What an incredible show! Monday’s “The Way” looked at the real issues behind excess weight, and the emotional relationships to food.
It’s very common for things to have happened in our childhoods that play a role our eating habits. How many of us had “Eat up, there are children starving in the world!” said to us? You felt guilty if you ate your food, and guilty if you didn’t! It’s only when we let go of the guilt, fear, or hurt, that we felt as children or young adults, that we can start eating with a healthy, self-preserving attitude and drop the pounds.
So much of what lies behind our problems with weight take place on the subconscious level. Working with a professional to go deeper and really dig up “what’s eating you,” will reveal the information you need to move forward. I’ve worked with people in my psychotherapy practice who suffered great trauma as children and translated it to a weight issue. Sometimes people have used extra pounds gained to test people in their lives, to keep themselves from intimacy, run away from painful memories, or to act out self-destructive tendencies.
Here are some of the ideas I offered-up to listeners to combat the patterns of weight gain and the inability to let that weight go:
• Set goals
• Make realistic plan
• Take action (goals and plans are not enough!)
• Keep in mind that eating food can be like eating emotions – Be mindful of how you are feeling when you eat.
• Change the way you eat – Break habits and patterns and replace with new associations.
Please post your questions and comments about weight on my Facebook page. I’d love to share some more insight with you. We had so many callers and tweeters today! I wish I could have gotten to more of you, but here’s you chance to ask away! And if you missed the show, you can listen to it here.
– Derek O’Neill
#weight
#thewaywithderekoneill