Last week I talked about recognizing emotional eating. When something happens at home or at the office that upsets you and you then reach for something to eat off your plan or you know that is not helping you – cookies, candy, chips, you name it. Anything to soothe you. Paying attention to what thoughts or feelings you had right before you ate foods off plan. Writing them down.
Now let’s talk about what you do after you figure out what your thoughts and feeling are. Now you want to use your brain to figure out how to turn around the situation.
So back to our situation where your husband criticizes what you cooked for dinner. You have asked him to please support you in your weight loss process and not only does he not support you, but he proceeds to eat cookies in front of you. You go and find the bag of candy you had stashed away before your started on your plan. What are your thoughts? Here is an example of working on your thoughts and feelings:
Circumstance (always neutral): Husband eating cookies in front of you
Thought: He shouldn’t do that in front of me.
Feeling: Angry
Action: Eat candy
Result: Don’t lose, maybe gain, guilt
See how your thoughts lead to your feeling, which drive your action, and then you get the result you don’t want?
Now, once you take a good look at why all this is happening, let’s look at how you can turn this situation around. The circumstance stays the same. But you come up with a new thought that you can believe that will change the feeling, action and result.
Circumstance: Husband eating cookies in front of you
New thought: Examples – He can do what he wants. I am committed to staying on my plan and losing this weight. (You come up with the thought that you can believe and repeat it often. You are literally changing your brain.)
Action: (What will you do? How will you react)?: Take a walk, leave the room, shrug and say that’s his problem, have some tea. Whatever works for you.
Result: Have pride in yourself, stay on plan, honor your commitment, lose weight
See how this works?
Now in my own example of making and eating chocolate chip cookies, even though I already had my joy eat for the week.
My new thought will be: I can make these cookies without having one.
Feeling: pride
Action: (or non-action) Do not eat a cookie
Result: Stay on plan, do not gain, keep my commitment
That being said, if it is a food that would be difficult to not eat, pick something else to do or make with your granddaughter. I might have made some cookies that did have gluten, so I wouldn’t be tempted to eat them. We also have a back-up plan of making homemade ice cream with coconut milk, bananas and dark chocolate chips. Find you own solution.
Can I help you work through why you are eating the things you don’t want to be eating and come up with solutions, so you can finally lose the weight and be done with the struggle? Send me an email at jane@janespringer.com and we’ll talk about it. I’d love to hear from you.
Jane Springer is a certified Life, Wellness and Style Coach who assists women in taking care of themselves, in body, mind and spirit. She coaches women who want to lose weight, avoid diabetes, and feel great. She also helps them thrive after divorce. She also helps them to clear their closets of old clothes and outdated attitudes, so they can shine and feel confident.