'S ONLY CUCUMBER!!!
4) You're going out straight from work, and won't have time to eat dinner. DON'T EAT FOR THE HUNGER TO COME. DON'T STOCKPILE!!!
OK, you've finished your meal. Now, sit for a moment or two, finish your wine, or your beer or your water. Maybe you'd like a cigarette. Maybe, like me, sometimes you fancy a little something sweet after your lunch. Don't reach automatically for the chocolate. Think about other possibilities. Maybe you'd like some halva, some marzipan or a few dates. Consider it. Then decide precisely what you'd like and eat it. Consciously, slowly. Stop eating it when you've had enough. Be gentle and kind and forgiving to yourself instead of blaming and judging and punishing. And just see how much better you feel.
DO NOT EAT AGAIN, AFTERWARDS UNTIL YOU ARE HUNGRY.
That may well take much longer than you're used to. Have no expectations. We are all different. Some people don't need to eat at all in the mornings. Others feel extremely hungry as soon as they get up. It's not important at what time of the day you eat. Just become more aware of your hunger patterns. Try and work out what feelings drive you to eat when you're not hungry.
The key to this new way of eating is to be aware, to eat with full consciousness, instead of automatically. And, whatever you do, don't expect miracles. You have been eating compulsively for a long time, maybe many years. Rome wasn't built in a day. You can expect to go on eating compulsively for a while. But don't be critical of yourself. Just observe and forgive yourself while you're learning.
I've said it before, and I'll go on saying it. If you eat only when you're hungry, and stop when you're satisfied, you will, ultimately break your habit of compulsive eating, dieting, bingeing. You'll eat less and you'll lose weight.
SUMMARY.
Stop dieting.
Weigh yourself once only. And then once a month.
Eat consciously. Stop when you're full. Don't eat again until you 're really hungry. Feel that hunger as a gnawing between your ribs. Don't eat food you don't like because it's good for you, or somebody else has cooked it. Choose the food you really love. No food will make you fat, if you eat it because you're hungry. Don't blame or judge or criticize yourself even if you are eating compulsively. Be patient with yourself. Even if you overeat, accept that you're a human being, not perfect, but learning something new. You're allowed to make mistakes while you're learning.
*****
CONSCIOUS EATING
In the previous chapter, I recommended eating consciously. Which means eating with awareness. If you've been eating compulsively for a while, it's not hunger that has prompted you to eat. And if it's not hunger, what is it ? The following exercise might help you to become more aware of the specific feelings that trigger a need to eat when you're not hungry.
Take a few moments when you're alone and unlikely to be disturbed. Sit or lie down. Close your eyes and mentally count down from a hundred to one, slowly.
Now, in your mind, go back to a time this week when you either didn't stop eating when you were full, or when you began eating knowing you weren't hungry. Try to keep the self criticism from creeping in as you do this and picture yourself in the situation, remembering all the details, such as :
1 ) The time of day or night.
2 ) Whether you were alone or not.
3 ) The room you were in.
4 ) What you ate.
5 ) How you ate - quickly, secretly, furtively, wildly, greedily, defiantly, openly.
6 ) What had been going on in your life a couple of hours before and how you were feeling. Picture the whole scene in as much detail as possible, remembering how you felt afterwards.
Let the image fade for a moment, then visualize the whole picture again up until the time you either kept on eating, or ate when you weren't hungry. Stop there. This time, you are facing the food, but you're not eating it. Spend a few moments now, reliving that scene and try and bring back to your memory the exact feelings that prompted you to eat when you weren't hungry. Maybe there are danger times in your day or evening. Times of external triggers. Such as the children being difficult, or having a row with your partner, or working with a demanding, critical boss, or having a mother who provokes guilty feelings in you, or a close friend who lets you down. Perhaps the problems stem from inner feelings of being inadequate, unloved, unheard, not valued, being exploited. Maybe it's anger, or frustration, or boredom, or loneliness or feelings of failure, or something vague and indefinable, like emptiness
It could be that right now, none of these reasons seem to fit. What is important, though, is the certain knowledge that the eating did not solve the problem. If you did manage to define what pushed you to eat compulsively, are there any measures you can take to handle the situation more constructively ? Occasionally, just the awareness of what you are doing is enough to change it. Next time you find yourself eating automatically without hunger, ask yourself the question : " What do I really need, right now ? What would really make me feel better?"
It's possible that what you really need just isn't available right there and then. But if it's a loving pair of arms around you, is the bar of milk chocolate truly a substitute ?
If you've spent years believing and saying things like: "It's so hard for me to lose weight! I've only got to look at a potato and I put on three pounds I've just got no will-power!"
These negative thoughts enter your sub-conscious and are far more powerful than you realize. However, help is at hand! You can eradicate them, rub them out, and substitute more constructive ideas. I call these affirmations and they will prove to be helpful tools to change the way you think. If you say or write the following statement at least twenty times a day; at some stage in the near future, it will begin to be true for you:
AFFIRMATION " It gets easier every day for me to eat only when I'm hungry."
*****
YOU ARE WHAT YOU THINK.
Somewhere, in all of us, there's a secret place where we feel we're not good enough. Most of us have negative ideas, thoughts and feelings about ourselves that have very little to do with the reality of who we are. There is an inner judge, a harsh critic. We put ourselves down, reject compliments, don't believe we deserve, and feel guilty at the drop of a hat.
The very close connection that there is between mind and body makes it hard to distinguish between a thought and a feeling. But, it would appear that our feelings are influenced by our thoughts, rather than the other way round. And if you are having negative thoughts about yourself, they will influence the way you feel.
We've grown up believing our parents and their comments, their judgments, their criticisms. After all, when we were five or six years old, we didn't have the capacity to check out the things they told us about ourselves. We had no choice but to believe them. They were big and all powerful, while we were small and rather powerless. If they said we were stupid, lazy, clumsy, could do better, should be more disciplined, and that we'd never succeed, it was inconceivable that they could be wrong.
Many of us grew up convinced we were worthless, invisible, unwanted, unlovable. If we'd been sexually / physically abused, a whole lot of other negative beliefs were formed by the experience. Guilt and shame distorted our feelings about sex, and the value of our bodies. The list is endless. The worst part about all of this is that most of us are simply unaware that these are just ideas, thoughts, opinions that we received from others. And we can spend our whole life believing them to be true, unless we begin to question them.
`Am I really stupid and lazy ?'`
Do I fail in everything I do ? '
`Is sex dirty and shameful ? '
`Am I bad ? Am I really ugly and unlovable ? '
`Is my body and its functions really disgusting ? '
We have been deeply conditioned by some of these ideas, and changing them is no simple matter. But, remember that you are only dealing with a thought; it is possible to change a thought, reversing the negative influences under which we grew up. In this way we can heal the damage done to us, by parents who were not intentionally harming us.
In fact, blaming them and screaming at them won't help you much. They did the job of parenting in the way they thought right, more often than not believing they were doing what was best for you. So, don't blame them. Instead, do something positive for yourself and let go of the past. You can't change it, or your parents. It's over, let it go and find ways of making yourself a happier person in the here and now. This is one way :
By using affirmations and creative visualization, you can change the way you think, and the way you perceive the world around you. An affirmation is a positive thought that is repeated over and over to oneself until it finally takes hold and obliterates and replaces the old negative belief. Creative visualization is the use of mental imagery to support and re - enforce the positive thought. I don't mind if you call it brain washing. I've been using affirmations and visualization for many years and I'm convinced of their power to create deep, lasting change.
Using an affirmation is like planting a seed. Now, if you plant a seed in earth that is full of rubbish, broken bottles, cigarette stubs, used condoms, discarded coke tins, your seed may still take root and grow into a flower; what is certain, though, is that it will do a whole lot better if first you clear out all the trash in the earth. So an affirmation, to be most effective, will take root and bloom if at first, you rid yourself of all those nasty, negative thoughts you've been carrying around with you for so long. Thoughts that have lurked, barely noticed in your sub - conscious mind, undermining your self confidence, chipping away at your self esteem. Abusing your body with food, and punishing your mind with negative thoughts will, ultimately be reflected in your spirit, your energy.
Learning how to value, respect and accept yourself is at the very root of changing your self-destructive patterns of behavior. And bringing your unconscious, negative thoughts out into the open is the first step in healing yourself in mind, body and spirit.
This is how you do it:
Buy an exercise book and in it write the affirmation most appropriate for you at the moment. Write that affirmation at least ten times a day. Have ready, by the side of you, some scrap paper. Here is your first affirmation;
" I---(put your name in the space) accept and value myself exactly as I am. "
Now, such a positive thought is bound to bring up for you all sorts of `buts'. " But, I'm too fat." "But, I hate my body." " But, I should have more self control." " But, I'm too stupid, lazy, inadequate." Etc; etc. In other words all those critical messages you grew up with, and have been carrying around with you all these years.
Each time you write your affirmation, in your exercise book, pause for a minute to allow the negative idea to surface and write that destructive myth onto your piece of scrap paper. After you've written your affirmation at least ten times, take the scrap paper with all your nasty, undermining ideas, tear it up and throw it away, thus symbolically ridding yourself of them.
If you do this exercise every day, after a while, you will find yourself running out of buts ( Don't repeat them). Then a sort of magical transformation takes place. You will slowly start to believe in your affirmation, and find yourself thinking: ` Yes, I do value and accept myself exactly as I am. I love and approve of myself, too.'
Suppose you've had a habit through the years of taking care of everybody and neglecting yourself, often doing things you'd prefer not to do, in order to please others. And suppose you were given the affirmation: " I have the right to say no"
Wow! That would bring up a few buts, I bet! So, in your exercise book, you'd write " I, Carole, have the right to say no." On your scrap paper you'd probably write things like; `But, if I say no, I feel guilty.' Or: 'But, if I say no, people will not like me.' Or: " If I say no, I'll lose my friends, be rejected'
After a while, and this varies according to how deep your conditioned belief is, and how willing you are to face these aspects of yourself and change them, after a while, you'll start believing that, `Yes, I DO have a right to say no!' And this new, positive belief will ultimately affect your feelings about yourself and your behaviour. You may even find yourself saying no to food you don't want! Here are a few more:
I can lose weight easily, and I've already started. I forgive myself for eating when what I really wanted was love and approval. I approve of myself in all that I do.
Everything I eat turns to energy and good health
I forgive myself for abusing my body. I'm getting thinner every day.
The more I love and value my body, the more it conforms to my wishes about it.
It's safe for me to say no.
Some of the above affirmations do not necessarily evoke `buts'. However, written frequently, and kept in your mind, they will always help you to feel more positive and act more constructively.
CREATIVE VISUALISATION
Like affirmations, creative visualisation is a technique which can be learned to transform negative images about yourself into positive ones. I mentioned before that, if you are thinking holistically, mind, body and spirit function as one system. This means that anything that takes place in the mind, body or spirit, will automatically affect and influence the other parts of the system.
Conventional diets work effectively, at the beginning, because we have a deep belief that they will. Have you ever begun a new diet thinking that it wouldn't work ? Of course not. Your belief is further re-enforced as you begin to lose weight. On the other hand, how many times have you told yourself that, as soon as you stop dieting, you'll put back all the weight? And, of course, you do. How many times have you eaten a `forbidden' cream cake and pictured yourself, or told someone that you're sure to put on a kilo next week because of what you're eating ? You actually created that picture in your imagination. As your body is so closely linked to your mind, it will obey and manifest the messages it receives. Which means that it's quite possible that you would gain a kilo, simply by thinking about it.
If your mind is so powerful, your imagination so effective, why not create positive images, instead of negative ones ? This is how you do it:
Take the phone off the hook. Close the door, and make sure you won't be disturbed for the next few minutes. Lie or sit in a comfortable position, close your eyes and begin to become aware of your breathing. Imagine that every time you breathe in, you are taking in clean golden air. As you breathe out, imagine that all your doubts and worries are leaving your body with your outgoing breath. Spend a few moments relaxing until you feel you've distanced yourself a little from the world around you.
Now, I'd like you to imagine that you've reached your ideal weight. It's not important what that weight is, just a weight that you'd like to be. It is early summer, the sun is gentle and you are wearing the sort of clothes you'd wear in the summer at your ideal weight. It could be a swimsuit, shorts, a pair of cool jeans or a light summer dress. You know you look good, and you are somewhere near a beach. Don't worry if you can't picture your face, as long as you know that it's you you're looking at. A slim, healthy, confident person. Picture all the details, the colour and the material of your clothes, your surroundings. Imagine that you are facing yourself from about ten yards away. Turn around, and walk away a few paces, so that you can see yourself from the back, turn again looking at yourself from the front and sides. There is no excess weight on you anywhere. Your tummy, your bottom, your thighs, your breasts are exactly as you want them to be. Walk towards and away from yourself, seeing the picture from all angles. Walk, stand, sit.
Now, transfer that image to a videocassette. And play it back to yourself. You have full control over the video player. Switch it on and off, on and off, so that the screen is blank, then your picture appears, blank, picture, blank, picture. Do this `flashing' for as long as you can concentrate, and then open your eyes and return to the room.
This exercise should be done at least ten times a day (it only takes a couple of minutes). The more frequently you do it, the sooner you'll reach your goal. You are imprinting on your mind's eye the results you want to achieve. And since mind and body are so closely attuned, what goes on in your mind, will have a profound influence on your body. It's only a matter of time before the mental picture becomes the physical reality.
AFFIRMATION " Every day brings me closer to my ideal weight."
*****
LOVING AND VALUING YOUR BODY
Probably one of the most difficult changes to make in this alternative approach to weight loss is learning how to love and value your body AS IT IS NOW.
" What?" I hear you cry, " Love my body with my bulging belly, my flabby bosom, my enormous thighs! Exactly as it is now! You must be joking!"
Yes. Exactly as it is now. Just consider for a moment what wonderful service it has done you over the years, what sensual pleasure it's given you, what joyful feelings, what totally accurate messages it has provided for your comfort and survival. You've obeyed its requests for sleep, for sex, for warmth, for the quenching of thirst, for the elimination of waste. When it has sickened, you've listened to the messages its symptoms have provided, and given it rest and, if necessary, medication. When it's been hurt or damaged in some way, you've sought means to heal it.
But, because it hasn't conformed to somebody else's notion of how it should be, you've abused, stuffed, starved and hated it. The first step in changing this sorry state of affairs, is to become more aware of it. The following exercise can help:
After taking a few deep breaths to relax yourself, focus your attention on the part of your body that has over the years caused you to feel the most shame, that you least accept, that you reject every time you see it, that you take care to hide whether naked or dressed. See if you can recall the time in your life when you first began to experience that part of your body negatively. Can you remember any triggers that caused you to feel like that? Are there other people in your family whose bodies are like yours, with similar areas that are unacceptable? Do you feel as rejecting of these parts when they belong to others? See if you can come up with a word that has an emotional connection for you to the place you are so ashamed of.
Do the words `weak',` sloppy',` greedy' come to mind if you think of an overlarge belly? What about very big breasts ? Do you despise them as being sex symbols,` disgusting,'` tarty'?
How about a big bottom and thighs? What negative associations do they have for you? Is the owner` lazy', `obscene' overtly sexual?
When you have finished exploring these ideas, open your eyes and spend some time trying to understand the connections you have made, remembering that we are dealing here only with THOUGHTS, OPINIONS, IDEAS. That the connotations you made are purely subjective, based on a number of varying factors, cultural differences, mental images, family values, conditioned beliefs. AND THEY CAN BE CHANGED.
Your well being depends on your state of mind towards, among other things, food and your body. Hating your body or various parts of it will get you nowhere. Learning to love and respect it is a very important, albeit difficult stage in the process of losing weight.
Once again, awareness plays a key part in this process. Maybe you discovered something important about the part of your body that you most despise. Stand naked in front of the mirror. Now, without letting any critical, judgmental thoughts enter your mind, study your body slowly. Find the good things about it. Say something positive to yourself about them " You've really got beautiful eyes" or, " Your hair is so thick and healthy and shiny" or " I never realized what fabulous skin you've got."
Now look closely at the part of your body you have wished yourself rid of. The place you most want to improve. realizing that it's part of you, that you created it; that it isn't something separate. In other words, take responsibility for it. Speak to it tenderly, lovingly. As you might to a child who's been abused. If you can reach the part, stroke it, massage it with sweet smelling oil every time you step out of the bath. If exercise is something you enjoy, make a special effort to concentrate on that particular part of your body. Be gentle with yourself. There is never any need to drive yourself in any form of exercise. And doing exercises that you don't like will do you more harm than good. You will probably do them for week and give them up, and then feel guilty, blaming yourself for lack of perseverance. The most important part of exercising is to enjoy it. If Aerobics make you feel good, carry on doing them. If exercises of any kind really turn you off, simply don't do them.
I used to take letters from my mother to school excusing me from Gym and PE lessons. I hated them then, and I hate them still. But I love to dance, to swim, to walk in the country close to nature. There are no rules, just listen to the messages coming from your body about what it needs and respond to them with awareness and loving attention.
AFFIRMATION " The more I love my body, the more it conforms to my wishes about it."
AFFIRMATION " Every day brings me closer to my ideal weight."
*****
MANAGING STRESS THROUGH MEDITATION
Jane sets her alarm clock before she goes to bed, needing to get up especially early. For some reason, it doesn't go off the next morning. She wakes up, finding that she's overslept by a half an hour. The children are still asleep, too. Rushing to wake them and get them ready for school, she stubs her toe on the table leg causing it to bleed.
Little Jimmy doesn't want corn flakes today, he wants fried eggs. The fat is too hot and splashes Jane's clean silk shirt. Three year old Emma has woken grumpy, sends her cup of orange juice to the floor, spilling it everywhere, and crying that she doesn't feel well.
Grabbing a piece of toast left on Emma's plate, Jane leaves them downstairs, eating as she flies up to the bedroom to find the other silk shirt. It is still unwashed, lying in the dirty linen basket. The only clean one is the wrong colour, but she has no other choice.
Screams issue from the kitchen downstairs. They're fighting again. Now, she's nearly an hour behind schedule. Finally she gets the kids in the car to find that Jimmy had been playing with the lights; they've been on all night. And the battery is flat. A passing neighbour helps Jane to push and jump start the car.
The kids are still fighting as, now an hour late for work, she drops one off at the nursery, the other at his school, arriving exactly an hour and a quarter late to find that the meeting which she'd rushed to attend has been postponed until the afternoon. She has reached screaming point, and it's still only nine thirty in the morning. Jane hates everyone she meets, worries endlessly in case she sent Emma to the nursery with a temperature; Jane's boss throws a pile of work on to her desk, telling her it should have been done yesterday. At ten o'clock, the food trolley comes round. Wound up, but not at all hungry, Jane takes two sugared doughnuts... Let's draw a veil over the rest of her day.
Poor Jane. Her oversleeping started a train of events which carried each bit of stress from one situation to another, building itself in layers, increasing her sense of powerlessness and sending her in desperation to the sugared doughnuts.
One of the key factors involved in understanding the negative aspects of stress is its tendency to build up, almost imperceptibly in layers. This results, ultimately in the occurrence of `burn out,' a state of mind and body where motivation and energy disappear. Meditation is one of the finest ways I know of lowering stress levels. Meditation, practised regularly can lower blood pressure, induce sound sleep, relax the body, improve concentration, increase self awareness, and bring inner peace to the mind.
The method I present here can be practised by anyone willing to invest twenty or thirty minutes a day in the pursuit of physical and mental relaxation. Meditation is a cheap and most effective tool for the reduction and management of stress related tension.
If Jane had been practicing meditation, her responses to the events of the morning would have been quite different. She would have slept better, woken on time. And, if she could see she was running late, she might have phoned her boss to confirm the time of the meeting, and not needed to rush after all. She'd have sat down and, if she was hungry, she'd have eaten a proper breakfast with the children in a calm and relaxed fashion. Her concentration level would have ensured that she hadn't left her car lights on. And she'd have arrived at work prepared and happy to face the day's demands. And not have used the sugared doughnuts to soothe the tension in her mind and body.
We all possess inner resources of strength. We all have a quiet, constant place in our being. You could call it spirit, or essence. Its existence has many names. People who pray experience this quiet presence, this pause in the noisy daily routine. Regular meditation gives us the opportunity to take a break from the busy rush of living, the ever present inner chatter, and observe ourselves. From that serene, still place, we can bring back into our everyday lives some of the strength, energy, and inner peace we find when we are meditating.
It often feels to me, when I meditate as though I'm connected to a Higher Power; I'm visiting the Garden of Eden, picking a flower there and keeping its perfume and calming beauty inside me as I go through my day. Here are a few rules to remember, if you decide to make a meditation a regular practice.
Don't meditate on a full stomach. The digestion of food takes up energy, and distracts from the process. It would be ideal if you can manage two sessions of twenty minutes each evening and morning. If not, find as much time as possible. The results are cumulative, and after about a week of regular practice, you'll view your environment in a calmer, more detached way.
Take the phone off the hook, close the door, making sure you won't be disturbed. It's better if you keep one special corner in the house for meditation, rather than change the place each time. Sometimes, of course, that may not be possible. Choose a comfortable, preferably upright chair, one that supports your back, or, if you're happy sitting on the floor with your back supported, do that. Remove your shoes. Dim light is preferable to total darkness or brilliant sunshine.
Close your eyes. As you do so, you will immediately become aware of the inner chatter, the mindless activity that has, until now, been filling your head every moment of the day. Thinking is a natural process. If I told you to close your eyes and stop thinking, you couldn't. While you are meditating, thoughts will cross your mind. Let them. Don't get attached to them. Rather think of them as clouds passing across your vision. Observe them, and they will pass.