Have you ever seen the film, Bridget Jones’ Diary?
In it, the heroine splits up with her boyfriend, and then does something that most of us are all too familiar with. She huddles up on the sofa, and eats her way through an entire carton of ice cream to gain comfort from her emotional upset.
The comedy value comes mainly from the fact that many of us will recognise the compulsion to reach for comfort foods at times of stress, anxiety, depression or sadness, as an in-built response to emotional upheaval.
I often work with people who admit that their relationship with food is highly determined by their state of mind, in terms of the triggers that prompt overeating.
When we are faced with challenging times in our work or home lives, it’s almost instinctive to seek ways to comfort ourselves, and food is one of the most accessible, simple and rewarding ways of doing just that.
Often, we can crave sweet items or foods with high fat content, as they bring instant gratification and can distract us from what is going on in our lives.
Experiences that shape our attachment to food
People can often have a complex relationship with food.
Things that happened when we were young can sometimes have ongoing long-term effects on us; for example, when parents demand that we finish everything off on our plates, this habit leads us to carry on eating even as adults, regardless of whether we are satisfied or not, as it’s an ingrained part of our psyche.
Similarly, people who had certain foods restricted, or have been on a strict diet, will compensate after the diet stops by reaching for the foods that were previously ‘banned’.
I’ve worked with so many individuals who feel as if their weight problem is down to the negative emotional connotations which they have with food. Throughout childhood, food is often used as both a punishment and a reward, and this approach tends to leave some complicated emotional attachments in people as they turn in to adults and begin to explore their own free will to make choices about what they eat.
Gaining control of emotional eating
All this leads to a common situation; the desire to comfort eat as a response to emotional upheaval.
Although this may seem like an unconscious habit, it’s actually really possible to change your approach and stop yourself from reaching for that tin of biscuits or tub of ice cream when things get tough in your everyday life. The good news about emotional eating is that with just a few small steps, you can change your relationship with food permanently, eradicating the response to emotional challenges that leaves you feeling guilty, too full, and annoyed with yourself!
Using weight loss hypnosis to replace negative food associations
Weight loss hypnosis is a truly effective way of changing your instinctive responses to emotional eating. By getting to the very heart of the issue; your emotions, it works by replacing those negative associations which link food and feelings, instead replacing them with really proactive, positive measures which give food its real context once again, as something which we enjoy, and need to eat to survive and be healthy.
Weight loss hypnosis enables people who have been trapped in a cycle of emotional overeating to free themselves of the triggers, breaking the habit and leaving the individual feeling in control, positive, and much more able to manage their weight loss programme and future success.
If you’d like to know more about my weight loss hypnosis approach for banishing emotional eating, and feel that this condition is standing between you and the weight loss goals you’ve always dreamed of, get in touch and I’ll be happy to work with you!
