Recently a client came to me to lose a significant amount of weight before she got married.
She’d tried ‘everything’. All the fad diets, fasting, bingeing and calorie counting. The results had been patchy and without any real lasting weight loss. By the time she came to me she felt demoralised and helpless. She’d developed a very poor opinion of herself that was now affecting her relationships and her performance at work.
We discussed the problem. How much was she eating? I asked. ‘Oh, really not very much.’ She replied. ‘I always watch what I eat.’ ‘Well, how much do you eat do you think?’ I gently pressed.
After a while she confessed to eating three large meals a day and remembered numerous ‘invisible’ or forgotten snacks of sweets, biscuits and cheese.

These nibbles just ‘happened’ when she immersed herself in watching a film or reading a book. The food would just force its way into her mouth.

How did this happen? Well, reading meant lying on her bed, with a ready supply of her favourite sweets at hand’s reach. Then when deeply involved in the plot, her hand would pop a sweet in her mouth. This would melt and when that had gone her hand would reach for another and so on. Until the whole pack had gone. Somehow, this took place without her knowing. She told me this in almost a trance-like state and indeed described her state of mind as tranced out when she did this.

It’s not unusual that we execute such behaviours and actions in this dreamy, not really there state. We are triggered by known and comfortable environments into habitual behaviour that’s driven by our unconscious.
When she’d finished recounting this to me, she immediately went into berating herself harshly and the words soon made hot tears of frustration come to her eyes. It seemed to her yet further proof of her worthlessness and lack of will power. She declared her dream impossible and predicted herself walking down the aisle in a sack dress.

To me this is a typical reaction from somebody desperate to loose weight and yet sabotaging their goal at every step. They make vows to themselves not to stray from a strict regimen and then somehow, sneak treats and snacks at invisible moments. It’s as if their minds take over and makes the food pop into their mouths. It becomes a never-ending battle with the mind. But it’s the kind of war that the mind always wins. For success you have to get it on board and work with it.

I suggested that she start talking to herself differently and in an encouraging manner. She was very hesitant about this course of action. She felt she didn’t deserve good treatment.

I reminded her that she’d not lost any weight by being hard on herself! Eventually I persuaded her to give treating herself well a try; after all she’d nothing to lose! Or a lot to lose.

After some discussion she promised that each day she do the following: