In this section: Re-setting your signalling system, A sensory experience and Who Says?
Now you are aware of the reasons why you overeat and are changing your eating behaviour away from being compulsive and habitual, you can move to a more natural and satisfying relationship with food.
By deciding when to eat in relation to your body’s needs and making the experience of eating pleasurable, you will make your relationship with food a natural one, resulting in you feeling and looking your best. Learning to adapt your natural eating behaviours to different situations will mean you remain comfortably in control of when you eat.
Re-setting your signalling system
Periods of dieting, restricting calorie intake and alternating with cycles of overeating and abusing your body’s natural hunger patterns will have interfered with your internal hunger signals. You may have gone for years without feeling physical hunger because you were too busy feeding your emotional hunger to allow yourself to become physically hungry. Or else you have starved yourself on diets and not fed your physical hunger - making your body think that it was being deprived of food, and so it held on to calories (energy) by way of storing fat - making you fat.
So you need to train yourself to eat only when you are physically hungry.
Action! 6: Deciding when to eat and when to stop
To begin with you might need to make a point of ‘tuning in’ to what’s happening inside your body in order to recognise when you are really
hungry. Do this every couple of hours and rate your hunger according to being:
Physical hunger will progress through these stages (unlike emotional hunger which would hit you at C or D and make you want to grab something straight away).
You should eat when you are at C so you are ready to eat but not so hungry that you make an unhealthy choice. The more regularly you practise this the quicker it will become natural to recognise real hunger and you won’t need to consciously ‘tune in’ after a little while.
Sometimes our bodies confuse the signals for thirst with the signals for hunger - especially if you are not used to reading the signals. Your ‘hunger’ might actually be thirst, so try drinking a glass of water regularly (about once an hour) so that your thirst doesn’t interfere with your hunger signals.
Drinking plenty of water is also a great way to help your system start working naturally again - it helps to flush out toxins and get your metabolism working more efficiently.
Of course when you start eating - when you are hungry - you have to remember to stop eating when you have satisfied that hunger.
Stop eating when you feel pleasantly full - not stuffed or uncomfortable. Learn to recognise the point at which you have physically had enough. Your body senses when you are full and sends you a signal to stop eating. You might have been so used to overriding this signal that you will have to train yourself to recognise it again.
If you eat slowly and focus on what you are eating you are more likely to recognise the signal that you are full. Notice how you feel as you eat, and at the point you start to enjoy your food less, stop eating. Give your brain time to let you know you are full by chewing slowly and paying attention to your meal.
It doesn’t matter if you leave food on your plate - you are not wasting it – it would be a waste if you ate it all and felt bad afterwards. Try using a smaller plate and dishing up less - you can always have more if you are still hungry - but it removes the temptation to ‘eat up’.
A sensory experience
You will have been used to eating because of the way it makes you feel rather than to enjoy the food for what it is - you would probably also have feelings of guilt afterwards coupled with the feelings that made you overeat in the first place. So now you are ready to move on to making when you eat a pleasurable experience - before, during and after.
When eating to satisfy an emotional need or habit you will not really have been noticing the taste of the food you were eating - just the feeling it gave you. Now you have broken that connection to emotion and habit you can focus on food as something pleasurable for its own sake. Make a promise to yourself that you will only eat what you find really pleasurable to eat.
If you have been dieting for years, having meal replacements or calorie-counting chances are you have compromised on the taste of your food. Pre-packaged ready meals and processed food are at best tasteless and mostly so laden with salt and artificial flavours that any natural tastes are completely camouflaged. To appreciate and enjoy food for what it is you need to taste it.
The artificial sweeteners and chemicals added to processed food are difficult for your body to break down and so the processes involved in breaking down fat and converting food to energy are diverted to deal with all the unnatural substances you are putting in your body. It follows then that artificial flavours and processed food make you fat - as well as unhealthy.
Case Study
Hazel, a mother of 3 had struggled with her weight for years and had reached the stage where she thought nothing would work for her. She lacked energy and was miserable. Just a few weeks after starting Inside-Out Weight Loss she had lost 11lbs and dropped 2 dress sizes.
She says “it’s completely changed my life; I eat what I want when I want and at long last have banished my ‘love-hate’ relationship with food - the guilt and self- loathing are in the past and that’s where they will stay!”
“With the program I completely eradicated my craving for chocolate, which was definitely a compulsive food for me, and now I haven’t eaten any for 6 months”
Action! 7: Make Eating a Great Experience
STOP eating diet, low fat, reduced calorie, artificially sweetened and processed food
Take pride in preparing natural, good food for yourself and family/ friends
Take time to enjoy and appreciate natural flavours - eat slowly and chew food well and deliberately
Eat what you truly find pleasurable - ask yourself before you eat -“do I want to eat this because I will enjoy the flavours, appearance and smell of it and appreciate every mouthful?”
Choose what you eat consciously (don’t eat because you are bored or because it’s ‘time’ to eat)
Focus on what you are eating - it’s difficult to monitor whether you are full or not if you are not giving your meal your full attention
Enjoy developing an interest in different and new foods, combining flavours and creating meals
RESPECT your body and it’s naturally balanced state with natural food and flavours. Your body will thank you by losing weight, filling you with energy, having clear skin and eyes, fighting off illness and achieving a general state of wellbeing.
Who Says?
Of course, you might still feel that despite changing your relationship with food - other peoples’ relationships with food may still impact on you. As I said in the introduction, food - the offering and receiving of - is highly symbolic and you might feel pressure to eat in particular circumstances when you are not physically hungry or would choose not to eat what is offered. Your response in these situations is something you can learn to manage comfortably.
Situations such as visiting friends, family occasions, BBQs, dinner parties, dining out or meeting friends for coffee can be tricky if you are the sort of person who feels it’s impolite to refuse an offer of dessert or cake or even an extra portion of potatoes. Restaurant portion sizes can be ridiculously huge, relatives might have baked you a cake especially, all your friends might be trying the new offerings at the coffee shop. All these things might present you with a dilemma - “do what others expect/want me to do” or “be true to myself and do what I really want”.
In reality your perceived notion of offending others is probably unfounded. With the possible exception of your granny who has baked you a cake it’s unlikely that anyone would insist on you eating something you don’t want to! People will generally admire you for making changes to your lifestyle and compliment you on looking great. Others may try to encourage you to eat to make themselves feel better - they might be envious of your new confidence and respect for yourself. You might also be surprised by how many other people refuse offers of food with no trouble at all - or the many other people in the coffee shop quite happy to drink coffee on its own without an accompanying cake or muffin. Or the slim people at the dinner party who quietly leave food on their plate and politely refuse dessert without anyone noticing or objecting. You can be one of those people too. But, of course, if you are physically hungry, or really fancy a piece of cheesecake - then eat! Just be sure to follow what your body is telling you and stop when it’s time to stop or you are no longer finding what you are eating pleasurable. You might start to find the portion sizes in restaurants off putting - it’s perfectly acceptable to ask for a small plate and put what you think is a reasonable portion on that and leave the rest or ask them to take it away. You are paying for it - but that doesn’t mean you have to eat it all. You are paying for a pleasurable experience so make sure it is!
Ensuring you are in a ‘resourceful state’ when you encounter any of these situations will make it easier for you to remain in control. If you feel that you are easily talked into things or still feel that ‘expectation’ towards you, then being able to pull on your resources of confidence and determination will be very useful.
Action! 8: Getting into a Resourceful State
Find a quiet spot and carry out the ‘getting yourself in the right state’ you use for focused thinking.
Bring to mind a time when you felt full of confidence and determination, when you were able to do exactly as you wanted to do and had that feeling of strength and power. Take your time to come up with the best example of this you can find in your experience. If you can’t think of a time, then you can think of someone who has those qualities, someone you admire, and think of how they would behave.
Let the picture of that time (or other person) develop, noticing everything about it, how you looked, how you spoke, how others responded to you, how it felt. Now make the picture bigger and brighter, make the sounds clearer and louder. If you can make something better in the picture, do it until it is perfect.
Now imagine stepping into that picture so you feel like you are actually there, seeing through your own eyes. Let yourself feel how it feels as you imagine the scene unfolding as if it is really happening - your feelings of confidence and determination grow and grow, making you feel powerful and in control. Now make a fist with your right hand and squeeze it tight as you let those feelings of confidence, determination and strength flood through you. Now release your fist, open your eyes for a moment and then close them again.
Now imagine a time and situation in the future where you might be faced with others’ expectations to eat more than you want. Look at the picture as if it is a freeze frame from a movie. You can see yourself and others - perhaps you can see someone offering you a dessert or a dish full of chips, or maybe you are standing at the buffet table with friends as they tell you “you have to try the triple chocolate fudge cream cake” (or whatever else they are tempting you with!).
Imagine stepping right into that picture, just as the movie starts to play again, and this time you are actually in there seeing the scene with your own eyes. As the movie starts to play squeeze your right fist again and allow those feelings of confidence, determination and strength flood through you as you see yourself politely refusing offers and leaving what you don’t want to eat. Feel how it feels to be in control and feel the admiration from others. Hear what you are saying and hear what others say to you - perhaps you are laughing at their insistence before they give in and accept your new way of being. Enjoy all those good feelings before you release your fist and open your eyes.
Any time you feel you need to be in a more resourceful state you can squeeze your fist and allow those feelings to come back.
Taking stock
This section focused on using practical tools for increasing your control around eating - allowing you to respond to your body in a natural and respectful way. It encouraged you to make eating a good experience with good food and the resources to eat only when and what you really want.
You can now add new suggestions to your daily focused thinking so that becoming tuned into your body’s naturally balanced state becomes unconscious.
Keep recording in your Food-Mood diary if you still find it useful and keep making entries in your journal to monitor your progress and success. Listen to the first recording again if you haven’t already.
In this section: Creating your future, Limiting Beliefs, Are you Congruent? and Dealing with set backs
The previous 2 sections set the important groundwork for you to make significant and lasting changes to how you relate to food. Now we need to move onto creating a future that includes your new lifestyle and makes your changes ‘sustainable, successful and satisfying’.
Creating your future
An important distinction to make is between setting goals and creating a future. Creating a future is an evolving process with successes and challenges along the way, and the future starts right now. Goals are something you set yourself to achieve at a specific point in the future - maybe weeks, months or years from now and once you achieve it - what then? Although goal setting may be useful in business or sport for example it doesn’t leave room for all the personal triumphs and progress you make every day when creating a healthy, happy lifestyle - one that you will want to stay with you for the rest of your life. So, everyday imagine yourself creating a new slimmer, healthier you - just like a sculptor creating a masterpiece work of art - bit by bit seeing it develop everyday and everyday being proud of what is created.
Two things you need to remember when thinking about creating your future are:
Make your future positive -think about the things you do want to happen and be, not what you don’t want.
You have all the resources you need within you to make great changes and have the life you want, so you can start it happening now.
Spend some time writing in your journal about the future you want. What specifically you want your life to be like and how you see yourself making the journey. What the impact will be on others and on all the things you do now and the new things you will do in the future.
Action! 9: The future that’s already there
Take some quiet time and close your eyes.
Imagine your life as a line with your past behind you and your future in front of you.
Now imagine you are floating above this line and can see your life below you.
See right into the future to the you that is celebrating your 90th birthday.
See the future you as having lived a life free from compulsive eating, free from self-doubt and criticism. The you that chose to change their life, leaving the old habits and unhealthy ways behind. See how healthy, happy and content you are.
Now float down into that future you so you feel you are right there, being you at that time. Take some time to see, hear and feel what is going on around you in this ideal future.
And now imagine that you are travelling back along your time line towards your present self. Stop each time you feel that you have something important to take from that moment - you don’t necessarily need to know what it is, just pause for a moment and gather the resources from various points in your future life that help you in creating the future you want.
When you arrive back to your present self, you can imagine a connection to that future you - perhaps a ribbon, thread, rope or anything you like in any size, colour and texture - something that connects you to the future you and guides you along the way to the future that is already there.
Limiting beliefs
Sometimes even though you know what is the best way forward for you and you can comfortably see what your best future will look and be like - you still have beliefs about yourself that hold you back. If you have spent years yo-yo dieting and abusing your body with poor food you might have a pretty low opinion about yourself. Hopefully you stopped that inner voice criticising and being unhelpful with the action in the first section (if it’s still there, go back and complete action 3 again until your internal voice is kind and encouraging). If you still believe that you don’t have what it takes to make changes that will last forever and result in a new, slim, healthy you - now is the time to change that belief.
Action! 10: Change your Self-Limiting Beliefs
In your journal write down all the negative beliefs about yourself e.g. “I won’t manage to sustain my weight loss because I always fail at everything eventually”
For each of your limiting beliefs imagine what it would be like if they were true and picture what your future would be like as a result.
Now imagine what that future would be like if the opposite of your belief was true e.g. “with the right approach and resources I make a success of everything I do”. Step into that picture in your mind and experience what it feels like with that new belief.
Now write down at least 4 examples from your life that disprove your limiting beliefs and break them down into what you are actually pretty good at. Now ask yourself if that original belief is really true
Beliefs can change throughout life - there are plenty of things that you used to believe that you now know not to be true (Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, that your parents knew the answer to everything, or that anyone over the age of 30 was old). You can think of your old self- limiting beliefs as something you used to believe but now know not to be true.
Are you congruent?
Are all parts of you working together in creating your future or is there a conflict between different parts of you? Is there one part of you that is fully committed and excited about making changes and another part that is holding back for some reason? Do you often say “yes - but. ” in answer to a question?
You have probably heard yourself saying at some point in your past “one part of me wants to but another part doesn’t”. On some level both parts want the same thing for you but perhaps the reticent part feels it is protecting you from hurt/harm/disappointment and therefore keeping you safe. The motivated part of you also wants safety, security and success for you but creates this in a different way. Although the parts seem to be in conflict they are actually working towards the same outcome and just need help ‘coming together’.
Addressing these parts of you as though they are separate will resolve any inner conflict that is stopping you being fully committed to the future you are creating for yourself. By moving these parts together the positive intentions will be focused in the same direction, to move you forward.
Action! 11: Resolving Inner Conflict
If you feel that there are parts of you in conflict, use this Action to resolve that conflict and integrate positive intentions.
Identify what it is that you want to move forward with and the reason for having difficulty. For example “I want to change the way I shop for and prepare food at home” but “It will be too difficult to change my routine and fit in new ways of doing things - my life is too busy”.
Now, from your witness position, imagine these 2 different ‘parts’ of you as though you could fit them in each hand. Imagine what they would look like, sound like and what they might say to you. Imagine what feelings are connected to each part. Put your hands, palm up in front of you and imagine seeing and feeling those parts in your hands.
Now ask each part what positive intention they have for you. In the example, the first part might have as its intention to find new, healthier, natural food that you would use to create new, tasty, satisfying meals with. The other part wants to keep things simple for you, not add stress to your already busy life by changing routine.
Keep asking each part what that positive intention achieves for you until you reach a level of agreement i.e. the first part in the example wants a healthy life for you which will get you comfort and happiness. The other part of you wants familiarity and order which ultimately also gets you comfort and happiness (there might be just a few or many steps before you reach agreement on the ultimate positive intention of each part).
From your witness position thank each part for its contribution and then ask them to move together to create a powerful combined part with the same ultimate positive intention for you.
As you do this allow your hands to move slowly together as you bring the parts together. When they meet, allow yourself to experience the feeling of the parts coming together in agreement and then pull your hands toward yourself to allow the new combined parts to integrate back into your body.
Note: You might find this easier to do in a light trance state so you can combine this Action with you focused thinking and ‘being in a relaxed state’. Do this Action for all the different conflicting ‘parts’ of you and streamline your positive intentions.
Few journeys are completed without any obstacles or challenges along the way and it would be unreasonable to expect that your weight loss journey will be entirely smooth. Unless you live in a bubble cut off from everything, then life, relationships, work and the world in general will all have an impact on you.
There are times and situations that are demanding. Friends and family who expect different things from you and perhaps a job that takes a lot of your energy and time. Many things can cause you stress and stress can cause you to compound limiting beliefs (or make up new ones) and seek comfort by feeding your emotions.
Dealing with stress quickly and effectively will release you from the feeling that you need to ‘cover it up’ or manage it with destructive behaviour. Often after you have managed your stress in a situation you can have more clarity of thought and determine what the issue really is - rather than allowing stress to ‘blow things out of proportion’ or for you to make up potentially catastrophic outcomes in your head that (most probably) will never happen.
Action! 12: Managing Stress Quickly and Easily
Practise this action a few times so that when you next encounter a situation that you find stressful and could potentially send you off track you know what to do to manage it.
Find a quiet spot (it doesn’t have to be anywhere special just a place where you can be alone for a few minutes). If possible sit down but you can do this standing up if necessary. Notice what is around you, what you can see, hear and feel and then close your eyes and notice what you can hear and feel. Allow your breathing to become even (don’t breath too deeply but just let it settle).
Notice any tenseness in your body and let it relax - starting from your head and neck (allow your tongue to go loose in your mouth), down your arms and body and then your legs, finishing with your feet and toes. Let all the tension go.
As your breathing becomes even, start breathing from your diaphragm (so you can feel your stomach expand as you breath in) and as you do so, keep your mind clear, let any thoughts go.
Imagine your stress or anxiety as a cloud or puff of smoke leaving your body and blowing away on the wind as you exhale.
As you inhale, imagine that a coloured or bright light spreads throughout your body -filling you up with a sense of calm and control, making you peaceful and strong, poised and resourceful.
Keep allowing that light to spread through you giving you all you need to deal with those stressful situations and the old anxious feelings to disappear in the breeze.
You are creating a new future and if you feel that you have let yourself down or gone off track at any point, it’s just part of the journey. An obstacle on the road doesn’t mean you stop and go back to the beginning, you find a way around it, you learn to deal with other similar obstacles and move on. Use the tools and techniques you have already learnt to deal with challenges and become stronger and more confident each time.
Action! 13: Focused Thinking
You can now add your connection to your future self to your focused thinking. Imagine the future you at the furthest point in the future having created a sustainable, satisfying and successful lifestyle. Then see yourself at various stages back from the future until now. Choose the image of you that you like the best - maybe it is you just a few months from now looking great, happy and full of vitality - or perhaps an older you settled and content with your life.
Make that image big, bright, colourful and vivid. You can bring this image to mind any time to remind you of what you are creating and it can pull you towards your future.
Keep suggesting to yourself the beliefs you now have in yourself and for your future
Finally, congratulate yourself for making such amazing changes!
Taking stock
You have come a long way since starting Inside-Out Weight loss: You have:
Become aware of your relationship with food, broken the emotional connection to food and developed new strategies to eliminate habitual eating.
Changed that internal voice from critical and abusive to kind and encouraging.
Learned to focus your thinking and use it regularly, along with the recording to make changes at an unconscious level.
Re-set your internal signalling system so you only eat when you are physically hungry and stop when you are full.
Started to respect your naturally balanced state so that you taste and appreciate real food and eat only what you find truly pleasurable to eat.
Learned to deal with the expectations of others and call upon a resourceful state.
Developed a clear idea of what you want your future to be and how to create it.
Dealt with limiting beliefs and inner conflict and have an effective strategy for managing stress.
Case Study
Yvonne ‘yo-yo’ dieted for years and felt her eating habits were out of control. After just one week using the Inside-Out program she noticed a huge difference in her relationship with food and her whole attitude towards eating became more relaxed without thinking or worrying about it. She was amazed at how easily the weight came off.
She says “over the past couple of months my weight has reduced drastically without me having to starve myself or eat unappealing diet foods. I don’t feel at all like I am dieting and actually hardly ever consciously think about food at all - a huge change for me!”
“I have dropped 2 dress sizes with the program already and get much more pleasure from seeing my clothes get looser and looser than I do from tucking into yet another chocolate bar”
Acknowledging and changing your relationship with food from the inside-out = sustainable, successful and satisfying weight loss
The next two Parts build on your progress so far and give you additional guidance for wellbeing and healthy weight loss, including how to deal with unhelpful food cravings and how to build motivation to exercise.