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.
The problem with human nature is that it is far too easy for many of us to perpetuate the habits that create pain in our life. Take comfort eating for example, we all know that it creates momentary pleasure but long-term pain.
However, we almost always focus our attention on the short term pleasure factors associated with eating for comfort. We conveniently ignore the pain that follows.
This ability to ignore reality keeps us trapped in a cycle of unhappiness. Here the pain is just not felt enough to make us change our habits permanently. That is because in the moment of our cravings we switch off our fear and pain factors and only focus on the momentary pleasure the food will bring.
One way round this problem, that can help you break your cycle of inappropriate eating, is to place your focus on the pain that comfort eating brings. The fact is, we will do more to avoid pain than we will to seek pleasure, so let’s examine the pain that comfort eating brings…
· Increased weight
· Depression
· Fear of ill health
· Feelings of failure
· Feelings of being unloved and unlovable
· Feelings of shame and guilt
· Increased self-loathing Eventually when we do switch our focus to these well known pains, what we usually do is ruminate on them. We think about them at great length and then try to solve the problem by more thinking. Thinking about what we have done or even the reasons why, will not solve the problem. All it does is take us on a downward spiral of negative emotions and unhappiness. The fact is, no amount of thinking about our past actions will aid us in our quest to prevent our comfort eating. What is required comes from a very different set of habits and skills. These are the skills of habit change… 1. When thinking or reaching out for comfort food switch your thoughts to the pain and unhappiness it will create. 2. Feel the pain and the unhappiness it creates. 3. Now bring your thoughts into the present moment using the ‘Mindfulness’ technique of focussing your attention on your breath for a few minutes.
5. Now focus your mind again on the pain and unhappiness that the comfort eating brings in its aftermath. 6. Finally, consider what loving action you can take to overcome the stresses that are making you reach out for food. NOW TAKE ACTION AND REPLACE YOUR COMFORT EATING WITH COMFORT LOVING!
THIS IS THE TRAP!
4. Keep bringing your attention back to your in and out breaths as your mind wanders. (Don’t fight this as it is quite normal for your mind to wander)
