In all the years I was yo-yo dieting I remember feeling my eating was out of control. It felt like I couldn’t stop.
The other day when I was working on a project that took a lot to figure out, I noticed feeling overwhelmed. It felt consuming. Did I want to feel it? No! 
What I found myself doing was trying to make that feeling go away, to buffer it. I noticed myself getting up from my computer to go check out what my husband was doing, to go let the dog out and then when that didn’t make it feel any better I ended up in the fridge looking for something to eat. I know I wasn’t hungry yet my brain was telling me I was.
In the past, I would have eaten anything I could find; there was no way I could have stopped. It took a lot to fill me up. I felt so out of control. Food was an easy choice for me to cope with an uncomfortable emotion. Eating was the only way I knew how to dull the negative feeling. The thing was eating was only a temporary fix. I ended up feeling so full, and that negative feeling was still there. All that buffering with food didn’t make it go away.
What I have learned that has me no longer being out of control with my eating was that my brain was actually operating exactly as it was designed to. Our brain is all about keeping us safe and comfortable.
The biggest misconception people have about losing weight is that it’s possible to go through the process of losing weight comfortably. A lot of diets promise this. If we are working on making the changes needed to lose weight permanently, of course, that will be uncomfortable. Change is very uncomfortable for us.
So overeating is our attempt to get some comfort. What I want you to consider is that losing weight should be uncomfortable and we can tolerate and manage it if we know how to and decide to. The tools and techniques I teach my clients are what is needed.
Your ability to be successful in losing weight is all about your willingness and ability to be uncomfortable.
What you need to know is the discomfort that you are having in the moment is only temporary. If you tolerate and manage it and don’t eat, then you will achieve the long-term comfort of being at your goal weight. Yeah, I hear you! Easier said than done, right! That is where I do the most work with my clients because it is one thing to know what to do, but doing it is another story.
Each and every time you don’t eat when you have an uncomfortable feeling is you building your new habit. Eventually, the more you do this, the less effort will be needed to not turn to food.
When I was willing to feel any emotion instead of eating, that became my new pattern of action. Don’t get me wrong; there are times the feeling that comes up still can feel unbearable, but I know I can get through it and not eat. I know that I am in complete control because there’s no emotion I’m not willing to feel.
When you are willing to experience whatever comes up, and you don’t eat that is when your need for any kind of escape disappears. When you learn how to be uncomfortable temporarily, you get the benefit of being comfortable at your goal weight.
If you want support in ending that out of control feeling you have with your eating I am there for you. Book a strategy call here so you can start to stop that struggle you have had for way too long.
I am looking forward to talking with you.
Hugs,
Karen
P.S. Please join here a facebook community of Successful Women who are Losing Weight for the Last Time.
