In my previous blog post, I showed you what self-sabotage is and the 5 reasons for overeating. Now you are probably wondering how to stop overeating. Here I show you a 5 step process to prevent or stop overeating using mindfulness. With the help of these tips, you will be able to separate the emotions that cause the overeating urge from the actual act.
Is it worth letting yourself self-sabotage?
Before I show you the 5 tips on how to stop overeating with mindfulness, let’s think about when was the last time it felt good to self-sabotage? I bet never. Let’s stay with the diet, healthy eating topic, and see some examples.
Example 1:
Imagine, you have a deadline, you need to finish something quickly. You are stressed and you have the urge to eat something crunchy. You eat a bag of chips or a packet of cookies or pretzels. Do you feel better? Maybe you temporarily feel a bit calmer but you stuffed yourself with chemicals, additives, sugar, fat, and white flour. Do you have more energy to work? Nooo, you feel more tired and hungry, your blood sugar is out of whack and if you do this repeatedly, by the time you reach your deadline, you even gained a few kilos (pounds).
If you need to eat something crunchy to release stress, it’s better to opt for some crunchy vegetables or fruits, such as apples, carrots, celery, etc. You can dip them into some hummus or peanut butter if they sound too boring on their own.
Example 2:
Another example: you cooked something nice for dinner and your children just whine, they don’t eat it and make a big fuss about it. The most annoying part is that they loved the same thing two weeks ago, that’s why you made it again. You get stressed, angry and to calm down you eat way too much. Is it better now? Maybe you feel a bit calmer, but your tummy hurts, the children still didn’t eat anything and you feel disappointed with yourself that you overate again.
Example 3:
Someone offers you your favorite cake, cookie, doughnut, whatever. You can’t resist it and you eat it. This would be fine, no problem, you can eat joy food sometimes. But instead, you feel like you ruined your diet anyway, so why not continue and binge on pizza, ice cream, etc. too. Then you feel guilty or disappointed that you didn’t have the willpower to resist the temptation.
But as I said before, nature is always stronger than your willpower. If you can’t resist the temptation, it does not mean that you are weak, it only means you are human. That’s why you need to tidy up your thoughts and prevent or stop overeating with mindfulness. Your inner motivation must be so strong that you don’t need to rely on your willpower. Your thoughts are your secret weapon.
So how to stop overeating using mindfulness?
Let’s see.
5 steps to prevent or stop overeating with mindfulness
I talk about overeating but the steps I give you here can be applied to other self-sabotaging behaviors too. You need to first strengthen your strong, inner motivation by making a habit of practicing the visualization technique I showed you here.
When you feel the urge to overeat, go through the following 5 steps.
1. Stop for a second
Have you been in a similar situation before? Did the self-sabotaging behavior (eating) help? Did it solve your problem? I assume it didn’t. My favorite mantra in this situation is: “Eating is not the solution”.
2. Observe yourself
Observe what kind of feelings, emotions, happenings led you to this state of mind. Stress, anxiety, frustration, tiredness, boredom…? You can even write it down in a Food & Lifestyle Journal so next time you will know what to expect from yourself in a similar situation. You can download my Journal for free here.
3. Make yourself aware that your feelings are not you
Notice, that you can’t control your feelings, emotions. Your feelings can flood you suddenly without letting you know beforehand. It would be nice to get a little message: Hey Rita, be prepared, you are going to feel sooo stressed in a minute 🙂 But no, it doesn’t happen.
But you can definitely choose how you react to your emotions!
4. Find the root cause of your feelings
Find out what the root causes of your emotions (see the 5 reasons that may cause them) are. Search for a solution to prevent this in the future.
If you need help with overcoming your overeating habits consider booking a free “mini-coaching” session with me here: Free consultation
5. Temporary solutions to prevent self-sabotage
If during all that thinking the urge didn’t go away 🙂 you can give in and try again next time.
You can also try to distract yourself with something. Talk with someone on the phone, go for a walk, drink a glass of water/tea, tidy up, clean the kitchen, etc.
Just imagine how good you will feel later when you realize that you managed to separate your feelings from your self-sabotaging act. This little victory will increase your confidence and your trust in yourself that you will be able to do the same at the next urge.
In the first few cases you will probably not succeed, but please don’t think about it as a failure. Remember, you had to fall many times before you learned to walk too. Practice diligently and observe yourself, what causes your overeating, what can you learn from it, what did you learn about yourself. Stopping overeating with mindfulness will get easier with time.
Check out my How to Stop Eating Your Feelings Workbook to discover what you are REALLY hungry for and finally break free from emotional and stress eating.
You can read a free chapter of the workbook HERE.
Do you have a good tip on how to stop overeating? Please let me know in the comments.
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