Lauren Griffin
How would your life change if you stopped eating in reaction to stress and emotional turmoil? It can be done without starving yourself.
The key to creating lasting weight wellness and vibrant health involves two important processes. First, physical processes, which include what you eat and drink, how you take care of health challenges, repairing damage to your metabolism with pure foods and water, embracing gentle movement as determined by your ability, and quality sleep. Second, emotional processes, which involves learning or improving your strategies for shifting your thinking, redirecting your stress and emotional eating through effective stress-busting strategies, healthy boundaries, and personalized care for mind, body and spirit. Your goal becomes lasting change rather than phantom weight loss followed by rebound weight gain.
Simplification is fundamental to making changes in the real world of work and family. Choose foods for your families that are grown whole in nature like quality meats, poultry, fish, fresh vegetables and fruits, organic dairy products and eggs. Avoid processed, boxed foods that are constructed in manufacturing plants rather than your own kitchen. Reduce the stress of “what’s for dinner?” by planning simple, fresh meals and cooking in bulk on the weekend to help when busy work schedules tempt us to make poor, fast choices. When eating out, evaluate menus and ask questions about the foods and how they are prepared. Look for simply prepared foods with whole ingredients. Most restaurants are happy to accommodate your requests.
In addition to weight loss, many people report noticing a reduction in fatigue and pain after making the shift away from eating the Standard American Diet (SAD) of heavily processed foods. Changing to whole pure foods, along with learning new ways to balance the daily stressors, results in improved quality of life. Paying attention to how you feel in your relationships, personal and professional, provides insight into sources of stress and areas for strengthening boundaries to support your goals.
The riddle of weight loss is answered by focusing on the processes rather than the numbers on the scale. Lasting change requires the catalyst of a change of heart with love and compassion for yourself. This is the emotional glue that binds together the physical and emotional processes allowing you to become strong and self supportive rather than self-sabotaging.
Creating weight wellness in your life is like a long car trip. It’s easy to focus on “are we there yet?” and miss the wonderful insights and experiences along the way. If you keep driving in the right direction you will get there. Choosing to believe in yourself and knowing you are capable of change will give you a path to lasting weight wellness, vibrant health and emotional strength. The choice is yours. What will you choose?
