What I learned about the mind/body connection and spirituality in losing weight in 2010 (Part I)

This is the area that I believe is the biggest challenge for most people in their weight loss efforts – it sure is for me anyway.

PART ONE – THE MIND/BODY CONNECTION
Today I am going to talk about the mind/body connection, as I call it. Or I should say the lack of connection – for me anyway. You probably know what I am talking about. You are sitting in front of the television eating popcorn and next thing you know you ate the whole bowl and you have a stomach ache. Or better yet you are sitting on the couch and you just finished eating what you think was a bowl of your favorite ice cream, bag of chips (and you don’t even like chips), and a glass or two of wine. You aren’t even quite sure what happened. There is just an empty bowl, an empty bag and an empty glass. Pick your poison – whatever your favorite binge food or drink is. Yes. We are talking about binging and emotional eating today.

Emotional eating - I learned that emotional eating can ruin a week of eating healthy and hours of exercise in a few minutes. I learned this because I did it numerous times throughout the last year. As I looked back on my blog, I can see exactly what set me off into what I oftentimes called a funk. It wasn’t always the same thing, but the key here is how you deal with it. Which, obviously, I am not expert at this yet or I’d be at my ideal weight already. LOL! I found that I eat when I am sad, frustrated, hurt, anxious, and the list goes on and on. I found that I needed to be aware of my triggers and realize I was eating or drinking because I was feeling some uncomfortable emotion. I found that once I could recognize the emotions, as emotions not hunger then I could choose to deal with them. It took me awhile to get to this point – a year to be exact! LOL! Seriously, I think I just got it!

Be Aware - What I learned during the last year is that it is a matter of recognizing why you are eating. Are you hungry? If yes, then eat (something healthy) by all means. But, what if you are in front of the refrigerator looking for food, and you ask yourself “Am I hungry?” and the answer is “I don’t feel hungry PHYSICALLY,” then you are probably emotionally eating. This is putting it very simply. For me it is a matter of catching myself before I eat. Stopping and taking a moment to have my mind connect with my body. Which is sometimes easier said than done! Sometimes I would just say “Okay fine I am emotionally eating, but ($*#)%_% it I am going to eat anyway.” But, that was the first step for me in realizing that I was eating because I was mad, or frustrated or hurt or…whatever. The next step is stopping to figure out what the emotion is and why you are feeling it. A lot of the times it was just something simple and once I thought it through I was over it - other times like I said I’d just say “$^&&*^ it I’m eating and drinking anyway!” Not the best response. I am improving on this every day, but it has been a process for me.

Self Respect/Self Love/Self Esteem – Whatever you call it. You have to get it! You have to have it! Or that is what I have found. Your mind has to love your body! During my journey, I learned that the more I am feeling good about myself the better I eat – the number of times I emotionally eat diminishes. So, I think the key is to love yourself as you are today – a hard thing to do when you want to lose weight, right? I think getting to this point, is when the weight will begin to literally fall off. And, thank goodness - I think I am finally there – after a year of learning, searching, and growing.

So, that is it in a nutshell - these are the mind/body connection things that I learned on my journey. I’m sure I will think of more to share, but these are the main ones. Tomorrow I will talk about what I think is the key to success in releasing weight and in everything in life. WOW! That sounds pretty lofty, doesn’t it?