The Life You Want Read online

  It’s natural to worry that you might slip back into old patterns, but put your energy into answering question 11: What makes you think you can overcome this problem?

  Questions 6, 7, and 8: Some people say that they’re divided: They want to stop emotional eating, but part of them doesn’t really want to change. Is this at all true for me? On a scale of 0 to 10 (with 0 being not ready at all and 10 being very ready), how ready am I to work on my emotional eating? What could I start doing today or tomorrow to overcome emotional eating (for instance, identify overeating triggers or try healthier coping mechanisms)?

  Questions 6 and 7 are about readiness to change. It’s okay if you’re not gung ho or don’t feel up to quitting emotional eating right away. As long as you acknowledge that it’s a serious concern and that you want to take steps toward resolving it, you’re on the right track. Question 8 gives you an opportunity to come up with a specific plan. For instance, you could look at your calendar this week and cross out the least important items so that you don’t feel so overscheduled and stressed. (Stress is a major trigger of emotional eating; more on this on page 65.) Later in this chapter, we’ll give you lots of strategy options; you’ll find something you can start doing right away.

  Questions 9, 12, and 13: What was my life like before I engaged in emotional eating? What are my hopes for the future if I am able to end emotional eating and/or lose some weight? How would my life be different if I stopped using food to cope and/or lost weight and adopted a healthier lifestyle?

  Here’s where you get to think about all the good things that will come out of changing your behavior. Most people can remember what a normal relationship with food felt like. For some of you, that might have been way back in childhood. Maybe you were at a healthier weight, had more energy, and weren’t distressed about emotional eating. Now think of how good you’re going to feel when emotional eating no longer has a grip on you. See yourself in your mind’s eye and get specific. For instance, if most of your emotional eating happens at night, how will your evenings be different? Think about how nice it’s going to feel to not be bloated and overly full, to no longer have to hide your secret habit from your friends or your spouse, to feel more fully in control of your life. Take the time to imagine yourself in this new place in life and savor the great feeling!

  KEEPING TABS ON YOUR FOOD INTAKE

  Yes, we’re going to recommend that you keep a food log as part of your Lifestyle Log (page 229), and before you roll your eyes or turn the page, let me tell you why it’s so important. Numerous studies show that keeping a food log—this one simple act alone— helps people to lose weight and to get back on track if their weight starts increasing. Why? For one, you tend to eat less when you know you have to write it down! Also, it’s hard to be in denial of your eating behavior when “3 scoops of ice cream” is sitting there in black and white in your log. Another way the log helps you eat better is by showing what you’re missing. For instance, if you see that you’re falling short on vegetables, you’re more apt to start adding them to your diet.

  It’s also an incredibly useful tool for overcoming emotional eating because it helps you link emotions to eating episodes. That’s why the Lifestyle Log has a “Situation/ Emotions” column: You can jot down what you’re feeling or what was happening before and after you ate. By writing down your meals and snacks and the circumstances surrounding them, you’ll get invaluable information on your particular triggers. Your log will help answer “How much am I eating? What time of day, in what place, and what emotional state am I in when I reach for the chips and candy? What are my emotional eating triggers?” You may discover that it’s after a draining conference call with a client that you step out for a Frappuccino and an oversized muffin. Or that at the tail end of a day packed with work and family duties, you take out the cookies. Or you might simply overeat whenever you’re alone or feeling lonely.

  The day-to-day triggers uncovered by your log, combined with insights into the root issues you’ll get from the rest of this chapter, should make it very clear why you’re eating for emotional reasons. This knowledge alone will make it easier to extract yourself from the hold of emotional eating.

  Before using the log, please read the instructions on pages 229–230. There you’ll learn how to fill out the Hunger Scale, a tool used to determine your hunger and fullness levels. In addition, you’ll learn why certain factors are included in the log and how many days you should record. Be sure to write down what you eat immediately after eating; people tend to underreport their food consumption by up to 40 percent if they wait to log their intake. You have a better chance of accuracy if you log right away.

  After completing the log, here’s what to look for:

  Eating when you’re not hungry. As explained on page 231, a 5 or higher on the Hunger Scale means that you’re not physically hungry. According to your log, how many meals or snacks did you begin when you were at a 5 to 10?

  What was going on when you ate without being physically hungry? Here’s where you start connecting the dots linking emotions, situations, and eating. For each meal or snack eaten at a 5 or above, look over at the “Situation/ Emotions” column. Where were you? Were you alone? What were you feeling? What happened earlier that day? Was it frustrating, too fast paced, demanding, or even too exciting?

  Hours of sleep. There’s a “Sleep” column in the log because lack of sleep can trigger weight gain and is tied to an increased risk for type 2 diabetes (the most prevalent type, which typically appears in adulthood and is often caused by being overweight). Adequate sleep is necessary for the proper balance of the hormones that affect appetite and fat storage, not to mention the fact that being tired may worsen depression or other mood disorders and sap your motivation. When this happens, you take the familiar path of least resistance: using food to cope.

  TACKLING YOUR ISSUES

  At this point, you may already have an idea as to why you turn to food to handle your emotions. Likewise, you may be aware of some of the obstacles standing in the way of changing your behavior, and to what degree you’re ready and willing to change. Here’s where we step in: We’re going to offer insight into the common barriers to overcoming emotional eating (you may recognize some of these from chapter 1, where we provided an overview of some of the most significant barriers; we’ll expand on these and also take a look at a few other barriers below). Even if you think one of the issues doesn’t pertain to you, read through it anyway. You might be surprised to see a little of yourself there.

  BARRIER: A FEELING OF UNWORTHINESS

  Feeling unworthy is one of the deepest and most pervasive forms of suffering in our culture, especially for women. Whether you feel inadequate, unlovable, flawed, or broken, it can be extremely tough to change your life because, in your mind, there’s no reason to—you simply don’t deserve better. You believe you’re not worthy of happiness or joy or love or acceptance. To soothe these feelings, or even to distract your attention from them, you might bury yourself in food. But this only starts a vicious cycle: You feel inadequate, so you eat. Food may help for a short time, but then you feel guilty and flawed, and you berate yourself for being so weak. This only sets you up for another bout of emotional eating.

  When it comes to feelings of unworthiness, I typically see two groups of people: those who are more or less aware that this is their issue and those who aren’t. For the latter group, it’s more of an insidious problem. They may say all the right things—“I deserve to be happy, I want to lose weight, and I’d like to live a healthy life”—but their actions suggest otherwise. For instance, even though you say you’d like to lose weight, do you find that you never have the time to shop for healthy foods or cook nutritious meals because you’re too busy driving your children around or taking care of household chores? Do you go on one diet after the next, get close to your goal, and then give up before you can achieve it? Do you consistently find yourself in a relationship that doesn’t bring you any joy or satisfaction, yet you nev
er do anything about it? Do you allow yourself to get stuck in jobs that are unfulfilling, even though you say you want to do something meaningful and rewarding with your life? Do your actions fail to reflect someone who genuinely values herself—in short, that you’re someone worthy of love, good health and fitness, great relationships, happiness, and a fulfilled life?

  These types of behaviors can be a signal that you do struggle with feelings of unworthiness. The underlying thought pattern is that you neither expect good things, nor believe that you deserve them. Consequently, you fail to make the time to go to the farmer’s market or cook healthful meals. You never try to work on or end an unhealthy relationship. You don’t make the effort to update your resume, search for a new job, or even ask yourself what you want to do. You may find excuses—“I’m just too busy” or “Now’s not the best time to be looking for a new job”—or perhaps you let other obligations interfere with your goals. Because you don’t really believe deep down that you’re worthy of happiness and love and good health, you’ll never act like you’re worthy.

  In either case, the key to turning things around is to pinpoint the cause of these feelings. Remember, overeating because of emotional reasons is not a character flaw, it’s a sign that you’re in pain. Figuring out the source of this pain and the resulting feelings of unworthiness is challenging, but it’s essential to changing them. Like many emotional problems we experience as adults, this sense of unworthiness probably has roots in your childhood. As children, we were like sponges, adopting many of the beliefs and emotional patterns of our parents, siblings, and friends. We weren’t able to think critically or question the core beliefs about ourselves that we internalized through our interactions with those closest to us. So, for example, if your parents were highly critical, set up many unattainable and conflicting expectations, or blamed you for their unhappiness, you may have ended up feeling like something was wrong with you—that you were not good enough, that you were flawed, and therefore unworthy of love and/ or success in life.

  SELF-WORTH BREEDS SUCCESS

  Bill Jenner had lost and regained hundreds of pounds during his fifty years, and he finally came to see me after he’d put back on the fifty pounds he’d lost during the past year. He knew that his problem maintaining was likely a result of his negative feelings about himself. But he needed help changing his core belief that he was unworthy and unlovable.

  In therapy, we talked a lot about Bill’s childhood. He shared that for as long as he could remember, his parents fought with each other. They never showed affection toward each other or toward Bill and his sister. And he never knew when a fight would break out. They could be enjoying a family dinner, and out of nowhere the shouting and the verbal abuse would begin. His father would accuse his mother of having affairs, and his mother would put his father down for not being more successful and producing the lifestyle he’d promised.

  Unfortunately, the anger between Bill’s parents would spill onto the kids. They would criticize Bill about his weight, academic problems, and lack of a social life. They often questioned his intelligence and told him that he would never make anything of himself. After years and years of this criticism, he began to internalize these messages, and as a result, Bill was overly critical of and easily disappointed in himself. He had a low tolerance for frustration, gave up easily, and binged on foods—and, later, as an adult, alcohol.

  During therapy, Bill came to some important realizations. First, he was able to see that there was nothing inherently wrong with him: All the criticisms he had endured for years really stemmed from his parents’ unhappiness in their marriage. He also discovered that the reason he hadn’t done well in school was not that he lacked intelligence but that he’d had an undiagnosed case of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. And finally, his anxiety and depression were a result of the stress at home, not simply a weakness or character flaw.

  I encouraged him to challenge the negative thinking that was sabotaging his progress. For example, when he told me that he ran a five-kilometer race before the local Fourth of July parade, I congratulated him. His response: “It wasn’t that great. I ran it a minute and a half slower than I usually do.”

  I told him that I wanted him to follow three steps whenever he found himself speaking or thinking negatively about himself.

  step 1: I wanted him to picture a stop sign and say “Stop!”

  step 2: I wanted him to imagine that someone he loved said that same negative thing about himself or herself. How would he challenge what they’d said? Bill didn’t hesitate before answering, “I would tell them it was awesome that they got up on the Fourth of July and ran a 5K.”

  step 3: I asked Bill to think of a positive affirming statement that he could say to himself to replace the original negative thought. He responded, “Good for you, Bill! Instead of sleeping in, you got up early and ran the 5K. Your body is getting stronger, and you’re looking better every day.”

  Over the months, Bill practiced challenging his distorted and negative thoughts using this three-step plan, and soon he found it easier to accept the positive things in his life. He allowed himself to get close to his wife and realized his strengths as a manager at work. He developed a healthy sense of entitlement and self-esteem. With weekly psychotherapy, the help of a nutritionist, and daily exercise, Bill was able to lose thirty pounds and keep it off. For the first time in his life, he felt more comfortable in his own skin and worthy of enjoying the good things in life.

  Although these core beliefs are often subconscious, they have incredible power over us. They become the filter through which we see, evaluate, and assign meaning to all the outside information we receive. They affect the way we think about ourselves, other people, the world, and the future.

  How can you tell if you carry these negative core beliefs about yourself? For some people, it will be fairly obvious. Are you quick to criticize yourself or focus on your flaws and failures? What are the words you use when you think of yourself: Unattractive? Incompetent? Stupid? but for the majority of people who aren’t aware, it will take a little more digging. In this case, you may have to pay particular attention to your behaviors in addition to your self-talk. For instance, as I said earlier, you may say, “I’m lovable, I’m worthy,” but then you expect—and put up with—people putting you down or feel that everyone’s needs should be met before yours. Also think about how you respond when others compliment you or point out your talents and skills. Do you tend to think they feel sorry for you and are just trying to be nice?

  If you answered yes to most of these questions, your core belief about yourself is likely that you are inadequate and unworthy of happiness—or that you simply can’t achieve it. Fortunately, core beliefs can be changed, although it does take work. To get started, try looking at all the pros and cons of allowing yourself to feel unworthy; doing so can give you the motivation to actually make these changes.

  In a journal or notebook, create three columns. Label the left-hand column “Pros,” then below it write down how your feelings of unworthiness are helping you or others around you. Most likely this will be a very short list, if you can come up with any positives at all. If you are able to think of any advantages—maybe your feelings of unworthiness allow you to feel safe and comfortable—jot them down.

  Title the middle column “Cons,” and make a list of who those feelings are hurting. You could list yourself (again), because being stuck in this place also drains your energy and prevents you from working on your relationships and other problems. Who else? Perhaps your significant other, who may also be feeling mired in an unhappy, unfulfilling relationship; and your children, who are learning from your example.

  And in the right-hand column, make a list of the positive changes that will come about from allowing yourself to feel worthy. For starters, you’ll be in a better mood and have more energy, which will allow you to address the issues that are preventing you and your significant other from reconnecting. You’ll also be a better ro
le model for your children.

  Now that you have a good picture of how these feelings of unworthiness may be limiting you and how much better life can be by working to change these feelings, your next step is to start challenging the idea that you don’t deserve good things in life. For example, your parents’ unhappy marriage had nothing to do with you—rather, it was due to the battle one of your parents had with alcohol and the stress that the condition caused. Or the reason that you didn’t get into an Ivy League school and become a doctor wasn’t because you were flawed but because your parents’ expectations of you never really matched your own dreams or expectations of yourself. You may have preferred to study art or pursue a career in music.

  Finally, work on developing an alternative positive belief about yourself. For example, you might say, “I am competent in most areas of my life and am worthy of success and happiness.” Then each day, write down evidence supporting your new belief. For example:

  “After all the layoffs at my company, I still have a job.”

  “I signed up with my wife to walk a 5K race in three months.”

  “My two kids, whom I adore, love me.”

  “My faith teaches me that the love of God is always with me.”

  And so on. If you engage in this simple but positive technique each day, you can change the core belief of unworthiness and simultaneously increase your energy and motivation to lose and keep off excess weight.

  The exercises in the rest of this chapter can help give you even more insight into your thoughts and beliefs about yourself and empower you to be more supportive and encouraging toward yourself. If you feel you need more guidance or support, I urge you to confide in someone you trust, whether it’s a friend, clergy member, or therapist.