Weight Loss - Change Your Mindset

Emotional Eating - How a Positive Mindset Can Support Weight Loss

When it comes to weight loss, there’s one crucial part that many diet programs miss – changing your mindset.

You see, when people go on diets, they are not addressing the emotional triggers that are behind their weight issues.

Even if they try different diet programs or become exercise fanatics, as soon as another emotional crisis arises, the weight creeps back up. 

The beliefs you have about yourself are preventing you from feeling good about yourself leading to a range of eating issues like emotional eating.

Emotional eating is a way of distracting you from feeling painful emotions such as anger, fear, loneliness, shame or sadness. Many of these emotions may have been first triggered as a child. 

The emotional causes behind the eating problems need to be resolved if you want to gain control of your eating habits.

You can break the cycle of emotional eating by changing your mindset and creating lifestyle habits that support your emotional wellbeing .

How do we become addicted to food?

If you are prone to emotional eating, you tend to crave junk food and feel out of control around food. You use food to suppress negative emotions.

Food fills that emotional void inside you. It makes you feel better instantly, but the effects are not long-lasting. 

The feelings or thoughts that triggered the eating behaviour remain, so you need more food to fill the growing void inside you.

Compulsive eaters get caught in a vicious cycle of eating to fix their emotional problems and then feeling guilty for overeating. 

Emotional hunger can’t be satisfied with food. You will only end up feeling worse – because of all the extra calories you consumed.

Emotional and physical hunger

If you regularly use food to deal with your feelings, it can be tricky to know if your hunger is emotional or physical. Yet, they are quite different.

Emotional hunger makes you crave junk foods or sugary snacks. The desire for food is in your mind rather than in your stomach. After eating, you end up feeling regret, guilt or shame. 

Physical hunger, on the other hand, gives your body clear signals, like hunger pangs in the stomach, to tell you that you are hungry. You eat until you are full and are less likely to feel guilty afterwards. 

What are the triggers?

Recent studies show that the average American has gained up to 16 pounds since the lockdown started. It seems that people are using food to relieve stress, anxiety or boredom. 

You can put a stop to emotional eating by becoming more aware of the triggers. What feelings make you want to reach out for comfort food? 

Stress is a major trigger for emotional eating. When under stress, your body produces high levels of the stress hormone cortisol. You crave salty, sweet and fried foods, which provide instant pleasure.

Negative self-talk is a destructive habit related to bingeing. It leads to a cycle of emotional eating to distract you from feeling bad about yourself. But it only makes you feel worst because now you feel guilt or shame.

Food could be a way to keep you busy when you are bored - to fill the void of emptiness or lack of purpose.

Emotional eating can also be triggered by childhood habits or social influences – such as families or friends that encouraged you to overeat when you were younger. 

Emotional eating diary

One way to keep track of your emotional triggers is with a diary. Any time you reach out for comfort food, write down any feelings or events that triggered it. What caused you to eat? How did you feel before and after you ate? 

Before long, you may begin to see an emotional eating pattern. You may recognise that certain people or situations trigger emotional eating. When you become aware of the triggers, you can find better ways to cope with the emotions. 

How to stop emotional eating

Awareness is the first step to healing. When you are aware of the triggers, you have the power to make a choice.

Next time you feel the urge to reach out for comfort food, pause for five minutes. What are you feeling? What can you do to soothe yourself or express the emotion in a healthier way?

Go for a walk, call a friend, spend time out in nature, or listen to your favourite webcast. 

Meditation can be highly effective in helping you to stop overeating. Just ten minutes of meditation can reduce your stress levels and influence your eating habits. An added bonus is that it will have a positive effect on all other areas of your life as well.

Creative activities also help to distract you from eating. Take up a creative hobby - like photography, crafts or painting.

As you begin to use your willpower to cut out compulsive eating habits, it becomes easier to stop. 

Create healthy lifestyle habits

Change your eating habits by replacing high-calorie foods with a low-calorie alternative to satisfy your cravings. Sip on a slimming herbal tea, which can also help calm you down.  Raw vegetable juices or protein non-dairy smoothies can energise you instantly. If you want to chew, munch on raw vegetables or fruit. Replace all processed foods with natural food choices. 

Exercise is the best mood enhancer. Even just ten minutes a day of exercise can lift your mood and improve your stress levels. 

When you don’t get enough sleep, your body craves sugary foods for snacks. Your food cravings reduce when you get plenty of rest.

If you can learn to express your feelings in more positive ways, it will improve your relationship with yourself and others. 

Hypnosis can support you to change your negative self-beliefs about you or your body image.  It can also help you to create the lifestyle changes you need to break free from emotional eating patterns.

When you take responsibility for your health, from the inside out, you can completely transform the way you look and feel.

If you would like to know how hypnosis can help you on your weight loss journey, contact me at evaburbury@bigpond.com.

Conscious Living

Conscious living can help you maintain high vibrational feelings to create the life you want.

Are you living consciously or unconsciously? Conscious living is about taking back control over your life and maintaining high vibrational feelings, no matter what is happening around you.

When you are living unconsciously, you are easily affected by what is happening in the outside world. If something bad happens, you feel angry or sad. 

Your moods can switch instantly, depending on your unconscious thoughts, many of which you are unaware of.  You get distracted easily or have a tendency to get caught up in other people’s dramas.

Freedom is when you can detach from the outside world and generate the thoughts you want. Power comes from knowing that you can create high vibrational thoughts - no matter what is happening around you. How do you do that? 

These six tips will help you cultivate the tools you need to bounce back quickly into a high vibrational state.

1. Become a master of your emotions. When negative thoughts are running your unconscious mind, you feel low in energy - without knowing why. Become aware of your negative beliefs and replace them with positive ones. Repeat positive affirmations, do self hypnosis, meditate, focus on self love. Do whatever it is that brings you joy and lifts your mood.

2. Develop the art of patience and compassion -with yourself and those you interact with. Realise that when someone is unkind to you, it has nothing to do with you. They are projecting their past wounds onto you. Speak up for yourself and set up strong boundaries. Surround yourself with people who have your back. 

3. Focus on solutions not the problem. Complaining brings your vibration down. It is disempowering and puts you in the victim role. Hold a higher vision. Know that everything is working in divine timing for the highest good of all. When you learn to become resilient, you bounce back quickly. 

4. Embrace change. You may have had a difficult childhood and are afraid to change. Tell yourself repeatedly that you are safe. Trust God and your guides to lead you to the best solution. 

5. Work on your life purpose. We all came here for a purpose. Even if you don’t know what it is, keep doing what brings you joy and it will reveal itself to you in divine timing.

6. Establish daily practices. Develop the skill of self –discipline. Without discipline, you become easily distracted and overwhelmed. Your health suffers and clutter builds up. Self-discipline can help you achieve more. The simple act of getting up earlier and having a daily ritual can make a powerful difference in your life. 

Conscious living is an essential life skill that can be mastered by anyone. 

If you would like to know how hypnosis can help you create the life you want, contact evaburbury@bigpond.com.

Alkalise Your Body

Alkalise your body to protect yourself from COVID 

Are you looking for an effective way to protect your body against COVID and other nasty viruses? 

Viruses and bacteria thrive in an acidic environment. If your body is in an acidic state, you are at greater risk of getting sick. 

Alkalising your body is an effective way to reduce your risk and safeguard your health. 

When your body’s natural pH balance is slightly alkaline, a pH of 7 or above, you feel healthy and energised. You not only decrease your chances of getting sick, but it will lessen the severity of your symptoms, if you should fall ill. 

“An alkaline body can absorb up to 20 times more oxygen than an acidic body” according to Dr Otto Warburg, a Nobel Prize Winner for his work on respiratory enzymes and cancer. 

Your body’s PH will tell you if your body’s fluids are more alkaline or acidic. You can measure your body’s pH balance by testing your saliva with pH paper, which you can get from a health food shop. 

Acidity in the body also leads to weight gain, teeth and gum problems, pain and inflammation issues. So you will be better off in the long run if your body is more alkaline. 

These tips should help transform your body quickly from an acid to alkaline state. 

1. Diet

Your diet should consist of 80 per cent alkaline forming foods and 20 per cent acidic forming foods. 

Some of the best alkaline foods are fruits, vegetables, herbs, herbal teas, seeds, green juices and lemons.  Spirulina, chlorella, apple cider vinegar and aloe-vera juice are alkaline super-foods that can boost your levels quickly. 

Reduce your animal proteins, wheat, dairy and refined and processed sugars, which are acidifying. Alcohol, coffee, tea and tobacco are also acidic in nature. 

When you wake up, make your first drink a lemon tea. Drink herbal teas, green juices and alkalising spring water to keep you alkalised throughout the day. 

2. Breathing

Breathing has an effect on your body’s pH balance. Deep breathing is more alkalising for your body. When you breathe shallowly, carbon dioxide is trapped in your blood, which creates a more highly acidic system. 

Stress creates a more acidic body. When you are under stress, you produce cortisol hormones, which create toxins in your blood, making you more acidic. Taking deep breaths puts oxygen into your system, flushes out carbon dioxide and reduces the acid levels in your body.

Try deep breathing for five minutes a day to alkalise your body . When you inhale, your tummy inflates and when you exhale, the opposite happens.  Start with a deep inhale of 4 seconds, hold for four seconds and exhale for 6 seconds..

3. Positive thoughts

Keep your emotions calm and relaxed by maintaining a positive mindset.  Smiling and hugging can also help induce a more positive, relaxed state.  

4. Relaxation

Relaxing activities like yoga, meditation or exercise help reduce the effects of stress on your body and create a more alkaline environment in your system.  

If you would like to know more about how you can maintain a positive mindset with hypnosis or PSYCH-K, book a free 20 minute discovery call with Eva at evaburbury@bigpond.com. Or Click here