So a couple of days have passed..
..and at first the Gilian advice was working like a charm: However, I feel like I’m slowly obsessing about food again, for whatever reason.
In her book, she has a chapter for ‘troubleshooting´’..
Here are some notes from that one:
x Addictive eating, instead of allevating stress, like we think it will, just makes it worse. Both addictive eating and stress make our body more alkaline, and therefore worsen our immune system.
x The difference in between our level of interest in genuine solutions versus overeating could be seen as a measure of your addiction to food.
x You can only break down the conditioned response in the circumstances where it occurs,, so it’s only when your’e stressed that you can make real changes. Don’t avoid it (like you could!) and remember it’s always your choice to feed and reinforce your adiction or manage your addictive desiire. Then you cluld discover new strategies that really help you to relax.
Here come something I struggle a lot with: Your addictive thinking llatches on the best reason to snack on biscuits and coffee, not the best reason for a ling walk.
x If you fear naturak hunger you’ll continue to overeat.Your body isn’t harmed by eelung hungry sometimes. it’s only your addictive thinking that objects, especially that state of deprivation you create when you deny choice. Some amount of hunger is actually beneficial to you, digestion is one of the most demanding tasks for your body, so natural hunger just means your body is relaxed and not overworked. Your body feels lighter and has more energy and vitality, and your mind is more alert.
x Natural hunger should be a pleasant and even enjoyable sensation which just comes and goes.There should be nothing uncomfortable about it. it may be hard to believe at first, but in time, as you work through your addictive thinking,, you can actually enjoy feeling some natural hunger every day.
Pleasure and satisfaction: You pursue immediate plesure, and in doing so value it more highly than your health and self-esteem.
As an overeater, you confuse the appropriate pleasure and satisfaction everybdoy gets from eting with the satisfaction if your addictive desire.
xDeprivation: ‘I don’t want to miss out’, ‘I deserve it etc’. This type of justification indicat4es that you have not yet fully owned a real sense of choice about eating. This is very coommon. It´s something you can change and when you do it makes a big difference. Whenever you notice yourself using this type of justification, the key is to remind yourself that you’ve got choces and what the consequences of different choices are. These justifications focus on the food and your desire for that fod, not the whoe picture. The whole picture would include the consequences to your health, energy and selföesteem. Only when you feel free to choose whatever you want, can you just as easily believe: ‘i donÆt want to miss your on good health’, I deserve more energy’, adn ‘My reward is my sense of achieement and peace of mind. The only difference in making those choices is that your addictice desire doesn’t get satisfied.
x As for missing out: There is an extraordinary amount of fabulous food that you will never get to eat. Once you accept that, it’s easier to let go
xThe ‘I’ll start again tomorrow’ team: Whenever this comes up. remind yourself that you don’t have to do anything. Let that sink in by picturing your life without making any changes at all.
xNutrition and amounts of eating: The way to improve your immune system, slow down the aging process and live a long and healthier life is to choose a wide variety of foods of the hihest possible nutritional value - an not eat too much.
Doing badly: ‘I already blew it so I might as well keep eating’.
You might find it difficult to regain control once you’ve given it up, but stopping at any point is always an improvement. Simply set a time, preferably one between one and four hours ahead.
x False identity: Watch out especially for all those ways you describe yourself as inadequate. Your biggest obstavle to taking control of your eating could be your lack of your ability to do t.
conclusion: In many ways, overeating doesn’t really helo you cope with your life at alll. If anything, it makes life more difficult for you. It makes life more difficult because consuming too much processed and refined food cntrivutes to poor nutrition, and this is iften and underlying cause of depression, stress and low energy.
Addicitve eating also makes life more difficult because of the tndency to indentify emotions as a hunger and nothing else. This inevitably results in some degree o emotional dishonesty, such as when you pretend you’re happy when really you’re angry. In choosing to acept your addicitive hunger your choose to sober up.
Most of all, addictive eating makes life more difficult because of the effect it has on your self-esteem. There’s no doubt that the stronger our self-esteem, the better you will be able to cope with whatever it is life throws at you.
xAfter eating: Your lethargic and bloated or fulll of energy and vitality? The change in these states might be quite subtle, but by all means keep noticing them and the food associated with them
