By Laurie Levin, Certified Health Coach
and Licensed HeartMath® Stress Reduction Trainer
Have you ever felt lonely or bored and eaten something when you’re not hungry? Have you felt frustrated, overwhelmed, anxious, then skipped meals and eaten unhealthy snacks instead? Have you been unhappy in a relationship and eaten until you were sick or insecure or rebellious, and hid food for those insecure and rebellious moments?
For those who are overweight or obese (now 70% of Americans), it is critical to your success in losing weight to focus on your emotional diet, along with your food diet. If you use food to cope with your feelings and attitudes, you can shift those unpleasant feelings to positive ones in seconds to minutes. From positive emotions come healthy choices, supporting you to stay on course with your health and weight goals (and life goals).
The secret to success in any area of life, including permanent weight loss and health, is managing your emotions. Emotional weight can drain you of needed energy to stick with and reach your goals. Experts say 75% of overeating is caused by emotional eating. That’s a serious problem given obesity is the mother and father of all disease. Just 20 pounds increases the risk of breast cancer by 50-70%. Being 40 pounds overweight increases the risk of heart attack by 360%; cancer by 80%, diabetes by 2000%; hypertension by 260%; and death by 110%!
Most people who have attempted to lose weight are familiar with yo-yo dieting. You do well, lose weight, only to get off track when life’s circumstances get tough again. You are smart, capable and yet months of efforts can be derailed by your feelings in a single moment. So let’s begin with the basics.
It is not the events in your life that cause stress.
You might want to read that statement again.
It is your response that creates the stressful outcome. I like to share the following equation: E+R=O, Event + Response=Outcome. Event=Too much work to get done before the holidays. Response= overwhelm and energy drain. Outcome= eat a bag of cookies or go to Starbucks for a high calorie caffeinated drink and the work doesn’t get done.
Now guilt sets in for consuming all the unhealthy calories and not getting the work done, which adds more stress. Stress also means cortisol, the stress hormone, is released by the adrenal glands. The body responds to cortisol by adding fat around the middle to reduce the stress hormone. On top of more fat, cortisol is like acid cascading our organs, so we get a double hit of unhealthy, health-threatening responses occurring.
Learning tools like Neutral, Quick Coherence and Freeze Frame (3 HeartMath® Stress Reduction Tools), allows you within seconds to minutes to shift from a negative feeling or attitude, like overwhelm, anxiety, anger or frustration to appreciation, compassion, love or care, anywhere, anyplace. As you shift the emotions, the adrenals release DHEA, the anti-stress, anti-aging hormone. Calm, peace, energy and your highest level of brain thinking are restored leaving you with the strength and energy to recommit to a goal and move closer to it, more productively and creatively.
With a little practice, old neural habits are dismantled and new ones, yielding positive outcomes are put in place. It doesn’t take long to down a can of soda, eat a bag of chips or say something you regret when you’re coming from a negative feeling. Learning to shift your feelings on demand to a positive emotion leaves you with a whole new ability to stick to your goals, regardless of life’s events. As you put a new neural habit in place, your positive response becomes your natural state and old stressors are reduced and eliminated.
The process is amazing and highly enjoyable as you learn to harness your heart power, aka heart intelligence, for follow through and success. Will power often fizzles while heart power supports you to stay the course, no matter what. A change of heart truly changes everything, and just might save your life.
Laurie has a new program called Stop Emotional Eating for Good. Call or email her for details.
HeartMath and Freeze-Frame are registered trademarks of the Institute of HeartMath. Quick Coherence is a registered trademark of Doc Childre.
Laurie Levin is a Certified Health Coach and Educator, Licensed HeartMath® Stress Reduction Trainer and Health Coach with Take Shape For Life. She offers a proven, well-researched approach to quick and safe weight loss of 15-25 lbs/month. Visit her site www.everydayhealthier.tsfl.com/hp to view the DVD, Achieving Optimal Health, at the bottom of the page for exciting news on permanent weight loss. Laurie also knows stress reduction and managing emotions are key components of optimal health and teaches the leading HeartMath® stress reduction tools and technology. Laurie has a Master’s Degree and has spent 25 years in Corporate America. She is a passionate speaker, health and peace advocate, writer and mother dedicated to supporting children, adults and organizations achieve optimal health, productivity and happiness. Call (636) 233-3330 or email laurie@laurielevinhealth.com for a free 30-minute health and weight consult.