Do you use food to deal with the stresses of life?

Do you regularly soothe your anxiety and overthinking by eating yourself into oblivion in front of Netflix? 

If so, do you ask yourself why a highly-functioning and intelligent person like yourself can't stop emotional eating as easily as you can fix the other problems in your life?

Have you lost all motivation, feeling that perhaps this is just the way you are or that you haven't found the right weight loss routine or diet yet?

You know the way it goes; you've had a stressful day at work again.  After work, you wander into shops to cheer yourself up. In the changing room, you grab the belly layers in your hand and look with disgust at your reflection in the mirror. All day long you're doing your best and now this stupid mirror has to remind you of the shape that you're in.  You miss the body you had in your twenties and think it's unfair that your body decided to start resembling your mom's. 

You love food but you're no stranger to different diets, understanding the complexity of hormones, weight loss programs, diet supplements, skipped gym classes and abandoned exercise routines. By now, you may have read and learned so much about the science of nutrition and weight loss that you could easily give a lecture about it for an auditorium full of students.

As an intelligent person with high standards, you consider your eating habits much healthier than those queueing in McDonald's and the fridge in your home is filled with high-quality, nutritious foods. 

You can't understand why it's so hard for you to lose weight

On your way home, you ruminate over work conversations that went sour and re-live painful situations. At home, you rampage through the pantry for anything sweet to snack on in an attempt to feel better, quickly eating anything you can find and then destroying the evidence by hiding the wrappers deep inside the bin from the eyes of your partner.  You wish you could as easily erase the stress, shame and anxiety that you feel inside.

Then you find yourself snacking while cooking. You may prepare large quantities in order to be economical. You've learned that the best way to forget your stressful day is to slowly binge yourself into oblivion in front of the TV. Then you find yourself going back for seconds... and then thirds. Before long, you realise that you've eaten all the food in one go. 

Later you feel heavy and may procrastinate over going to bed because you know that as soon as you close your eyes, all the panicky thoughts will return. You can't sleep, and you find yourself walking in the kitchen and opening the fridge door, again.

You are not alone.

Emotional eating is one of the most common symptoms of anxiety and stress. It has nothing to do with your ability to lose weight permanently, being lazy, or not having discipline and willpower.  

It's an unconscious protection mechanism, which is the good news that I have for you today. Because it's very treatable.

So if you feel like you're a "special case" or have thoughts like "I've always been like this and probably will always be",  hear me out; it's very common to have thoughts like these, but just because you have them doesn't automatically make them true. It's simply a fully functioning part of the protection mechanism that's ingrained in your neurological system.

If you're an emotional eater, you're literally "eating your emotions". There is nothing wrong with you. It simply means that when the daily stressors emotionally trigger you, they work as an unconscious "cue" to start eating in an attempt to deal with painful emotions. It's a learned, mainly unconscious and automated process that has naturally turned into weight gain. 

Trying to cut out emotional eating habits by oneself alone can be a difficult task because, without them, you'll still be exposed to all the daily stressors, but without any way of  regulating your emotions. 

Why is it so hard to stop emotional eating?

The first reason is this:  Because we all need ways to cope. And if you've been using food to regulate your emotions, it's naturally very difficult to stop. Because otherwise you wouldn't feel safe and be able to focus. Whilst it may be tough to cut out unhelpful coping mechanisms like emotional eating, after addressing the root cause you can replace them with much more effective ones. 

Many may try to stop their weight gain with diets and exercise, but for an emotional eater, this does not work. If the root cause of emotional eating is not addressed, you may unconsciously reach out for food as the only way to feel protected. 

The second reason is that so many people don't know how to best deal with their emotions because no one teaches us how. This is especially true to those grown up in a dysfunctional family environment. In our society the general message is to use external means to make us feel better:  Eat this, drink this, buy this, all with a false promise that once you have it, you'll feel better. For an emotional eater, this happens to be food.

Diets or deprivation won't help you to stop emotional eating. Because they are superficial, short-term solutions that won’t help you deal with stressors in life. 

Once the root of your emotional eating has been addressed, you're able to regulate your emotions without using food or any other external means. This leads to natural and gradual weight loss. By healing the emotional wound that is creating this habit, it will not return back into your life.

When you're ready to address the emotional distress that drives your emotional eating and learn new ways to process your emotions, you're also able to find peace.  You'll no longer have to rely on following random diet "expert" advice or exercise routines and gadgets that won't suit you.  Real healing means that you're no longer dependent on consuming food when stressful situations manifest. 

End Emotional Eating Coaching helps you to find peace and lose weight naturally

As an Integrative Therapist and an Accredited Transformation Coach, I can help you to finally heal from emotional eating habit by providing you with tailor-made strategies to reach the calm and confidence that once used to falsely come from food. 

During our safe, non-judgemental, compassionate and supportive emotional eating coaching sessions you'll be able to openly share the innermost issues that trigger your anxiety. You'll find out what’s at the root of your emotional eating habit so that it can be addressed and worked on at a deep level. 

You no longer have to waste your time, money and patience with never-ending trial and error with diets. The reason why the general, one-size-fits-all advice in books and online doesn't bring you permanent results is because they don't address the unique combination of your personal history, relationship dynamics and needs. 

My service is tailored to focus on areas that are the most critical to you and to your progress. Together we will bring into light the core, psychological blind spots that are currently preventing you from healing from anxiety and losing weight permanently.

Not only do I have the expertise and the professional skills to help you, but I've been an emotional eater myself. I know what it’s like to deprive oneself of food in order to lose weight and then binge all night. Being a high achiever, I struggled to understand why I could not fix my self-sabotage with food. I know how it feels to feel alone in what you are going through, and I welcome you to end this path with someone who genuinely understands you and whom you can trust.

You may still have questions about End Emotional Eating Coaching...

‘How do I know that End Emotional Eating Coaching will help me’? 

If you have been struggling with emotional overeating or depriving and binging, it’s common to believe that nothing will help. Abandoning this familiar routine and trusting someone else to aid your recovery takes a lot of courage. However, it’s a dynamic growth process in which we will continue to create and build new pathways and habits at a pace that works for you. Unlike diets or exercise programs, End Emotional Eating Coaching works with the root cause of overeating and deprivation, providing you with effective ways to cope and recreate your relationship with your emotions, food and your body for the rest of your life.

‘I am worried about the cost’.

Although there is a cost involved, End Emotional Eating Coaching is not comparable to the other expensive weight loss methods you may have tried previously.  No matter how much money you spend on diets or gyms, the weight gain will not end unless the need to soothe your emotional pain with food is healed. If ignored, emotional wounds don't heal on their own, and your emotional eating will continue.  When the root cause behind the emotional eating heals, a natural weight loss takes in place.  The result is invaluable. 

‘But I'm not grossly overweight.  Maybe I just need more discipline and to prevent myself from eating’?

How long have you been trying to do that and how is it progressing? Emotional eating has nothing to do with how much you weigh. It's an emotion-based anxiety/relationship/stress/ issue that over time has been ignored and has turn into a dependency to soothe yourself with food. All emotional eating issues are rooted in an emotional unbalance. This is something that's difficult to overcome alone and it won't heal on its own. With the right help, you can heal the wound that has been re-creating your emotional unbalance all this time, meaning that you no longer need to soothe it to feel better. Once you heal your emotional wounds, the need to ‘eat your emotions’ will not return.

You can feel empowered and have a happy life.

If you are struggling with emotional eating, have signs of anxiety and would like to learn more about how to end it, I can help.  Just hearing yourself out can start the ball rolling. I deeply understand what you’re going through. I’ve been there. With this phone call, we can stop the cycle and begin to move forward. Schedule a free 30-minute consultation today:

http://www.mayfaircoachinglounge.com/contactustoday/.

Our practice is located in London Mayfair, Marylebone and Harley Street.