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.
Does it take you ages to get back on track when you have broken your diet or healthy eating plan? Do you beat yourself up because your willpower has been lacking? Do you feel a failure and convince yourself that it is not worth even trying to get back to your diet plan or healthy eating regime?
These are certainly behaviours that the dieting game has programmed into us, all because of the unhealthy relationship that food restricting creates. For over 30 years researchers have proved that food restricting, even in people with no weight or size issues, leads to binge eating and weight gain in most people.
I concede that after years of dieting, it is not easy to break the guilt trip brought on by a period of overindulgence, on the foods that do not suit our body best. However, it is made so much easier when we alter the way we view the situation…
Ø Look back at the period of overindulgence and focus on what you ate that you really enjoyed. Allow yourself the enjoyment of food.
Ø Remind yourself that no food is bad but some foods suit your body better than others. Allow yourself the occasional enjoyment of the foods that do not work well for you.
Ø Consider whether you overate and if so think about how it spoilt the overall enjoyment of the food. Remind yourself that no food is restricted, only eaten in a balance to suit your body.
Ø Now plan how you will create a mind and body connection, before you eat, that will enable you to stop when you are just full.
Ø Congratulate yourself on having created a learning experience out of your overindulgence. Ø Remind yourself that past actions cannot be changed but can affect the future if you dwell on them with guilt and shame.
Ø Let go of these negative emotions as they only raise your stress levels and lead back into more inappropriate eating.
Ø Take action to reduce any stress in your life and so eliminate the need for comfort eating
Ø Focus on NOW. Switch on your mind/body connection and take action to get back on track with your Conscious Eating Skills. It is actually the negativity of our thoughts and emotions that holds us trapped, for periods of time, in patterns of unhealthy eating. Guilt and shame are massive demotivators. It’s therefore no wonder we have such difficulty in re-starting our healthy eating or diet plans once we have ‘broken’ them. Accepting that we are only human and so will overindulge from time to time is a vital part of the process. Reducing the amount of times we overindulge is a major key to sustainable weight loss. 
By changing the way you view the whole situation of overeating you make life far less of a struggle and so reduce your stress levels. Being more loving and caring to yourself, whilst at the same time resetting your positive rules around food and ‘Conscious Eating’, you have no need to rebel and continue your unhealthy eating patterns.
