Why People Fight For Their Right to NOT Lose Weight!

Many people who are overweight, feel the pressure to lose weight from outside influences, but fight for their right not to do so, why?  Is it ignorance because they don’t know what the repercussions of their weight will be on healthcare and life expectancy?    Or is it that they aren’t self aware enough to evaluate the cost of their weight as it relates to; their self-esteem, their self-image and the effects it is having on themselves, others, and their relationships?

If it is ignorance, then for these rare few there is but an awareness of discontentment, and that discontentment is pushed deep into the recesses of their mind. It is usually not ignorance that has someone fighting to stay overweight, but protection. It is common for overweight people to hide behind a defensive veil, aggressively standing up for their right to be themselves and to be accepted by others for who they are.  Watch out if any of these loved ones suggested losing weight or a healthier lifestyle to these people. It is unfortunate that it is not clearer to these people that any change that their love ones are suggesting comes from wanting the best for them.   It is not non-acceptance that drives a loved one to want the person they care about to be healthier, be more confident and live a fuller more rewarding life… but love.

This defensive veil is their protection,  it is the outer shell that hides their true feelings.   Take the veil and draw it back and you come face to face with a person that wants to change, and who in fact struggles with accepting and loving themselves.   But, with an inability to know exactly how to change, a  self-protecting mechanism kicks in and they stand vehemently up for their right to be any weight they choose and that they should be loved and accepted as they are.

Some use weight as the ultimate protection, a way to push others away.  Some use it specifically to push away opposite sex or the interests of others.  There is no threat of rejection if you don’t make yourself available to being rejected.  By staying overweight and unattractive to others they protect themselves from others.  It is not unusual for people in unhappy marriages to keep their spouses at bay by holding on to excess weight, for them it is easier to push their husband or wife away with how they look then by working through the relationship problems.

It might have become apparent, that being overweight is a selfish thing that affects everyone, it is also a thing that can be manipulated and can be used to push others away. Regardless of whether someone is defensive because they are hurting inside and wish terribly that they could lose the weight, or if they feel that way but have learned to use their weight for their own manipulation and protection, it is very sad.  People should never fail to realize that the love and acceptance they fight for from others is not what they want.  That love and acceptance is and always will be there from the people who love them… but this will never take away the pain they feel inside.

The love and acceptance they really desire, the one that can take away all the pain is not from any of the outside sources they look to, but is from within themselves. The second they take responsibility for their feelings, their attitude and their self-esteem they will be on their way.  They will stop looking to others for acceptance and start taking the steps necessary to create the love and acceptance they so very much need from themselves.

It is only when we love and accept ourselves does one’s relationships with others soar to new heights and does our own self-mastery begin to blossom!

The Key to Achieving Your Health Goals

Sitting up straight or lying down, close your eyes for a moment and imagine what you would feel like, if you had your ideal body and perfect health. Really take a few moments to let yourself imagine this. Let go of your current self, your present self-image, health and body... and imagine the new you.

Imagine yourself with toned arms, flat 6-pack abs and legs and butt to die-for.

What would you do with all that extra energy, how would you dress differently, how would you feel about yourself?

Experience the confidence you would have, how your self-esteem would soar and how others would perceive your attractiveness and confidence! Imagine the limitlessness to all the activities you could participate in with your healthy, fit body. Imagine an evening of feeling sexy, sexually confident and attractive with your significant other. How would that affect your relationship or your ability to attract your ideal soul mate? Envision your perfect body and the way it would make you feel! Think of it like this: This vision is the “authentic” you – the person you have always wanted to be with the body and health that you have always known you should have!

Do you ever say to yourself, “If I just lost the weight, got healthy and took care of myself, then I would feel like […]”

That is the person you should be …the True or “authentic” You.

Now, open your eyes and realize where your health truly is. How much weight could you stand to lose or how much farther do you have to go before you have the lean, flat stomach of your dreams? Take a look at the harsh reality of what your body has become and consider the effect it has had on your self-esteem and self-image. Think about how your poor body image has negatively impacted your life.

Has your confidence become less than it could be?

Are you less sexually confident and is your sense of attractiveness diminished?

Do you feel great in a swimsuit or revealing outfit or do you hide from your mate or from yourself?

This is an excerpt from 'Mindset for Weight Loss' by Michael Mountain. The answers to these questions and more can be found by opting in to the free diet in the right hand sidebar.

How to Maintain Weight

There is so much discussion on how to lose weight that the question on how to maintain weight is grossly ignored.  Yet, if you were to look strictly at the statistics of the number of people who lost weight and kept it off, it is a little disheartening. 

Approximately 95-97% of all people will fail to maintain their weight after achieving their weight loss goals.  So indeed this is an important topic of discussion.

Here is a generalized way to understand the difference between weight loss and weight maintenance. Weight loss is 75% psychology and 25% mechanics - learning what is healthy nutritious food and eating it in amounts that lead to consistent weight loss, as well as exercising or not in a way that works for you. Maintaining weight is 100% psychology because you already know what you should eat and in what amounts.  There is no new information to know in regards to exercise, diet or nutrition unless you are just furthering your education.  But, it is not necessary for maintaining your weight.  

Unless…

…if your diet was so extreme that you find yourself without a working knowledge on what is healthy and how much you should be eating, in other words you are ill-equipped to begin living health as a lifestyle.   It would benefit you to look into continued information on diet and nutrition.     This is why so many diets out there make no sense and have such a high percentage of their clients gaining the weight back…they are too extreme and have them eating ridiculous types and incredibly little amounts of food, amazingly many of these are found in hospitals or are doctor supervised!

Moving forward, regardless of the diet you used to lose the weight,  it would be inaccurate thinking if your idea for maintaining your weight was to quit on your diet completely.  To go back to the very habits that caused the weight gain in the first place and attempt to control how much you eat is a recipe for disaster…you might as well pull out your “big clothes” and start banging your head against a wall right now. What is necessary for a while is keeping your health and weight in your present mind consciousness.  For how long… for as long as it takes for your new healthy lifestyle to move into your unconscious mind.  The second it does, that is when the entire system will run itself.  That is correct, when all of the new healthy patterns; what you eat, when you eat, how much you eat, and daily exercise have gone from conscious disciplined thought to become ingrained habits in your unconscious mind, that is when you can relax. 

If you have not learned how to accelerate this process then you may have to forever run yourself through checks and balances.   On the other hand if you learn some key strategies that accelerates the formation of new unconscious habits, freedom from policing yourself can be yours very fast,  learning these inner-strength strategies will lead to easy permanent weight management.

 Until then you have got to be aware of yourself and the priority of health in your life.  Take the time to create a process to monitor your weight, your exercise and your food choices.  It’s as easy as… in the morning; weigh or take a look at yourself in the mirror, plan your days meals and what exercise you will do in advanced, and in the evening re-evaluate your follow through.

About:  Michael Mountain is a transformational author on health, weight loss & personal growth and is featured on Amazon.com. He is the author of the Ultimate Fat Loss Solution Diet which is available presently free of charge at www.michael-mountain.com.   He is also the author of Mindset for Weight Loss transformational program - a revolutionary step-by-step program designed to provide the “inner-strength strategies” to take any diet and make it effective for permanent weight loss.  This program allowed him to end his own personal 20 year struggle with weight and poor health!  You can sign up to receive his blog updates on weight loss and motivation at www.michael-mountain.com

Habits vs. Willpower: the 10,000x Rule

Your bad habits are 10,000 times stronger than your desire or will power!

Yes, 10,000 times.

But, here is the good news!

The key to permanent weight loss is using your subconscious mind, literally tapping into this immense power, by creating new habits.

But wait - before you start creating new habits - there is more. You also may have certain "BELIEFS" that you "bought into" at some point in your life. These beliefs, too, can literally get in the way of you ever achieving permanent weight loss.

For example, if you have failed on previous weight loss attempts you may have a strong belief that you can’t lose the weight.

You may have looked at yourself so many times in the mirror that your internal dialogue changed from "I need to lose some weight" to " I am fat" or "I am a fat person".

Worse - someone, usually someone who’s opinion you value (a parent or significant other), has told you that "you are FAT" or worse "you will always be fat, that’s just who you are" and you believed them.

I have even met people who have created associations of comfort and emotional support to food from their parents, who in return label their kids as fat, even though it's really their design. Let me elaborate...

Imagine being fed a lifetime of junk; unlimited ice cream, potato chips, fatty foods with not a vegetable to be seen. You sit down with the people you love, your siblings and parents, and share good times while eating all this junk. Even when your friends come over, your mother lays it on thick with ice cream, cakes and cookies, and you feel all this sense of love. But, as soon as your friends go home, your mother looks at you, disgusted and says, "You’re fat! How come you can’t be skinny like your friends?"

Talk about mixed messages and head games!

As you can see, these situations were created by your parents, but there is zero benefit of blaming them and living in the past, other than to recognize how these things came about.


The above is an excerpt from Mindset for Weight Loss by Michael Mountain. It is currently available on amazon.

Your Past Does Not Equal Your Future!

The key is to…..

….change your perspective, start looking at the past and the present as a reference for guided improvement, look at the future as something that you create.  You have a choice to do and become anything you choose when you start realizing that you can create your life!  

Nelson Mandela after being wrongly incarcerated for over 25 years could of come out of prison an angry man, hell bent on exacting revenge upon his captors.  But instead he chose to create his future and to find good in all human beings, even the ones who put him in prison.  Of course when you can foster a philosophy like that in such a situation, you are destined for greatness.   Upon his release form prison, he became the president of South Africa and an inspirational leader for all humanity.  To guide his thoughts and vision towards creating his dream future, he often read a poem entitled Invictus, the last two lines of that poem read….  “ I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”  He chose his beliefs and created his future!

Achieving permanent weight loss begins with changing your beliefs.  Adopt beliefs that provide you with the opportunity for success.  Believe that “Your Past does not Equal your Future.”
The answers that came from that question; the direction of study and learning that blossomed from asking the right question, created the Mindset for Weight Loss Transformational program, a solution that you can model to create your own permanent lifestyle change! 
I realized that asking myself “why can’t I lose the weight,” was not going to give me the answers.  So instead I asked myself “what has to happen, what do I need to change in order to reach my goal of permanent weight loss?.
The next step in finding the solution was to ask myself the right question.
As for myself, I failed seven times to change my weight and my health permanently over a 20-year period!  I had gotten to the point of giving up, but then I decided to choose this belief that my past does not equal my future, and as a result I was able to take the first step in finding a solution. 
Thomas Edison failed 9,999 times before he figured out how to make the light bulb work.  If he had stopped trying because he believed the past equaled the future and any future attempt would end in yet another failure, you and I would still be using candles.  He had empowering beliefs!
I recommend adopting the belief that “the past does not equal the future” as a great place to start!
While it is good to look at the past as an opportunity to learn from your previous experiences, in fact I have come to believe that all of my past weight loss failures and frustrations were actually laying the foundation for the understanding that has created the new level of love, health and fitness, I now enjoy, it should not get turned into a predictor of failure for any weight loss attempt on-going or in the future.
Many people who are trying to lose weight and create a new and healthy future for themselves struggle with dis-empowering beliefs.  One of these beliefs as it relates to dieting and weight loss is that “I have not been able to do it in the past, so why will this time be any different?” 

Want Motivation While on Your Diet - Throw Out The Scale!

People who are on a diet continually look for ways to stay motivated.  One of the most common and self–destructive ways that is used both for accountability and motivation is to get on the scale daily or every other day.  Although it seems like a good way to measure progress, it couldn’t be farther from the truth, this is what this article will be focusing on.  But, first here is a leading question.

Do you want to be successful?

 Do you want to have a stress free experience with weight loss or are you into frustration and obsessing over every fluctuation in your weight? Your weight can change day to day based upon many variables, the smallest of which being your weight. The scale literally creates the opportunity for you to become demoralized and sabotage your weight loss efforts each and every day. Each and every day you step on a scale you create the anxiety surrounding success or failure based upon the numbers. Just so you know, stress creates cortisol and cortisol is a hormone that increases the amount of fat in your belly…so how does getting stressed every time you approach the scale help? It doesn't, it helps you gain weight!

The scale also has you evaluating your health, self-image, how you look and feel, based solely on what the scale says. In the blink of an eye you can go from looking at yourself in the mirror, thinking “wow, I am really looking leaner, I am wearing clothes that I have not been able to get into for years. I feel good and even a little sexy….let’s go see what that scale says” POW you're two pounds heavier and now you feel like crap!  In a second your thoughts shift to, "What’s the point, I give up?"  Where is your motivation now?

Here is another example of how the scale doesn’t create a clear picture of your body composition.  Do you know that every year as you get older you lose 1 pound of muscle and gain 1 pound of fat?

As a result, many people look at the scale each year and inaccurately feel that because their weight has not changed, that their health and body has not changed either.  Yet they are weaker and fatter every year.

The scale is toxic for people who are trying to lose weight if you obsess on the daily fluctuations that the scale tells you. The problem is that the scale doesn’t take into consideration muscle increases, water retention, menstrual cycles, body fat changes, etc.   A simple evening meal that has more salt in it could change the scale 2-3 pounds the following morning due to water weight and destroy your motivation in the process.  Weighing yourself first thing in the morning can be off as much as 5-7 pounds compared to the rest of the day.

The Scale is NOT your friend!

You love it when it tells you what you want to hear and hate it when it tells you otherwise.  A number should not dictate your self-esteem or effect your motivation. If you are to be successful in weight loss, you must remove things that would create a negative emotional response that could lead to binge eating or self-sabotage! How you look, how you feel, your diminishing waistline, your level of cardiovascular fitness, your body fat measurement, your resting heart rate, blood pressure, a full blood panel and how your clothes fit; these are indicators for health and weight loss..   The scale should only be used in conjunction with evaluating all these other indicators.

So, throw out your scale or at least put it away! Do yourself a favor, if you must weigh yourself do it only once or twice a month.   You have a better chance for success, if you always create a weight loss environment that promotes positive feedback and makes it easy to stay motivated.

About:  Michael Mountain is a transformational author on health, weight loss & personal growth and is featured on Amazon.com. He is the author of the Ultimate Fat Loss Solution Diet which is available presently free of charge at http://www.michael-mountain.com/.   He is also the author of Mindset for Weight Loss transformational program - a revolutionary step-by-step program designed to provide the “inner-strength strategies” to take any diet and make it effective for

Diet and Weight Loss – Confused Yet!?

Don’t you get tired of all of the conflicting information out there about diet and weight loss? 

Some people recommend a low fat diet, some recommend low carb, some high protein, some high fiber, some cabbage soup and the folks that like to make things easy - boil it down to a simple formula; calories in vs. calories out i.e. eating less than your body burns each day.  Then, there is the question of when to eat; eat every 2-3 hours, eat the normal 3 times a day, fast during the day and eat one big dinner….I mean there are a never ending number of options.  Then there are the quick fix solutions like all the diet pills that are available or the option of lap bands, liposuction and other surgical procedures. 

It would appear that it would be easy for someone to get caught up in over- analysis paralysis…..or said differently, getting so confused with conflicting information that you end up doing nothing.  But, here is the reality from a different perspective: they are all right and they are all wrong. You can lose weight on any of these approaches and of course some are healthier than others, but what should also be pointed out is that they are all missing very important information.  None of these options address the entire problem and are therefore an incomplete solution.

Wouldn’t you agree that the problem is in part, knowing what food is healthy for your body, and the other part is knowing how to make and follow through with the healthy choice!
The problem in reality, is our own internal struggle with sticking with and following through with healthy choices, eating the right foods in the right amounts, for life.  We struggle with our own feelings, habits, desires, motivations and will power to not stray from the healthy food choices each and every time! 
The weight and health you have now is a result of all those struggles. If you don’t like what you see and you truly want to lose the weight permanently then you need more information, you must make some internal changes.

Unfortunately, all of the options listed above only address an option for physical change – diet, pills or surgery.  They might change how you look and feel temporarily but, none of these options will change you!
This is the number one reason that 95% of all people on a diet, taking a pill or after surgery fail to keep the weight off!  You haven’t changed on the inside. 

The only way for a fat loss and diet solution to truly be just that…a solution, is for that program to address all aspects.  Diet, nutrition and exercise information is the beginning, but most importantly that information must include; how to stay motivated, committed and focused on achieving your goal.   A true solution must show you how to break free of your negative beliefs, emotional relationships and unhealthy habits surrounding food!

A complete weight loss solution will self-empower you by providing not just the nutritional and dietary information you need but also the inner-strength strategies that lead to certain permanent weight loss! 

About:  Michael Mountain is a transformational author on health, weight loss & personal growth and is featured on Amazon.com. He is the author of the Ultimate Fat Loss Solution Diet which is available presently free of charge at http://www.michael-mountain.com/.   He is also the author of Mindset for Weight Loss transformational program - a revolutionary step-by-step program designed to provide the “inner-strength strategies” to take any diet and make it effective for permanent weight loss.  This program allowed him to end his own personal 20 year struggle with weight and poor health! 

The Power of Directing Your Feelings

Your thoughts along with your feelings create your actions. Your attitude can direct your thoughts and your feelings, just like your thoughts and feelings can create your attitude. So therefore it could be fair to say that your attitude is the key to creating your actions. But before we discuss that, we need to realize the relationship between actions and feelings. When I started evaluating myself and why I just couldn’t lose the weight, let alone have a 6-pack stomach... I looked at what it was that made me eat. Hunger, sure… but looking deeper than that, things became interesting.

I realized that I was like so many others. I linked food with emotions and feelings.
Much to my dismay and attempts at denying it, I had to admit to myself that I mostly ate for the wrong reasons. I ate when I was stressed, frustrated or unhappy. I even ate to deal with nervous energy or boredom.

If I was home frustrated and trying to escape my feelings by watching senseless, negative television… watch out! 2,000 to 3,000 calories of junk food could go down my throat in less than an hour's time!
I realize now that I had a food addiction. Something quite recently that Oprah admitted to suffering with herself.

In fact that is really the definition of addiction, isn’t it? Doing something -- drinking alcohol, smoking, taking drugs or eating -- in order to change an emotional state, to escape from a feeling, and/or life’s daily stressors. I was using food as a coping mechanism to feel better.

Do you ever do that?

This negative emotional connection with food, this powerful impulse to reach for unhealthy food, was a conditioned response and had to change, if I was ever going to release the shackles that bound me and reach my dream health or an overall better version of myself.

I also realized that these responses were conditioned responses, a reflexive response to stress or negative emotions. Emotions are normal and healthy, so I didn’t want to deny these feelings; but rather I could do things to prevent my disempowering responses, or in fact, change my responses. I could also start to exercise my "emotional muscle" and take control of the situations causing the stress.
So, I began to do things to change my negative relationships with food.

This is an excerpt from my book Mindset for Weight Loss which is available on Amazon.

Pleasure and Pain

Your desire to seek or experience PLEASURE and…
Your need to avoid or not experience PAIN.

These are things that bring us pleasure we are attracted to --- and things that cause us pain we try to avoid. Plain and simple. And almost all our daily decisions are based on these two simple needs. But, let’s clarify some important points beyond your initial thought that chocolate, pizza and ice cream give you pleasure….and… Exercise, lean chicken and broccoli give you pain. (LOL)

You see, it goes much deeper than that... In fact, YOU really didn't create your own likes and dislikes.
Mostly during childhood; your culture, family, friends, personal experiences, the media and advertisements directed what we have linked to pleasure.
And for clarity…
There is Short Term Pleasure and Long Term Pleasure
There is Short Term Pain and Long Term Pain
Pain is not always bad… for example, the pain of being overweight, unhealthy and wanting more has driven you to The Mindset for Weight Loss program and to finally losing the weight for good. So, that's good.
People who get healthy and stay healthy for a lifetime have associated pain with being OUT of shape. They have also linked pleasure with respecting their bodies, feeding it health, and exercising daily.
So that being said, we can, by choice, learn from others and change our behavior by changing what we LINK to pain and pleasure.
Here is an example using ice cream… Have you ever eaten a bowl of ice cream that brought you pleasure at the time, but as soon as you were finished, you felt Pain? Let me elaborate… Let's say that you ate the ice cream because of the immediate pleasure it gave you; not only did it taste good, but you had always been given ice cream as a reward or treat by your parents and you linked that feeling of reward, connection and love to ice cream anytime you ate it. Also, it lit up the taste buds in your mouth just like the advertisement said it would.
But after, it caused you pain because you knew that it would make you fat, you would feel bloated which in turn would make you feel unattractive… ultimately you had let yourself down. Now as a second option, have you ever chosen not to eat the ice cream?… which caused you some pain because you were denying yourself that immediate pleasure - But after the pangs for the ice cream go away, you feel great about yourself; you realize that you have taken one more step towards your goal, you feel more attractive and confident in yourself and are empowered because of your own self-discipline! Two similar scenarios with dramatically different actions and interpretations, right?

The above is an excerpt from my book Mindset for Weight Loss.  You can purchase the full book at http://tinyurl.com/7vbxkjo

How to Stop Emotional Eating

Human beings are always creating coping mechanisms, ways to deal with stress and emotions.  We create these patterns of coping to give us a temporary reprieve from the stress or negative emotion we are experiencing.

Some coping patterns are healthy, release the stress and help us to think clearly… to find a positive direction towards that which stressed us out or affected us emotionally.

Responding to a emotional trigger or stressful situation with some exercise is a healthy coping mechanism that will help foster a positive outcome.  It will….

• Release bottled up stress and anxiety.
• Relax you and calm you down.
• Make you feel good about yourself…this will help you to approach the situation with a positive outlook.
• Create a positive self-image that allows you to move forward.

On the other hand some ways to cope do not give us a clearer perspective but make us feel better at least for a very short period of time, some of these actually do more damage than good.

Emotional eating is an example of a coping mechanism that doesn’t serve us, in fact it falls into the same category of coping with drugs and alcohol. When you realize that, it might help you to recognize the importance of changing.

To take a stressful situation or negative emotion and start eating junk food to deal or cope  will do the following…

• Give you a momentary break from stress and anxiety, but does not get rid of it or release in anyway.
• It will make you fat and unhealthy.
• When you are done eating…all of the feelings return plus now you feel guilty for the food you just needlessly ate.  In essence, you have added to your stress!
• You now feel bad about yourself….this does not foster a positive approach to finding a solution to the trigger or stressful situation.
• This creates a negative self image and magnifies the problem so that it grows in your own mind.

There you have two different coping mechanisms with dramatically different impacts upon your psyche, self image and your ability to respond to the situation.

To understand how to use positive coping mechanisms in our lives instead of negative ones like emotional eating we need to discuss one more aspect to this powerful human response.

We live most moments in our lives habitually, meaning we do most things as a habit.   We have patterns of eating that are learned and become habits, this is true likewise for exercise.

Lean, fit people have a habit of eating healthy foods in reasonable amounts most of the time.  They prioritize exercise and fit it in whenever possible, habitually.

Overweight people do not. 

Likewise, any particular coping mechanism is a learned response that you go to habitually to deal with emotional stress or triggers.

In order to change your coping mechanism you need to first change your eating and exercise habits.  It is much more probable that someone who eats healthy and exercises daily will respond to a stressful or emotional situation with exercise.

But, even more than that….the methods that are used to change unhealthy, bad eating and exercise habits can then be used to change deeply ingrained coping mechanisms. 

So what really needs to happen to end emotional eating; is that someone who responds in this way needs to understand healthy foods and eating, best ways to exercise, be motivated to eat healthy and exercise, turn these into powerful learned habits and then use the same methods to retrain themselves to cope with emotional triggers in a positive way.

All this is very possible and in fact is easy once you know how. 

The Ultimate Fat Loss Solution (www.ultimatefatlosssolution.com/download) is your resource for learning the very best in healthy eating, accelerated weight loss, efficient exercise approaches, as well as habit and behavioral re-conditioning.  

Yours in health and weight loss,

Michael Mountain

I Can’t Stop? Understanding Binge Eating

Trying to prevent binge eating is a major struggle for many people trying to lose weight. There is nothing more self-esteem destroying and guilt creating than to eat healthy for a short period of time and then flip a switch in your brain and go crazy eating everything in sight.  For some the binge can be over in a single meal, but for others it can last for days!

 

What causes this unknown power that drives people to binge and sabotage their own weight loss efforts?

Well, there are physical reasons that cause people to binge as well as mental/emotional reasons….let’s discuss them both.

 

The number one contributor to binge eating from a physical stand point is hunger.  When you go on a diet you are eating less than your body is use to or wants. If the diet plan is poorly designed then you may be very hungry at times.   So in moments of weakness you finally relent to the hunger pangs.  But, before you beat yourself up for being weak, keep reading, because it gets a little more complicated than that.

People who have been overweight for a long period of time develop something called Leptin Resistance.  Leptin is a hormone in your fat cells that is released to tell your brain that you have eaten enough.  High sugar/carb diets or being chronically overweight create resistance to leptin so that no matter how much you eat….you still feel hungry.

Mental/emotional reasons for binge eating require that we understand ourselves at a deeper level.

Throughout the world an abundance of food is readily available. We can go to the cupboard or refrigerator (ice box) and grab something whenever we want it.  Likewise we can reach a drive thru, convenience store or fast food joint in very little time and eat for very little money.  Yet, this in of itself is not the problem because lean, fit people don’t binge eat.  So what is the problem?

 

Unfortunately, it is our own baggage…..or said differently it is our own emotional connection with food, our negative patterns of eating behavior and learned bad eating habits.  Now, that is a mouth full so let me explain.

 

We eat based upon patterns of behavior.  Through modeling (from parents, friends, and cultures), observing (patterning ourselves after others) and participating as well as linking food to stress, love and emotional comfort, we have created our own eating patterns or habits.

 

The problem is that in most cases these are bad eating habits.

 

Binge eating is a knee jerk response to either an emotional stressor or a trigger that initiated one of your negative patterns or bad habit.

 

You see these behaviors and patterns function like a bad recording that just keeps replaying itself over and over again.  Any emotional stressor, feeling or incident can trigger the recording to play or run and you will binge.

 

So, what can be done about it?

 

Two things:

 

1.  Eat foods that create a sense of fullness, that control changes in blood sugar and that repair leptin resistance and function!

2.  Learn how to replace negative eating patterns, emotional triggers and bad habits with empowering ones!

 

 

Yours in health and weight loss,

Michael Mountain