I've been on a rollercoaster ride with my weight my whole life. I would have periods where I would be disciplined enough to restrict myself to lose 20-30 pounds, but it always came back, often times with more. After years of fighting myself, (and hating myself) I realized - I'm never going lose this weight permanently by sheer will power alone. Will power will get you to the gym but it can only take you so far when you're dealing with binge eating, bulimia, or even just overeating. When there's that little voice inside you that's got complete control of you, will power is going to be the last tool that's gonna help. I've had eating disorders my whole life and I've addressed every single one of them EXCEPT the core of the problem, the CAUSE of all the other stuff - emotional eating.
And that's when my therapist linked me to this article:
http://www.owenparachute.com/coherent-bingo.html
A coherent bingo is an emotional truth which combines your daily gripe and the superthreat it’s keeping you safe from. When you find it and write it down as a short sentence, you automatically get more control over everything. The surprising thing about self-sabotage is that it’s really self-safety - we act to avoid something dangerous that we’re not aware of. For example, staying fat kept Casey safe from being undesirable:
Casey’s Gripe: “I hate being fat but I hate the thought of losing weight more.”
Casey’s Super Threat: “He told me he was only attracted to thin women and I was thin but he still wasn’t attracted to me. If I’m thin and still not attractive to men then I won’t have any excuses left.”
Casey’s Bingo: “I can be fat or I can look for other reasons why I’m undesirable.”
So I did some soul-searching. My last binge made no sense to me at the time. I had had a perfect day at the cottage with all my friends, and I left early to get some extra rest for a big work day the next day.
Then I realized, growing up I've had a lot of people abandon me. Parents, friends, etc. It would happen over and over again through different groups of friends. I realized I don't trust people to stick around. It makes so much sense. Every time I have a really good time with my friends I get really depressed because subconsciously I think they're going to leave. Binge trigger 1.
Next up I played coherent bingo.
I protect myself from rejection by being overweight. I had to put up a physical barrier between me and the world. If I'm overweight then I'm safe from rejection because a. men aren't rejecting me, they're rejecting my fat, and b. I won't put myself out there because I feel fat. This means I'm safe from taking any risks or doing anything in life that's not completely in my comfort zone.
So I asked myself, what happened the last time I got super thin and I regained it all? I was dating this guy that I thought was way too good for me. I felt lucky that he even wanted to be around me, I was head over heels, but he didn't feel the same way and he ended things. I had a perfect body and he still didn't want me. When I was overweight I never would have felt the rejection because we would never have even dated in the first place (because I wouldn't have put myself out there).
I don't put myself out there because I feel fat > feeling fat means I don't have to put myself out there > feeling fat saves me from rejection.
The price of loneliness is less than the price of rejection. Social rejection is my greatest fear.
Since then my eating has changed. I started asking myself questions before I ate. Are you eating because you want this or are you eating to keep yourself complacent? Are you eating because you're lonely and sad or are you eating because you're hungry? It's like a lightswitch went off in my head. If it helped me, it might be able to help someone else too. It's also helped me to take my mind off of food. If food isn't the judge and the jury of my ability to be disciplined/who I am as a person then it's just food. If food isn't a win or lose game then it's just food.
TL;DR: Address the root issue instead of trying to 'will' yourself to weight loss.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2udHx8p
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