Weight Management and You Series:
Breaking the Bonds of Food
I. Coping with Change
To properly manage your weight, you must come to terms with the idea of change. To be successful, you have to change something about the way you think and the way you eat.
You’ll need to make internal changes, like thinking about food differently and paying more attention to your body, and you’ll need to learn to cope with event sin your life or new situations in ways that don’t involve food.
Maintaining a healthier relationship with food takes as much patience and open-mindedness to change as it took to develop it!
Some people thrive on change; more commonly, people don’t like the prospect of varying their routine. If you are afraid or threatened by change, it will be harder for you to break old eating habits and thinking patterns and allow yourself to move forward. Eating might have been the way you coped with change in the past, but in maintenance, relying on food is no longer an option.
The changes that create the most turmoil are those we feel we have no control over. It helps to understand and accept the fact that you have no control over most external events in your life.
You cannot change the outside world or the people in it; you can control only the way you respond to situations and maintain your self-control.
Your greatest power lies in changing your response to your eating triggers.
When you are overweight, you have fantasies and expectations about what your life will be like when you’ve reached your goal weight. When you lose weight, those ideas either come true or they don’t. Either way, it’s scary. If your dreams don’t come true, it’s disappointing and frustrating. If they do come true, it can be downright scary because it’s such a big difference.
II. Change Can be Stressful
All change can be stressful, and the way stress affects you depends on how you react to it. If you react in negative ways, such as with anger or overeating, stress will take more of a toll on your mental and physical health. That’s why it is important to develop good coping skills.
Some things you can do to alleviate the stress of change include the following:
Face your fears about change. Fear of change can mean fear of failure or fear of success. Either way, these fears stem from self-doubt, and the antidote is to work to improve your self-esteem and learn to have faith in yourself.
Learn to adjust your plans when things don’t go as you intended.
Trust your own judgment when it comes to making decisions.
Look as mistakes as learning opportunities – growth edges.
Try not to get discouraged.
Pick yourself up as soon as you fall.
Leave room in your schedule for unexpected events.
III. Change Happens!
Sometimes you can change your behavior directly, but at other times, you might have to change your attitude and your approach before you can successfully change your behavior.
If you need to have a difficult conversation with family members before you can change your eating behavior, you might first have to confront your fears about expressing your feelings.
If your looking for inspiration to get more physical activity into your day by changing your exercise routine, ask yourself if it’s enough to try a new machine at the gym, or do you need a boost to your attitude toward exercise in general?
When changes in attitude and behavior are difficult, particularly when those changes involve other people, it might help to think about what kind of physical and emotional shape you want to be in six months from now. You probably can’t get there without pushing yourself in a different direction. When you’re clear about how you feel and what you need to do, it’s easier to take action.
IV. Small Steps
You can make small changes in your life to help you get used to the idea of bigger change. Even some simple, everyday things such as these will help you become more flexible:
Change what you eat for breakfast.
Try a new food you’ve never eaten before.
Change your exercise routine.
Walk short distances instead of driving.
Shop in a different grocery store.
The changes you want to make will be easier and longer lasting is you focus on eating and exercise habits and behavior rather than on the number of pounds you want to lose, how many calories you’re eating, or how you want to reshape your body.
Whatever you do, don’t promise yourself that you will go on a diet! Resolve to take small steps and make gradual changes in the way you eat, the way you think about food, the way you look at yourself, and the amount of exercise you get on a regular basis.
Deal with one change at a time.
V. Develop a Positive Attitude.
To be successful at anything you must believe in yourself and in what you are doing. You have to be motivated by the belief that you can do whatever you set out to do, because your attitude will affect your behavior.
Other people might help motivate you by cheering you on or giving you a gentle push in the right direction, but it is up to you to stay actively involved in your own life and to take steps necessary to develop a lasting, positive relationship with food.
Having a positive attitude doesn’t mean you have to jump for joy whenever you think of the emotional work that lies ahead of you. It doesn’t mean you’re happy all the time or that you’ll always be successful. That’s not realistic.
It does mean you’ll look for solutions rather than giving up and you’ll be more likely to make changes in your maintenance and exercise because you feel confident that your efforts will be rewarded.
If you let yourself think you’ll never improve your relationship with food, or that the changes you have to make are just too difficult, you’ll start to lose hope. If you stop believing in yourself, you won’t be able to help yourself.
Develop and maintain a more positive attitude. Here are a few suggestions:
Surround yourself with positive-thinking people.
Keep a journal of any positive changes you experience in your thinking and behavior.
Praise and reward yourself often, especially when you accomplish one of your goals.
Give yourself all the time you need to develop new habits and reach your goals.
Come up with new and satisfying ways to spend your time as you work toward change.
Try to reply your successes in your mind; try not to replay your mistakes.
Ask yourself, “What strengths do I have that will help me solve this problem?” Sometimes we spend so much time and energy berating ourselves for having a food problem that we have no time, or energy, left to work on the solution.
Whatever you focus on will grow and take up more space in your life. Focus on the positive, on your strengths.
Do what you can to help lighten the emotional load and distract yourself from obsessing about your weight. Find healthy role models, develop new hobbies and interests, get out more, begin to enjoy your meals, and surround yourself with fun and funny people.
Accept yourself for who you are right now so you’re not struggling with the past at the same time you’re struggling to improve your future.
Self-acceptance means loving yourself and approving of yourself, without judgment, in spite of your limitations. You stop being your own worst enemy.
Defining who you are and what you want from life is the first step to knowing yourself.
George Olson, M.A., LPC, NCC
georgeolsoncounselor.com
Material adapted from: Breaking the Bonds of Food Addiction, Susan McQuillan