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FRIDAY, APRIL 30, 2010
EMOTIONAL EATING; SCIENCE AND MYSTERY
There is a science about emotional eating and there is a mystery. I have been studying this phenomenon for over 10 years and I continue to find new places to explore.
It's a science because we know that emotional eating is the major cause of weight gain, what emotional eating is, how the mind works to produce emotional eating, and how to correct it. It's a mystery because the act of eating, and the meaning of food and hunger, is part of the psychology of a person’s unique life, current and past.
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Here is one very common example. Many members of ShrinkYourself report graphically about that part of themselves that they know is rebellious when it comes to eating. “ I say I’m not going to eat this and just wait for that rebellious part of me to click in and make me eat.”
They describe their rebellious self in great detail. They don’t just describe, they glorify this part of themself. In a funny way they are proud of it. It’s their stake in the ground, a defiant piece of independence, a statement about who they are at their strongest and most immovable. Hundreds of times I ‘ve heard people say in their most undefended moments, “nobody’s going to take my food away from me.”
No matter how many times I have seen this I still think it is a bit of a mystery. The someone who wants to take food away from you is you. When you decide to take our program or to diet you are saying you want to learn how to eat in moderation and stop using food in excess to deal with emotions. You want to stop the self destructive use of food which is making you miserable and heavy, damaging your life and destroying your health. You are the one who decided to stop this eating pattern because it's in your best interest.
So who are you rebelling against? It’s obvious you are rebelling against yourself. But why would anybody do that? Either you want to control your weight or you don't want to control your weight . The worst position is being stuck between the two, alternating between the two choices, and the two wardrobes.
That's where almost every single member of the ShrinkYourself community starts. They start with an unresolved conflict with themselves. They have to recognize that there are two selves fighting it out with each other with every single food decision.
If we look a little deeper it is clear that one of the selves is rational and lives in the world of today. She wants to lose weight to take care of herself. The other self is the rebellious self that was born somewhere in the past, is outdated, and by all the laws of rationality should not have any voice at all in the present, much less total control.
When I ask members or patients about this rebellious self they often tell me about their personal history. The origin is almost always a rebellion against a parent, most often their mother. They vividly remember their mother constantly harping about their weight during late childhood and adolescence. They did not see their mothers attention to their weight as a loving gesture. Usually they saw it as a rejecting gesture meaning that they were not valued if they were heavy and would only be valued if they were thin and popular.
In response to that interpretation of their mother's intent, they dug in their heels and rebelled and refused to lose weight. Oftentimes they would sneak food to baffle their doctors and confuse their parents who couldn’t understand how they gained weight on the prescribed diet. Since they were ostensibly doing everything possible they should be excused from losing weight because it wasn't in their control, it was just their metabolism. They convinced themselves that they were victims being misunderstood and unfairly treated.
Before we go any further I want to be sure you understand that this is just one of the many origins of the rebellious self. There are many others. Some that started later in life. Some that have nothing to do with a parents obsession with their weight. But more of the origin in future blogs. The present is most important and regardless of the origin, the fact of rebelling against yourself is still a mystery.
But think about this mother-daughter scenario for a moment. This was a relationship that took place decades in the past, sometimes as many as four decades in the past. Oftentimes the mother is no longer alive. And although this may be an accurate description of the psychodynamics of what happened, there is no reason to continue an old battle. It is now a meaningless gesture in the present moment.
What does one do about a conflict like this? It is real,it is palpable, but it takes place in the depths of this information organ called the brain/mind.
Now for the science of insight. It's only insight over time that will help you resolve this conflict.
In last week's blog, I described a woman who conquered her rebellious self. She calmly and clearly decided that she was simply going to lose weight once she was convinced she could master the problems in her relationship without using food to comfort herself or to punish her husband ( insight level number 5, see previous blog). This did not just happen magically. It was the end of a process during which she was immersed in hours and hours of thinking about herself and food and grabbing little insights along the way until it all added up. I also mentioned that this happens very frequently in the Shrink Yourself program for people who spontaneously report that they have suddenly lost their cravings. That's the way the brain works. The brain has multiple processing centers that work individually and every night when you go to sleep your brain works very hard to synthesize what you have learned in these multiple centers. Every morning when you wake up you're a little bit wiser.
We've taken advantage of this in the Shrink Yourself program. We keep you immersed in thinking about emotional eating and your life for 12 weeks through multiple approaches and features so that you can collect hundreds of little insights, sleep on them every night, and let your brain finish the work. All significant learning takes a great deal of time, attention and practice. It's often reported that professional athletes have to spend 10,000 hours of practice before they reached the threshold of professionalism. That means throwing a lot of basketballs and hitting a lot of baseballs and running a lot of sprints.
So although the emotional eating issue is complex and the rebellion against yourself very personal, there is a scientific method that can deal with that complexity if you are willing to learn.
In future blogs I will describe other mysteries that you can think about, sleep on, and let your brain digest to make you a bit wiser the next day.
POSTED BY !DR. GOULD! | 2:15:23 PM
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The Shrink Yourself Blog
The Shrink Yourself Blog, hosted by Michelle Fiordaliso, clinical director of Shrink Yourself, gives you expert info on emotional eating.
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