The real reasons you keep going back to food, leading to eating sabotage.
After years researching this area, I’ve identified six key blocks and barriers that keep taking women back to the food. These blocks happen outside of your conscious awareness.
They’re often hidden to you… It’s like the iceberg analogy. When you diet, you’re only dealing with 10% of your conscious and logical mind. But when you emotionally eat, it’s actually happening under the surface. It’s a part of you that is otherwise submerged, happening at a subconscious level.
The first block is uncomfortable feelings.
Sitting with these uncomfortable feelings, you feel all your feelings in your body. You may be unaware and disconnected from your body. You may feel very comfortable with all your thinking, planning, doing and achieving. But when your feelings are a bit unknown, foreign or scary, you’re getting in first with food. Anytime you’re emotionally eating, you’re stuffing down, repressing and suppressing something. If you’re not processing uncomfortable feelings in a different way, eating sabotage happens.
The second block is all or nothing thinking.
You’re either dieting and following the rules, or you’re binging, emotionally eating. Eating anything and everything in sight. You’re a success or a failure, you’ve been good or you’ve been bad. Going back and forth, back and forth, dealing with these extremes leads to eating sabotage. If you’re in control, it doesn’t last for that long. It’s not sustainable. It’s only a matter of time until we end up being out of control with food at some stage. The eating sabotage and the yo-yo with the food and the weight starts. When we stay here, it actually leads to weight gain as well. You don’t feel good about yourself, it strips away at your self-worth and confidence.
The third block is eating saboteurs.
You have a combination of all four of these eating saboteurs.
The most common one: “Stuff you, eat it, it doesn’t matter anyway.”
The perfectionist:
The critical, fault finding version of yourself. “If I can’t be perfect, or don’t look a certain way, I’ll eat it anyway.”
The victim:
“Why me? Why can’t I eat like a normal person? Why do I have to deal with this? It’s so unfair.”
The minimizer:
Trying to protect yourself and keep yourself safe. It wants you to feel good and comfortable. “Come on, you deserve the treat, you’ve had a hard day, eat it.” You have a predominant one from these four saboteurs. One can actually derail your eating and lead to eating sabotage.
The fourth block is limiting beliefs.
You have all these limiting beliefs at the subconscious level. The two most common ones are: “I’m not good enough.” “I don’t deserve to have it all, or I don’t deserve to be slim.” “I don’t deserve to be too attractive or too sexy.” You will create the external events to mirror how you feel about yourself. You look for evidence to prove yourself right. If you don’t feel good enough about yourself, you’re going to keep eating. You will keep the weight on, to prove that you’re not good enough. If you process these, they won’t lead you to eating sabotage.
The fifth block is weight as protection.
Are you holding on to excess weight because it’s safe? There’s a reason why you’re holding on to the excess weight and not wanting to let it go. Processing these is very important. Maybe if you were in a smaller body, you’d feel vulnerable. Maybe you don’t know yourself in a smaller body. Your voice is being in a larger body. It’s unsafe to be a smaller body if weight is protection to you.
The sixth and final block is our two fears: The fear of failure and fear of success.
Fear of failure:
“Nothing’s going to work for me. I’m destined to be big and eat like this.” All the doubts: You’re going to stay big for the rest of your life. You might lose weight in the short term, but it’s a matter of time till it comes back on. So why bother trying anything? That perpetuates the sabotage.
Fear of success:
“What if it does work? What if I do make changes with my eating? What if I do lose the weight? It’s a bit scary. I’m going to have to make changes. It’s comfortable to keep the weight on. It’s protecting me in some way.” These 6 blocks are happening outside of your conscious awareness. Which one might be one of your key blocks? You may have a combination of these.
Want to rewire your brain around food in just 15 minutes a day for 7 days? Join my 7 Day Emotional Eating Challenge! Click here to join:
https://georgiebeames.com/gain-food-freedom
Eating Sabotage from Georgie Beames on Vimeo.