The pain of dieting ~ Seattle weight loss

In my Seattle weight loss hypnosis and Bainbridge Island weight loss hypnosis offices I frequently hear about the pain of dieting from potential weight loss clients. For me, food was my drug of choice and weight loss and dieting was a painful experience. When I learned hypnosis for weight loss, I was able to create a healthy relationship with myself and a healthy relationship with food. Letting go of weight means changing many beliefs about who we are. Learn weight loss hypnosis with Slender For Life™ and positive changes in your life.

The pain of dieting

There’s no getting around it—letting go of weight is apt to be a painful experience for those of us who used food as a drug. (Though using self-hypnosis techniques will make this journey easier, you are still apt to experience some emotional pain during the process.) In the past, when painful issues came up, we ate to numb out, to not feel, to feel what we wanted to feel or to fill a void. Marilyn put it this way: “I was trying to get in control of my emotional state by getting in control of my eating, rather than my emotions.” When food is no longer used for emotional purposes, our issues are in our face. We have the opportunity to do the healing work and leave the weight of the pain— and the pain of the weight—behind. For some, it’s just too painful, and they give up on the program and themselves and go back to selfmedicating with food.

Since we chowed down our first wooly mammoth around the campfire, food has been an ingredient of social, holiday and religious customs throughout the world. Every mother has used food to nurture her children. We gather for meals and break bread together. But today, our attention often shifts to the food, and we forget the people we are eating with.

At least twice each day going to and from my office, I walk past an ice cream store. I have never been inside, but I have spent time standing outside watching the customers. I have been fascinated watching slender people sit in groups of two or more, often with a small cup of ice cream and several spoons. They look at each other, they are engrossed in conversation, and their ice cream is melting. Next to them, the overweight customers devour large portions of ice cream with lots of toppings. They are usually alone. If they are with someone, there is little to no conversation, and they’re usually looking away from the person they’re with—and there is no danger their ice cream will melt.

Food should be pleasurable, it should taste good, it should be wonderfully presented and it should be fun. But too many of us are living to eat rather than eating to live. People today are suffering from mental, emotional and spiritual dis-eases of the heart, and often they’re using food to stimulate those parts of the brain that are meant for relationships–talking, flirting and just being together. If foods can work on the very parts of our brain that are designed for warmth, friendship and love, no wonder loneliness leads to overeating, drinking or drug use. A vicious cycle develops; the more weight you carry, the less likely you are to be active. The less active you are, the more isolated and lonely you become. A bowl of rockyroad ice cream becomes a quick and easy way of masking the loneliness.

One client wrote on her intake questionnaire that she loved having “parties in her mouth” and feared giving these up. Dis-eases of the heart come in all shapes, forms and disguises. Dieting is an uncomfortable experience in and of itself for most people, just as any change can be painful.

Then there are all the familiar rituals of food to reconsider. Stopping at Starbucks and getting the morning latte; indulging in that morning Krispy Kreme donut; lunch with friends at work; that trip for the Snickers bar in the afternoon; enjoying a glass of wine with cheese while preparing dinner; and the cookies late at night when everyone else is in bed and the house is finally quiet.

And few people want to be different from everyone else, so with 65 percent of us overweight, the norm is to eat as only kings and queens used to, which makes traditional dieting very hard to do. And then you add the physically addictive qualities of food to all the mental and emotional discomforts, and you can really have a tough road ahead.

It’s not uncommon to have clients come in to their first or second session angry. Often they verbalize they’re upset about the eating strategy, or they don’t like something about our introductory kit. Sometimes this anger starts as soon as they make the decision to start the program. From time to time I overhear new clients creating all kinds of scheduling obstacles with office personnel or even tell us that it’s up to us to call them the day before their sessions to remind them of their appointment. Well, guess what? Having to give up the way you’ve been eating can make you angry. Who wants to give up old eating habits? People want to eat what they want to eat, when they want to eat it. “Other people eat that way. Why can’t I?” they ask. It’s tough to be different when 65 percent of the American population is overweight.

So if losing weight is an uncomfortable experience, how do you imagine finally taking control? After losing 100 pounds, in the October 3, 2005 issue of Newsweek, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee revealed: “I knew that I was not living a healthy lifestyle, and I wanted to change it. But I’d lived this way a long time, and I didn’t think I could change. People have to believe that the benefits of healthy behavior outweigh—no pun intended—whatever benefits they perceive in overeating and under exercising.”

Yet letting go of weight is much more than just changing what and how much we eat. Letting go of weight means changing many beliefs about who we are, how we behave and what we look like. Letting go of weight means we can no longer hide. But there’s no escaping pain. Choosing to be overweight means choosing the different sorts of pain that go with that and accepting that pain is your normal, permanent state.

From Becoming Slender For Life, second edition,
page 63 – 65

With weight loss hypnosis you can make healthy eating fun and pleasurable. In fact, weight loss can be fun and pleasurable with hypnosis for weight loss. Are you ready to allow yourself the joy and success of achieving your healthy ideal weight? If so, Slender For Life™ can support you with hypnosis help to make those positive changes.

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