Feed your real hunger and lose weight

“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”
--Henry David Thoreau

I love that quote; it really speaks to human nature and how misguided we can be in our efforts to resolve a problem. So often with health issues we are doing what my acupuncturist calls “working too far downstream of the problem,” meaning we work on trying to fix the result of the health imbalance rather than what caused it. For people who are trying to lose weight this often means viewing weight as the problem rather than what it really is, a symptom of a problem.

People are usually overweight because something in their emotional lives is out of balance and it’s causing them to use food as a way of handling their feelings. Things like unhealed childhood wounds, unmet emotional needs, and unexpressed or suppressed emotions can cause us to try and stuff those feelings down with food as a way of managing them. Usually this happens when we do not have the knowledge or tools to handle our emotions in any other way.

So how do you fix this? Well, the answer to that question is a bit harder than “eat more vegetables and stop eating sugar.” While that might help, the real answer is to first stop pretending you are eating only when you are hungry. Stop trying to tell yourself, “If I could just have more self control then I would be thin.” It’s not about self-control, it’s about self-awareness.

Start by noticing when you are eating, not out of hunger but out of emotion. Notice when feelings of sadness, boredom or loneliness are what’s driving that trip to the cupboard and start finding other ways of handling those feelings, ways that don’t involve food. Create an action plan for when those feelings come over you so that you start to take real steps towards resolving that underlying issue rather than doing things that will just make you fat.

I suggest both short and long term solutions. In the short term things like:
-Going for a short walk
-calling a friend
-spending a few minutes with an inspirational book

The best option is to lovingly allowing yourself a few minutes to feel your feelings of sadness, loneliness or boredom without judgment and without trying to push those feelings aside with food. In a short time they will pass and you will feel better.

If you have unhealed past traumas, the long-term solution might be to seek the help of a good therapist who can help you bring closure to the ghosts of your past.

The most important thing you can do for yourself is to become more aware of the feelings and emotions that drive you to eat and work on helping yourself handle those emotions in a life-affirming way. When you do that, you really are striking at the root of your problems.