Do you frequently have urges to overeat, over a drink or whatever it is?
Do you know why you find it so hard to stop giving in to your urges?
The urge to eat is caused by a thought that you are having, what makes it difficult is dealing with the urge when you don’t comply.
My clients come to me fighting hard against the urges that come up thinking all they need is more willpower. They are pushing back and trying so hard to say no to those urges, but when we fight against them, they become stronger. They become so strong that all they want is for the urges to go away. However, what ends up happening is because when you fight so hard, you become worn down. You don’t want to fight it anymore, so you give up and give in to the urge.
So what thoughts are you having? Are they something like;
I want it? It looks so good there is no way I can not have it. Omg that bread smells so good there is no way I can stop myself from having some, I need it? Just one bite.
Urges demand an action. Urges want instant gratification; they have no control over you unless you give in to them. You do not ever have to comply with an urge.
Urges are like toddlers screaming for candy, and if we continuously comply, then the urge continues to grow stronger and more insistent.
An urge is just a desire, an intense desire, caused by your thinking. When we reward that desire, it perpetuates the desire. The more we reward our urges, the more intense the urges get.
So what do you do if you have an urge? You don’t react to it, and you don’t resist it. You allow it.
Think about the toddler in the store screaming for candy. Let’s say you walk down the first aisle with them screaming and crying, by the time you have gone thru the whole store listening to the screaming and crying you end up giving in because you are upset and angry with how they were acting. If you are doing this, this is you resisting their actions. It is you wishing you had more willpower, but willpower is not what is needed. From this place, you end up giving in and letting them have the candy. Your toddler learned that screaming is an effective way to get candy.
When we allow the toddler to have their fit without reacting or trying to make them stop, and when we allow them to do that without complying or resisting, they will eventually stop.
This is the same with urges. The urge to eat a certain kind of food will not kill us if we don’t answer it. However, so many of us are in the pattern and habit of trying to manage urges by resisting them. If you do this, you will lose the battle. You have to learn how to let the urges flow through you, let cravings to be there, especially in the beginning, so you aren’t constantly resisting or reacting to them, you aren’t exhausting yourself by using willpower to push them away.
So remember, when you have an urge, and you reward it, it intensifies. When you allow it to be there without resisting or rewarding it, it dissipates. The urges will eventually go away.
How I work with my clients on ending urges is to teach them a process where we start by making decisions ahead of time than when an urge comes up, they are going to pause for 10 minutes to allow the urge and to experience it.
Our brain is wired for instant gratification, so you pausing for 10 mins will allow your ‘thinking’ brain to take over.
My clients when the 10 mins are up, then use their urge jar. I have them put a bead in the jar after every urge that they went through successfully. Why this works is because our brain still thinks it is getting a reward. We are deconditioning our brain from food as a reward and switching it to the glass beads in the jar as the reward.
This process is what has worked for myself and my clients so that they can open the fridge, see the cake and no longer have any desire to have just one bite.
The thing is if you follow what I have shown you it will work for you too, but my clients come to me because they need help with processing emotion and allowing the urges. This is the part that does not come naturally to us, and that may require some deep processing and some deeper practice.
So if this doesn’t work immediately for you, I want you to consider letting me work with you so that you don’t have to figure it out alone. We can create strategies that will give you the weight loss that you have been trying for too many years to achieve.
One mini-consultation might be all it takes, so let’s get started right away. Click here to schedule a 30-minute mini-session and begin transforming your life today.
LET’S DO THIS!
Hugs,
Karen
P.S. Join a community of Successful Women losing the Weight For The Last Time here.
