Banish chocolate cravings for ever!

Lose weight faster than ever with our simple techniques to break bad habits. Start by looking in the mirror...

WHEN so many of us are on a diet or trying to eat healthily, it is infuriating to find yourself overeating and preventing yourself from achieving your weight-loss goals. The problem is, food is so-often a ‘go-to’ crutch when we’re sad, mad, lonely, bored, disappointed or stressed. If you are sleep-deprived, your body will crave energy and search for a quick source (like cakes), and irrespective of how focused and motivated you are to lose weight, a lack of sleep can cause you to overeat.

You might find yourself eating forbidden foods because you are bored, because you like the ‘crunch’, or just because they are forbidden.

Diets inevitably mean restriction and there’s nothing like telling yourself that you CAN’T have something to make you want it more. We also hear stories of perpetual yo-yo dieters who endure a never-ending battle with weight loss, and often face the additional anxiety of wanting to avoid eating in front of others and being photographed. This stress can exacerbate cravings and make self-sabotage more likely.

Drop those unrealistic expectations and accept that it is OK to overindulge from time to time, and don’t punish yourself if your diet has ‘failed’. When you were learning to walk, you will have fallen over repeatedly. An occasional bar of chocolate doesn’t mean you’ve failed at weight loss – you are merely working towards the perfect act of healthy eating.

If you get frustrated with yourself for lingering too long at the buffet table, ordering crisps with your glass of wine or mindlessly moving your hand repeatedly from a plate of biscuits into your mouth when everyone else in the meeting seems perfectly able to resist, it is worth thinking about whether you are a creature of habits formed in childhood, or whether you are just following patterns established by friends or colleagues.

The key to breaking bad habits is replacing them with good ones: think of a buffet table as a great opportunity to pile your plate with salad, change your drink of choice to snap the snack connection, and chew sugar-free gum whenever biscuits appear.

When you’re trying to work out your triggers, keeping a detailed food diary – of exactly what you eat and drink, when and with whom – will help make you consciously aware of what you are consuming, and also accountable.

You owe it to yourself, to be in control of how and what you eat, and writing your food diary is a big step towards that.

ARE YOU AN EMOTIONAL EATER?

IF YOU find yourself craving unhealthy foods even though you are not hungry, don’t blame poor willpower. In many cases, a craving is your body crying out for the feelgood effects that junk food often provides. That’s because the food we enjoy helps to release hormones that boost our mood.

As endorphins (chemicals produced by the body to relieve stress and pain) are released, your pulse speeds up and you experience positive feelings – it’s like falling in love! These hormones offer comfort when we’re feeling sad, lonely or in need of a little love.

Research suggests that we actually get two hits: when we first ingest the food, and again when it reaches the stomach. But this elation is short-lived as the hormone disperses, and you will inevitably be left feeling discomfort and bloating, and perhaps embarrassment, guilt and shame.

As a brief distraction, fatty, sugary food can temporarily silence uncomfortable or unpleasant emotions such as loneliness, fear, sadness, anxiety, heartbreak and resentment – it can be a plaster you use to try to cover any wound.

We often find people are, without realising it, using junk food to rekindle the comfort of childhood when chocolate and sweets are so often given as a reward or treat. That’s why you might hear a voice inside your head saying: ‘Go on, you deserve this, you’ve been good today.’ There’s no doubt that an occasional treat can do you good, but unhelpful patterns can swiftly start to form if unresolved issues from your past are still causing emotional pain and making you regularly turn to food for solace.

Ice cream can sometimes seem like your new best friend if you’re feeling unloved or undervalued. But the buzz of reward will usually be short-lived, and if you’re on a diet, that tub of cookies and cream could be enough to make you throw in the towel, which will only dent your self-esteem more.

We have found in some cases an old problem (even back as far as childhood) could still be haunting you and triggering food cravings decades later. If the discomfort you feel now when you think about a particular event feels like more than six out of ten, it could be significant. In many cases, merely making that connection could be enough to put you straight, or talking through these memories with someone you trust might help to reduce the chances of you searching for comfort in food.

Eva was made to feel inadequate in the past and ended up subconsciously using food as a way of punishing herself. (‘I’m fat and no one cares, so I might as well eat this anyway.’)

The most common cause of selfsabotage, low self-esteem and self-medicating is bullying, which ultimately leads people to give up on diets or exercise plans because they don’t believe they deserve to look and feel good.

If you have been made to feel useless and a failure, it is very common to sabotage your own slimming success in the belief that your efforts are futile. It is a form of self-punishment.

Once you have identified the events and the beliefs that lie behind your unhelpful eating patterns – and are preventing you from losing weight – you can take action to address them. Our mirror technique is a great way to flip self-destructive thinking and we have seen it can be powerfully

effective in putting you back in control of your eating behaviour.

Decide to be a victor, not a victim. If things from your past continue to affect you, then you are still a victim of that person or event. Make a decision today that you will be the victor of your past: you survived it and you are prepared to alter your perspective to set yourself free.

HOW TO INCREASE YOUR SELF-ESTEEM

ONE of the most powerful ways to reset your behaviour around food is to raise your self-esteem. It might sound like a monumental task, but in hundreds of cases we have been able to show this perceptual shift really does work because the better you feel about yourself, the more likely you are to want to invest in your health and your future and treat yourself to good food and regular exercise, instead of trying to stamp down on any bad feelings with chocolate.

NOW TRY THE MIRROR TECHNIQUE

THIS is so powerful that it can transform your behaviour overnight. One client told us she lost 2st after trying it. You will need a notepad and pen, and a voice recorder on your phone.

1. Stand in front of a full-length mirror. While looking in the mirror, write down or record everything that you see and say about yourself. What kind of person do you see in front of you? Are you strong? What do you look like? Do you see any weaknesses? If so, what are they? Write everything you perceive about yourself. Describe the person in front of you, both visually and emotionally. How do you feel about that person? Look at all your body parts and write down what you see.

2. Now count how many of the things you have said about yourthey self are negative and how many are positive.

3. Focus on the negative comments and ask: ‘Would I ever say those negative things to a stranger?’ If not, why not? Would you ever say them to a friend, child, partner, parents or loved ones? If not, why not? Is it because these words are mean and unkind? If they are not acceptable to say to anybody else, they are not acceptable to say to yourself.

4. Look at your list of negative comments and ask if someone else has said these things to you or somehow made you feel this way. Write a new list of the people who might have contributed to these unkind comments.

5. Ask yourself why you would want to listen to that person – what qualifications do they have to judge you? Are they even a part of your life? If not, that is because they are not important to you. If they are still a part of your life, consider why they may have said those things to you. Could they be envious or jealous of you? Are they scared of losing you? (Perhaps by knocking your self-esteem, you might be less likely to leave them and more likely to appreciate them more.) Is it because that person felt bad about themselves and in an effort to make themselves feel better had to knock you down? Is it because they feared you would supersede them in life?

6. Once you realise the words you use to describe yourself aren’t yours but based on somebody else’s or how somebody else has made you feel, it’s time to view yourself through the eyes of love.

7. Stand in front of the mirror and close your eyes and think of someone who loves or loved you unconditionally, either now or in the past (a partner, a parent, a best friend, a colleague, a teacher, a pet or even someone who has died). Imagine that person standing beside you and see yourself floating out of your body and into that person’s body, and looking through their eyes at your reflection in the mirror.

8. Say out loud (you can dictate it into your phone) everything that person sees or saw in you. Looking in the mirror, what do they see? How do they describe you? Why do they love you? Do they think you are beautiful, kind, intelligent, fun to be around, that you are loyal, perfect, a good cook, good at making them feel special or loved? Do they compliment you about your hair, eyes, figure, stature or smile? Say it as they said it, with love, sincerity and meaning.

9. Now, in the knowledge that the person who loves or loved you is not a liar and that their feelings towards you were honest and true, press play on your voice memo, and with your eyes closed again, imagine seeing yourself in the mirror through the eyes of your loved one and listen to all the words that person said about you, everything they love about you. Listen to the words four or five times.

10. Very slowly open your eyes and see yourself in that mirror through the eyes of love. See yourself in the knowledge that the person who said all those lovely things about you did so because they were true, because people do not give compliments without reason. Nor do people give love without reason. Love is earned, and if anyone has ever loved you unconditionally, that is because you have earned it and because you are lovable.

11. Now write down all those compliments and positive things that your loved one said about you and keep them somewhere prominent. This could be at the side of your bed, on your desk at work, or in your wallet.

12. Whenever you need to remind yourself of how amazing you are, how loved you are and that you deserve to be happy, healthy and to have a positive relationship with food, reread this list and hear your loved one’s voice as you do so.

Buy smaller plates so you end up eating less. Or try to leave a little something behind on your plate at every meal.