Is Food Running Your Life?

Now you are probably reading this because you realize that a lot of your day is consumed by what you are eating, how you are eating, that you always think or food or that you are always thinking of your weight. When I met Stacey, she was exhausted, drained, and overwhelmed. She’d been trying to lose her baby weight for six years and had been on every diet imaginable and even had hired trainers for workout weight loss plans. She was busy with working from home, taking care of her 2 kids, driving them around to sports and practices. Her husband was working full time, yet they were barely able to make ends meet. She rarely saw her friends and had no time for activities for herself. Although she used to pride herself on the way she looked, she hadn’t worked out in years. She felt out of shape, out of touch, and completely overwhelmed. She told me that her thoughts were consumed by what she should or shouldn’t eat, how much she should eat, when she should eat, that she couldn’t overcome cravings, that she would eat late at night, sometimes she would starve herself after she binged as she felt she didn’t deserve to eat. Food was totally running her life. You may have fallen victim to these thoughts unknowingly, and slowly over time. What I do want to say is that I want you to stop dieting, to eat what you love, to ignore the numbers on the bathroom scale, and to change the way you think about controlling your weight. We must get out of our head and stop letting our thoughts control how we feel about food. I have spoken to so many women that have essentially given up. They believed there was no hope left for them and that they just had to except that they were not going to lose weight.  This is because they were a victim to diets & the diet culture. That teaches you nothing, except that you should experience weight loss with these amazing transformations that they show. What they don’t show is the behind the scenes. What happens to these women after they stop taking their products or diet restrictions because it isn’t sustainable or healthy? It took convincing themselves to try another approach. One that focuses on the smallest changes, ones that are not overwhelming, ones that teach them that they are important and worth it, and ones that make them feel proud when they complete them.  You see the answer is easy. Make it easy, make it smaller make it tiny so that even when you feel the overwhelm, the busyness creep in, the self-doubt take over, that you still win. Why? Because you have laid out the framework for it to be easy. Did you ever watch The Biggest Loser? The participants were interviewed years after the show and almost all of them had put the weight back on and some even more. They had lost over 100 pounds on the show with professionals and went backwards with their results. WHY? Because crazy workout plans, diets and fast weight loss is not healthy or sustainable and truly does mess up your body mechanics. Diets also have been known to cause anxiety around food and eating disorders. This leads to food running your life. It is a vicious cycle that is hard to get out of. Here is another thought to ponder on though. What if you lost the weight? Food will probably still run your life, but the thoughts would shift. Thoughts of if I eat this will I gain weight? Or Do I deserve this? What if I slip up? You must address the problem and weight loss is just the band aid in this case. When your food thoughts run your life, your weight doesn’t even matter. So let me ask you this. If you lost the weight would that make you happy? I want you to know that you are capable of more than you know. Given the guidance you have everything you need within you to create exactly what you want for your life and remove the self-sabotage thoughts and win the power over food running your life. Stay tuned as this month I will be posting strategies to help you overcome the food trap. To get in control of your thoughts around food so it is no longer running your life.