Chrissie Webber works as a writer, business coach and motivation/ leadership trainer and is Managing Director of Life-Shapers Ltd, an online weight-loss motivation company. With over 20 years experience in the field of business and people development she has an expertise in the area of motivation for permanent weight loss.
Following a lifetime of weight issues - at her heaviest, over 21 stone and a massive size 30 – she has personal experience of diets and their devastating effect on size and psyche. With a background in nursing, psychology and business coaching, coupled with a lifetime of dieting, she developed and successfully used a series of models and tools that enhance weight loss motivation. Now over 5 dress sizes smaller and having sustained her weight loss for several years, Chrissie continues her passionate drive to change the mindsets of people away from a ‘Scarcity’ dieting mindset – where food is demonised as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ – to an ‘Abundance’ mindset where mind, body and spirit work hand in hand with food and nature.
A focus is now being placed very firmly away from dieting and onto healthy eating. However, for most people who have spent years playing the dieting game, this is not such an easy transition to make.
After years of thought processes around calories, points, ‘good’ food/’bad’ food and shed loads of guilt, the process of healthy eating may still revolve around this destructive mindset. Even with healthy eating it is still so easy to fall into the trap of food restricting which inevitably leads to craving and overeating. (Read more articles about weight loss the non-diet way at http://www.lifeshapers.co.uk towards the bottom of the page)
The problem that we face is not one of dieting but of the mindset that accompanies it. Studies are now showing that we are 3 times more likely to be obese if we diet than if we had never dieted. This is down to the weight cycling (yo-yo dieting) that occurs when we rebel against our mindset, which is telling us ‘no you can’t’, or ‘I really shouldn’t.’
The key is to get rid of these destructive thought processes and to…
1. Acknowledge that all food is good when eaten in the right balance to suit your body.
2. Focus on what your body is telling you about the effect different foods have on you.
3. Build up a visual in your mind of how awful certain foods make you feel after you have eaten them.
4. Build up another picture of how great and full of vitality you feel after eating the foods that suit your body.
Now you are ready for the final step in developing a new ‘Conscious Eating’ skill. Whenever you are getting hungry and thinking about your next meal, consider carefully what you want to eat. Bring back to mind the effect that different foods have on your body and psyche. Tell yourself that you are free to eat whatever you want, after first considering it’s effect on your body. (For some more 'Conscious Eating' tips go to: http://www.lifeshapers.co.uk/consciouseating.aspx )
By making the visualisations strong enough you will find that most of the time you will chose those foods that suit you best. When, on the occasion, you do chose something that reacts negatively with your body…
· Bloated and uncomfortable
· Bad indigestion and heartburn
· Sluggish and lacking in energy
· Joint or muscle pains
· Skin complaints
· Bowel problems
· Depression
accept that you enjoyed it in the moment of eating it, tell yourself you can have it again any time and most importantly focus on have bad it made you feel some time later.
That way you will quickly and easily get back on track with your healthy eating. So keep on practicing the skills of ‘Conscious Eating’ and change your mindset away from the dieting game.
