As busy people, women often find themselves in the unlucky position of wearing many different hats. Whether it’s soccer mom, PTA president, or CEO, or all, you try to please everyone only to neglect yourself in the end.
Women run the world, despite how it may seem to the contrary, and as a result, they’re commonly overworked, overstressed, and overweight. The added pressure to maintain their looks at the same time, in particular their weight, causes their self-confidence to take a beating every time they peek in the mirror which usually makes them run to the nearest 24 Hour Fitness out of desperation.
But if all it took to lose weight was simply to start exercising more and eating less, wouldn’t you only need to do it once to never have to do it again?
The truth behind losing weight doesn’t simply lie in counting calories and doubling the amount of exercise you do. That only goes so far, and for most women, it’s not too pleasurable. If what you’ve tried before isn't working now, then it’s clearly time for a new approach, one that recognizes that weight loss is more of an inside job than an outside one.
Emotions underlie a large sector of your eating strategy, but without addressing the core emotional drivers that impact you every time you eat, it’s nearly impossible to put an end to erratic eating behaviors. While physiology does play a role, losing weight doesn't have to be so complicated once you understand what they are. Thyroid disorders, exhausted adrenals and hormonal imbalances are some of the most common culprits behind excess weight when it comes to physiological imbalances, and yet there are plenty of women who still lose weight despite the fact they suffer from these conditions.
How is that? It's because of how they think!
Before stepping foot in a gym, the first step to losing weight is to align your emotions with your desires and figure out when you’re eating from an emotional place or from a place of actual physical hunger. Too often we take a backward approach to dropping weight by focusing on what we need to do on the outside instead of what we need to do on the inside, and a surefire way to fail at weight loss is to neglect the very reasons why you’re eating in the first place.
Success with anything related to your body begins with finding the root cause, so it only makes sense that if you’re eating to self-soothe after a stressful day, or because you suffered a massive break up or divorce, and you don’t know how else to feel better, you eat. [bctt tweet=”It’s likely when you were a kid, you were taught to eat to avoid feelings that didn’t feel good, and you’re still doing it as an adult.”]
Reversing negative emotional eating patterns begins by reprogramming them, the ones that were ingrained in you as a toddler or teen. Most times you don’t even realize what you’re doing when you do it because your mind is already programmed to respond to thought-provoking stimuli in a certain way. For example, without even being aware of it, you might turn to food if you get upset or angry, or hoard food and isolate yourself if your feelings get hurt, or overeat if you really can’t stand your job.
It’s unlikely these patterns will just simply reverse themselves on their own either. You have to first come to a place of awareness around them to even recognize them for what they are, and then work to reverse them so that they no longer dominate your relationship with food. When you’re triggered, they’re your go-to to save yourself from feelings you’d really rather not feel, or placate you when you can’t find your way out of a troubling situation otherwise.
Having once served you when didn’t know a healthier way to manage your emotions, it’s critical to uproot them and reverse them else they’ll continue to undermine any weight loss strategy you attempt.
Eating less and exercising more works on the principle of thermodynamics, a noraml bodily function that applies to everyone, however who has time to spend countless hours in the gym when they’re busy running a company or mom to five kids? Not many, nor do many want to. As women, it’s just not part of our makeup to be so rough with ourselves. We like slow, pampered approaches to life and the feminine energy, as with everything – including weight loss – prefers relaxation.
If your body is resistant to working out, or doesn’t like certain so-called “healthy” foods, or refuses to quit craving cookies, then don’t force it. It’s simply trying to communicate with you and it will keep gaining weight, or hold on to it, until it gets your attention long enough to get you to listen to it, which could be weeks, months or many times, years depending on your reaction time. We get so caught up in life that we tend to ignore ourselves, in particular our bodies, and before you know it you’ve gained 20 pounds or more.
The truth, is you’ll keep producing the same results until you stop trying to do it your way and start doing it how your body wants to, not how your doctor, nutritionist or personal trainer wants you to.
Your body is amazingly intelligent and will guide you much better than anyone else who thinks they know you better, you just have to trust it and know how to tune in to it so that when it's talking, you listen. Being tired doesn’t mean you’re lazy, it means you need rest, and being hungry doesn’t mean you’re weak, it means you need food, but too often we push through our feelings so that we can get on to the next thing that needs to get done instead of tuning in to the vital message it's trying to convey to you.
To determine if you’re an emotional overeater, ask yourself 3 questions when you sit down to eat:
1) Who’s eating? Is it the kid in you who needs comfort, or the teen who’s trying to rebel, or even the adult who’s feeling out of control? It may not be you that's hungry but another side of you that hasn't fully developed when it comes to eating but is still in control a lot of the time.
2) Why are you eating? Did your boss get irate over a missed deadline? Are you bored, lonely or upset? Is it really food you want or something else, perhaps love, attention or satisfaction?
3) What does my body want? Your gut is amazingly intelligent and when you’re tuned in to it, it will tell you exactly what it wants. It may want to sing, or go for a walk, or smell fresh cut flowers, instead of food. Getting in tune with your body will create a gigantic shift in your awareness around what to eat when and will even help with weight loss.
When you’re on a different vibe than your body, your results will be equally incongruent, yet shifting to a place of knowing what to eat and when will end years of frustrating diet plans and tiring workouts that leave you confused and discouraged. Mastering your emotions is key to finding a lasting solution to your weight that will end your search for the next fad diet and ensure a healthy relationship with food forever no matter how busy or confusing life gets.
Leave your comments below so we can talk about it, and I have one more thing that will help you! It's my free eCourse on how to stop emotional eating, which you can access simply by clicking the box below.
Enjoy!
Angela Minelli
Angela Minelli is an author, speaker and founder of Angela Minelli International, a heart-based global business serving purpose-driven everyday women and entrepreneurs whose self-image and weight issues are inhibiting their confidence and blocking them from pursuing their life’s passion.
Angela's joy is in taking a stand for women who are living less than ideal lives, stopped by fear and doubt, which prevents them from stepping into their innate power and delivering their God-given genius to the world. Her coaching programs and products are designed for women with busy lifestyles yet allow for powerful transformation to take place within a small segment of time.
As a natural health practitioner and digestive health specialist, Angela specializes in helping people overcome weight and energy issues through holistic, non-invasive protocols that address the root cause of their conditions, including adrenal fatigue, candida, thyroid disorders, and more.
Explore the ideals that are the cornerstone of her work at angelaminelli.com.