If you have read The End of Overeating By David Kessler you will recognize a lot of this material. For those of you who have not, I highly recommend it. As many of you know I was on the verge of disordered eating during and after my Bikini Competition back in April. It has helped me so much to get my eating under control in addition to a few other things.
This is my seven part blog series on what I learned from the book to hopefully help you. I am going to be blogging every Thursday for the next seven weeks with more that I learned from the book to help you win your battle with food. Here’s a sneak peak on what you will learn…
To begin, we must recognize our vulnerability to food, or a certain food, the stimuli. “Food cues” such as a bowl of candy in the office or the bread basket on the table at dinner and overeating is the automatic response. It’s automatic… so if you think “I’m just going to have one,” you’ve already lost the battle. I’ll explain more on why that is in the upcoming blogs.
See, as Kessler states in his book, ” The cornerstone of treatment for conditioned hyper-eating is developing the capacity to refuse the cue’s invitation to the brain in the first place.” By this he means that you absolutely must refuse it immediately upon being invited to eat the food as that is the only time when you actually have full control.
The good new is that it does get easier – when you continuously turn down the stimulus you form a new behavior. The old behavior never becomes unlearned, BUT the new responses can become as automatic as the old ones that the stimulus will become less of a trigger.
I’ll also explain more on how important it is to recognize that YOU have the power to change the habit. If you do not recognize that you actually hold that power, the arousal & draw to the food will never change.
Read blog two and find out how to reverse the habit by clicking here.
Your Coach,
Kyra
P.S. Have you struggled with overeating?
Do you have any tips you would suggest to help others overcome this struggle?
Leave your comment below!