Change of Address--Peace With Cake Is Moving!

I haven't stopped posting--I've moved my blog to a new address. I'm pleased to announce that you can now find Peace With Cake: Ending Emotional Eating at a new url.
Please join me at http://www.toomuchonherplate.com/.

Take good care,

Melissa

Free Teleclass Coming Your Way!

After taking a summer break, I'm happy to announce that my free teleclass series is starting up again in September. The next free teleclass is on a specialized topic: Emotional Eating, Overeating, and Success After Weight Loss Surgery. If you are someone who has had weight loss surgery or is considering it, this call is for you.

The teleclass takes place Wednesday September 3, 2008 at
3 pm Eastern, 2 pm Central, 1 pm Mountain, and noon Pacific time.

If you can't attend, don't let that stop you from registering. The call will be recorded and registered participants will receive access to the class recording after the call. If you've never attended a teleclass before, they're easy. You'll just dial in on the phone number you will receive when you register (you are responsible for any long distance charges) and when prompted you'll be given an access code to enter.

You can go here to register and when you do, you'll have an opportunity to submit a question that you would like addressed. I'll try to get to as many as I can on the call. Hope to "see" you in class!

Take good care,

Melissa

More Thoughts on Hunger and Emotional Eating: Hara Hachi Bu

The Japanese have an expression, hara hachi bu, or “eat until you’re 80 percent full.”

Residents of the Japanese island of Okinawa, who are among the longest living and healthiest people in the world, have traditionally practiced hara hachi bu. The practice is to be mindful of your eating and eat only until you are 80 percent full.

To try hara hachi bu, eat until you feel “mostly full,” then wait 20 minutes. Pay attention to what the experience is like for you. Notice what that 80 percent really feels like.

Stopping at 80 percent fullness is actually a healthy strategy because it takes the stomach time to communicate fullness to the rest of the body. Many who stop at 80 percent will feel satisfied and will ultimately eat less. If you are accustomed to eating until you are more than 80 percent full, you might find that this stopping point leaves you less sleepy and more energetic after meals.

Practicing hara hachi bu is an excellent way to play with your experience of hunger and fullness. View it as an experiment. What does it feel like to leave the table with extra room? How difficult is it to assess that 80 percent feeling? Are there emotions or reactions that come up for you when you experiment with eating in this way?

Take good care,

Melissa

What do you do about hunger?

What kind of relationship do you have with your hunger?

Are you aware of feeling hungry?

Where do you feel it in your body?

On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 = empty and 10 = filled to bursting), how hungry do you let yourself grow before you eat?

Do you make a decision to eat based on body sensations of hunger, or based on the clock (it’s 6:00 so it’s dinner time), or based on the fact that your coworker left cupcakes by the coffeemaker?

How does it feel to be hungry? You may never have thought about this before, but I urge you to take some time to pay attention and explore this. Some people start to feel a little panicky when they get hungry. Some people block it out and aren’t even very aware of feeling hungry until their hunger feels enormous. Some people even get angry with themselves when they are hungry.

It’s incredibly important to pay attention to our hunger and the signals we are getting from our body. Many of us could get better at that. However, paying attention is only the first step. The second step is making a decision about how to respond to our hunger. Emotional eaters tend to feed hunger as well as emotions with food rather automatically—without giving it much conscious thought.

Consider this—often our responses to our hungers (both physical and emotional hungers) are learned in the family we grew up in. These responses are so automatic that we might not even realize that there is another way to approaching times when we feel hungry. What would happen if you got curious about your hunger? If you took a step back and observed it, if you didn’t respond the way you normally do and allowed yourself to observe what that was like?

Here are some ideas:

Note your hunger patterns. If you normally wait until you are about a “5” on the hunger scale before eating, what would happen if you waited until you felt more like your hunger was a “4”? How long would it take? Would that be uncomfortable? Would it bring up emotions or concerns?

If you normally eat until you are a “9” (very full), what would happen if you stopped at “7” and waited 30 minutes to see how you felt? What if you tried stopping at “7” all week?

Are you someone who goes from extremes of “starving” to feeling way too full? What if you made a commitment this week never to let your hunger get below a 3 or a 4 on the scale?

Remember—these are not dieting challenges or tricks. These are techniques for being curious about your hunger and observing and listening to your body.

Take good care,

Melissa

Don’t Sabotage Your Weight Loss: Slow Down!

Not taking the time for our own needs and self-care often turns out to be a direct path to overeating, stress eating, and weight gain.

All the women I know are busy, busy, busy. We try to do too much. We think that we can somehow squeeze extra hours out of the day.

We skimp on sleep, eat on the run, and steal from our own self-care time in order to get to the things on our “to-do lists.”

Big mistakes.

When we don’t allow time for what we really need or desire, it’s tempting to use food to try to “fill in the gaps.” A quick snack or a “treat” becomes the reward that’s supposed to take the place of the real need or desire we didn’t allow ourselves to address.

The problem is, food just becomes a band aid. Eating and food don’t really solve the problem. Eventually the desire or the need comes back and we start the vicious cycle all over again.

If you want to take control of emotional eating, if you want to lose weight and keep it off, then it’s vital to address this cycle head-on. It’s essential to learn about the tools that help you slow down and find ways to really feed your needs—in a way that chocolate and French fries never will.

Take good care,

Melissa

PS: If you haven’t signed up for my free Self-care package, now would be a good time. Just enter your information in the top right corner of this page and I’ll send you a short weekly audio each week for five weeks. These to-the-point lessons will help you create more balance and more focus on YOU in your life—no matter how busy you are.

Life Coaching 101: 3 Steps to Moving Forward and Getting Where You Really Want to Go

As a Life Coach, I help people get where they want to go and do what they’ve always dreamed of doing.

Over and over again I’ve seen people achieve tremendous goals and create enormous change—the kind of progress that tends to make other people say, “Oh, I could never do that!”

My clients leave the jobs they hate and create satisfying new career paths. They lose the weight they are tired of battling. They make significant emotional or geographic moves. They move forward.

And then my clients tell me how they encounter people who look at them with awe and say, “Oh, I could never do that.” My clients just smile--because they know the secret (and I’m not talking about the law of attraction). The secret I’m talking about is this: In order to achieve great things, you don’t have to know exactly how you are going to get there in order to get started. In fact, getting hung up on the specifics can freeze up your progress before you ever even get underway.

“Reasonableness” is not the first step. My advice—banish your practical or skeptical thoughts until you’ve asked yourself the following four powerful questions:

1.What do you really want?

Remember, this is not the time for practicality or thought censorship. Think big. Be specific. DO NOT edit down your goal to something that seems “attainable.” If what you want is a house on the Mexican Riviera, don’t write down a week in a time share. Let your imagination and your dreams soar. Make a list.

Now pick the most enticing item on your list and ask yourself:

2.What would it take to get where you want to go?

Don’t worry about how you would do these things; just list all the steps you think would be involved. Break the steps down as much as you can. Circle the steps you would need help with or would need additional information or support to complete. If the steps seem overwhelming, break them down into smaller steps.

3.Who could help you?

Again, don’t let “reason” be your guide. You can have Oprah on your list right next to your best friend. Write down every resource you can think of and then brainstorm who could help you connect with that person or someone else like them. Don’t just think about the people you know, think about the step that you would need help with. Ask yourself,”Where would someone go to get help with X?”

4.Looking at your answers, what is the first do-able step you could take in the next week that would get you moving in the direction you want to go?

Hint: the first step is usually smaller than you think it “should” be but it will often end up being far more powerful than you anticipated—as long as you commit to taking another step once you’ve completed it. Your first step might be making a phone call, doing some research, making a connection with someone, or even making another list.

With these four steps, you’ve gotten the ball rolling. Now your job is to keep it in play. Keep moving forward, identifying the next do-able step and taking action. When you hit a stuck spot (you will—we all do), that’s your cue to break the step down further and/or go back to question 3.

Your Challenge: Ask the questions and take the steps. Let me know what you’re working on. I’d love to feature your stories in a future article.

Take Good Care,

Melissa

The Power of Small Steps

The demands of life are many. Believe me, I feel it too. It’s easy to get swept up by responsibilities and life expectations and distracted from our goals, our dreams and our aspirations.

And sometimes, when we see where we want to go—so far off in the distance—the distance to cover can seem overwhelming. Sometimes it seems too far away to even contemplate starting the journey.

The problem is, if you don’t start, you won’t get there.

Here’s the truth. The distance from where you are now to where you want to go is rarely as far away or out of reach as you think, AND the path you lay out at the beginning isn’t always the path you’ll end up taking, AND good things often happen along the journey to break up your trip, spice up your life, and make the trip a reward in itself.

Momentum begins when you take the first step. Any step. And it continues when you pick up your other foot and put it in front of the one you just moved. As you get moving, you DO figure it out—and the momentum you create by being in action will propel you further forward.

My challenge to you: What small concrete step can you take today that will get you closer to where you want to go?

Take good care,

Melissa

Emotional Eating Problem Solving: Top Ten Reasons for Getting Stuck

A few weeks ago I was sorting through school work and papers that came home in my fifth graders backpack at the end of the school year and had been left in a pile. In his math folder I found this great handout: "Problem-solving Top-ten List." It's intended to help students who are stuck on a math problem, but I found it to be great life advice and very applicable to eating and weight loss battles. What do you think?

Top Ten Reasons For Getting Stuck in the First Place:

1. You tried to rush through the problem without thinking.

We are often great at rushing into new weight loss programs and diets hoping each one will be the magic answer. Clients often tell me how they've picked programs in the past that weren't compatible with their tastes or their schedules or their preferences and that they probably knew from the beginning they wouldn't want to continue with long term.

2. You didn't read the problem carefully.

We don't just run into this difficulty with math problems. In many life situations, if we don't clearly understand the problem, we might choose a problem solving approach that isn't going to meet our needs. In the Emotional Eating Toolbox(TM) 28-Day Program, I encourage users to take the time to understand their unique situation. Taking the time to understand your reasons for overeating and the types of solutions that will work for you is essential to not getting stuck further down the road.

3. You don't know what the problem is asking for.

Again, this doesn't just apply to math problems. If we're working to solve the wrong problem, we aren't going to get anywhere. If you are struggling with emotional eating (stress eating, boredom eating, or eating when you are lonely or upset), no food plan or diet in the world is going to fix that--because it's not about the food--it's about figuring out what to do with the feelings.

4. You don't have enough information.

I often tell me clients that if they feel like they aren't getting anywhere, or if they feel like they are beating their head against the wall, odds are that there is a part of the problem that isn't being addressed. The Emotional Eating Toolbox(TM) spends a significant amount of time showing you how to collect information about yourself, about your hunger, and about your relationship with food so that you can solve the eating problems once and for all.

5. You're looking for an answer that the problem isn't asking for.

If you overeat because you are bored or stressed or anxious or angry (or any other emotion), the problem isn't about food choice. The answer the problem is asking for has to do with finding new or better ways of responding to your emotions, your stress, and your needs. The weight loss industry spends billions of dollars convincing us that if we follow a certain diet we will be beautiful and happy. I meet far to many of my clients because they feel like they haven't been able to be "strict enough" with themselves. They are angry with themselves because they haven't been successful with weight loss plans that stress deprivation and willpower and denial.

The truth is that diets aren't the answer for this problem. Enduring change and enduring weight loss happen when we make changes that work with our lives--not when we try to maintain behaviors that leave us hungry and grumpy and feeling like we are missing out.

6. The strategy you're using doesn't work for this particular problem.

I'll say it again. Diets tell you what to eat. Often, being on a diet will increase the amount of time and energy someone spends focusing on food. Diets don't teach you how to change patterns of emotional eating or overeating when you aren't hungry. They don't teach you how to feed yourself and expand your life in ways that won't leave you feeling deprived. Users of my program are often surprised at first how little time they spend focusing on food. The program doesn't count fat grams or calories or carbs. The program helps you target the reasons you feel hungry and the reasons you eat when you aren't. The program helps you GET OFF the diet rollercoaster and put food in a much smaller place in your life.

7. You aren't applying the strategy correctly.

If you've been dieting for years, it can be hard to move out of the mindset of deprivation and blaming yourself when the diet doesn't work out (even though the diet was probably doomed to fail in the first place--remember--a diet is the wrong strategy). Using the tools in the Emotional Eating Toolbox(TM) takes practice. Often users initially have a hard time looking at their eating patterns and their emotions without feeling the old self-blame, shame and guilt.

One of the biggest benefits that Toolbox users and coaching clients note is being able to stop feeling guilty and bad all the time. That's HUGE.

8. You failed to combine your strategy with another strategy.

If we try to fit ourselves into a strategy or a program instead of finding a strategy that fits and works with our specific individual situation, we're likely to get stuck. Cookie cutter eating plans and programs are problematic because we are all different. For instance, the Toolbox program guides you to your own answers and strategies through the work you do and the answers you provide about yourself.

9. The problem has more than one answer.

There is no one magic cause of weight gain and there is no one magic answer for weight loss. People's paths for taking control of their emotional eating will be different. Once you have the basic set of tools, you will be more successful if you learn to use them in the way that complements your personality, your strengths, your struggles, and your life.

10.The problem can't be solved.

Emotions and tough times are real. We might not like them but we can't just wish them away. Trying to ignore or bury emotions doesn't work well in the long term either. The truth is that there is no diet or food plan that is going to help us cope with tough emotions. If we forget about the emotional part of our eating and simply focus on the food, we're going to get stuck and we're likely to fail. And then we are likely to blame ourselves--which isn't helpful either.

There ARE powerful tools that can help anybody get through the emotions and situations that they struggle with. When we learn them and practice using them it's easier to put food in it's place, make choices that feel good about eating, and put more energy into creating the lives we really want to be living.

Take good care,

Melissa

Do you eat because you are anxious, unhappy, stressed or lonely?

You might want to consider blogging. A new, soon to be released study concludes that people who blog feel less isolated and more satisfied with their friendships. The study tracked Myspace users who also blogged and found that after two months of social networking and blogging, participants reported feeling less anxious, depressed and stressed and bloggers in particular felt better about their current social support and friendships than nonbloggers.

The authors concluded that blogging can be a powerful promoter of creative, intuitive and critical and analytical thinking.

Contrary to stereotypes of bloggers as geeks isolated in their private internet world, blogging has the potential to create community, connection and support. For many who are struggling or are shy or not feeling so great about themselves at that particular moment, reaching out online or expressing one's self in a blog post can feel both more accessible and perhaps even emotionally safer. Apparently, it might also leave you feeling better.

What do you think?

Melissa

Are you on Facebook?

Are you on Facebook? If so, come visit. You can now access Peace With Cake directly on our Facebook page (you don't even have to be a registered user to use this link). Come visit when you have a chance and consider becoming a "Fan" (just click the link on the right side of the Facebook page) or send me a Friend Request.

Take good care,

Melissa

Is perfectionism sabotaging your weight loss?

Is perfectionism sabotaging your weight loss or your relationship with food? It might be. Trying to get it "perfect" can actually make emotional eating much worse.

Do you wake up in the morning thinking “today is a fresh start (with food)?”

Does your newest approach to eating inevitably fall apart because you’ve “blown it” and feel your efforts were ruined?

If you deviate from your plan for your eating, do you react by overeating even more?

Do you have expectations for “ideal eating” that are so unrealistic or rigid that you could never imagine sticking with them for a lifetime? Or—do you begin to feel deprived just thinking about how you “should” eat?

If you answer “yes” to these questions, chances are your inner perfectionist is having a field day sabotaging your relationship with food.

The truth is, nobody gets it “perfect” (whatever THAT is). An all-or-nothing approach will sink weight loss efforts fast. On top of that, not only are we destined to fail if we expect perfection, but our inner perfectionist usually contributes a double whammy by heaping on the guilt and self-blame when we DON’T get it perfect. For many of us, that alone can be a recipe for emotional eating.

Question for the day: Do you have an inner perfectionist and if so, how is she or he getting you into trouble or making life harder? What tools do you have to take back the reins and put the perfectionist--and food--in it's place?

Take good care,

Melissa

Creating Enduring Change With Emotional Eating: Maintaining

The most consistently neglected part of the weight loss process is the phase of “maintenance.” Without solidifying our ability to maintain, our chances of creating lasting change in our relationship with food or enduring weight loss are slim. Change is not a one shot deal.

Just as quitting smoking involves a lot more than throwing your cigarettes in the trash, conquering emotional eating is something we do over and over again, in big and little ways, as we build new patterns and tools for coping and new ways of being in our worlds.

Many of my clients come to me after significant periods in their lives when they’ve walked on the road they want to be on. They’ve taken charge of their relationship with food. They’ve found the groove of eating the way they wanted to eat. They’ve lost the weight and felt the excitement and the satisfaction.

And then something happened.

Their focus on food and eating increased. The activity level decreased. The cravings changed. The weight came back. And now they are feeling defeated and tired and they have a bit (or a lot) less hope then they did before. They're usually feeling pretty guilty and mad at themselves which makes things even harder.

Change is not a one shot deal.

You probably know how it works. You’ve made a successful change. You feel proud. You feel like celebrating. Or you decide you really don’t need to be quite so disciplined anymore. You start to slack off or you loosen the reins a bit. Is this a bad thing? Haven’t you earned it? How do you know?

Maintenance is not something that happens automatically—AND maintenance is the stage where all the hard work can pay off, or can start to unravel. Most of my clients are very clear that they know HOW to make changes. They know how to lose weight (if that’s their goal). What they struggle with is keeping it off. What they don’t want to do is lose the weight and then have to lose it AGAIN.

Working at maintenance isn't as dramatic or visibly rewarding as starting something new. Because "maintaining" is the goal, you aren't seeing the motivating external changes or smaller numbers on the scale. Your clothes fit the same way everyday. But putting a firm foundation for long term maintenance in place is crucial. Sometimes this is the phase where extra support and accountability can pay off big.

My advice to you: don't hesitate to get the support you need to establish a solid foundation of maintenance. You've worked too hard to create the changes you've begun to put into place. What do you need to do to make sure that you don't short change yourself?

Take good care,

Melissa

Emotional Spending?

Here’s more evidence that it pays to be mindful of your mood—or more accurately—that it might literally cost you if you aren’t. A recent study by researchers at Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford and the University of Pittsburgh found that study participants who watched a sad movie clip were later willing to spend four times more money on a fancy water bottle than those who watched a movie clip that was emotionally neutral.

The researchers hypothesize that feeling sad may cause us to become more self-absorbed and devalue our possessions, then try to increase our sense of self worth by purchasing something.

Whether that’s the reason, or whether participants wanted to distract themselves or boost their mood by buying something new, the results of the study remind me a lot of the process of emotional eating.

Like emotional eaters, it’s quite possible that the emotional shoppers are more vulnerable to trying to find “a quick fix” for or a distraction from the negative emotional state they are experiencing. Learning the tools that allow you to slow down, identify your emotions and strategize about how to respond to them is incredibly powerful. Clients who use the Emotional Eating Toolbox™ program often tell me that they quickly find the tools they learn help them in many aspects of their life—not only with overeating and weight loss.

When we can learn to be present in the moment and aware of how we are feeling and what we are needing, we tend to be much better equipped to make choices that are in our best interest.

What do you think?

Melissa

Emotional Eating: Creating Enduring Change

I’ve spent a lot of time in airports lately. That means that I’ve spent a lot of time at the news stand, scanning the covers of magazines, looking for some nice relaxing reading material. In my browsing, I’ve been struck by how magazine articles emphasize making changes or starting something new.

“Get in bikini shape,” "The diet that works," “Exercise programs for 6-pack abs.” You know what I’m talking about--headlines with big sparkly promises that aim to excite us about undertaking a new project.

Given the appropriate level of enthusiasm, most of us are able to get motivated to start something new. It’s fresh territory, a clean slate, a new approach.

Here’s what the magazines don’t talk about: successful change doesn’t happen with just a bright shiny new program. The right program is only one tool. Enduring change requires stamina. Changes that last require us to pace ourselves. It’s not just STARTING the exciting new project; it’s continuing to slog ahead when the going gets tough and when the excitement wanes.

With emotional eating, stamina means having the courage to stop and ask ourselves why we are reaching for the Doritos, even on the days when we’re not sure we really want to know the answer. Enduring change requires starting the project or the program, riding the wave of any honeymoon phase we are lucky enough to experience, and then recognizing that the biggest payoff comes when the easy part stops and we start feeling stuck.

It’s really true. When you hit that spot where you feel like “here we go again, this is where it all falls apart,” and you stick with it, you keep slogging ahead, you put your head down and you keep taking small steps forward--THAT’S where the big payoff happens.

It's hard. Many people can’t do this alone. We have too many inner critics--powerful inner perfectionists, who talk us into sabotage and failure. This is the place where you can pay off big if you call a friend or a role model. This is one of the biggest benefits of hiring a coach. It can take courage to state that the change you are trying to make is important enough to reach out for help, but investing in yourself and investing in moving forward is a powerful step. The experience of learning how to bypass those internal critics and those old stumbling blocks is priceless.

As enticing as the magazine headlines are, many times we don’t need to start over. What we need is the encouragement and the accountability and the support and the reminders to KEEP GOING. We need that voice in our ear reminding ourselves that we really truly are getting somewhere. Small steps, moving forward--that's what pays off.

Take good care,

Melissa

How to Identify Emotional Eating: Ten Signs

I'm often asked about how to identify whether or not emotional eating may be an issue. Emotional eating is not always easily identified. Here are some patterns that are likely to indicate that some kind of emotional eating is going on:

1. The hunger comes on suddenly and the need to eat feels urgent--physiological hunger comes on slowly and it's okay to delay eating.
2. You keep eating even if you aren't hungry anymore or the hunger doesn't go away even though you are full.
3. You eat to the point of physical discomfort.
4. You don't know whether you were hungry or not when you ate.
5. After you eat you realize you aren't really aware of how much you ate or how it tasted.
6. You have feelings of shame, guilt or embarrassment after eating.
7. You eat because you are bored, tired, lonely, excited.
8. Hunger accompanies an unpleasant emotion--anger, hurt, fear, anxiety. Emotional eating begins in your mind--thinking about food--not in your stomach.
9. You crave a specific food and won't feel content until you have that. If you are eating for physical hunger, any food will fill you up.
10. You keep eating (or grazing, or nibbling) because you just can't figure out what you are hungry for. Nothing seems to hit the spot (physical hunger goes away no matter what food you choose to fill up on).

“Melissa, Why do you work with bariatric surgery patients?”

I’m often asked this. Clients and readers are often curious because I’m not a weight loss surgery patient myself and because I don’t have a “weight loss story.” Except that I do. My story has emerged from the stories of others.

The truth is, I founded Enduring Change Coaching after years of practicing as a Clinical Psychologist. As a Clinical Psychologist, one area of expertise has been helping people with food and weight issues. Since 1995, I have worked with just about every kind of eating disorder, weight issue, and food issue an adult can have. I’ve witnessed peoples’ pain, struggles and desperation, and I’ve had the honor of sharing in their experiences of transformation (and I’m not just talking about weight)—as they found their own paths to making peace with food, resolving weight issues, putting eating and food in a much smaller place in their lives, and moving on to focusing on more enjoyable and empowering things.

I developed the Emotional Eating Toolbox™ and run the bariatric surgery coaching programs at Enduring Change because I saw people struggling with their weight and feeling hopeless and I knew the tools and strategies that I have developed with my clients can make a profound difference. I’ve met too many people who believe that taking control of their weight and their relationship with food isn’t possible and who believe that they must resign themselves to fighting—and losing—battles with weight forever.

I’ve known and worked with too many bariatric surgery patients who are stuck in a mode of self-blame. They believe they should be able to succeed with weight loss and with weight loss surgery without help or support and they blame themselves when they struggle.

I’ve known other weight loss surgery patients who were never told that there are other essential tools they need to acquire and use with weight loss surgery. (Thankfully, I’m seeing less of this.) They too feel like failures when they find themselves struggling with emotional eating, overeating and weight gain after surgery.

And I’ve worked with plenty of people who have had weight loss surgery, who know darned well that the procedure they had is only one tool. They know that they have other challenging work ahead of them, and other tools they will need to acquire to get where they want to go. The problem is, they aren’t sure where to get those tools. There are (in many areas) too few support groups (especially for individuals who are 12 months or more post-surgery) and not enough information about good resources. There is not enough information about overeating and emotional eating. People are quick to tell you not to overeat, not to use food to fill an “emotional hole,” and not to eat to cope with stress or boredom or loneliness. But there is not enough quality information and help out there about what to do instead.

That’s been my experience. And that’s why I coach individuals and hold special coaching programs and conferences for people who have had bariatric surgery—by telephone—so anyone can attend. It’s why I periodically offer free teleclasses. Most importantly, it was one of my motivations for creating the Emotional Eating Toolbox™ Self-guided Program. Because there is too much shame and self-blame out there. And because we all are a lot more likely to succeed when we have the right tools.

Take good care,

Melissa

Stressed Monkeys Overeat

So what's the significance of this story? Well, I hope it helps some who tend to get so angry with themselves when they succumb to eating under stress. No, I don't believe this study means that we can't take charge of overeating, but I think it does show that emotional eating is complex and that our appetites are driven by a number of different issues and realities. The desire to eat to cope with emotions and stress is something that should be approached with respect. Ignoring the cravings or the urges doesn't necessarily get us where we want to go.

I think the story supports the importance of having tools to cope with stress, to bolster our self-care and to help us feel empowered--tools that we can strive to use instead of overeating or stress eating. What do you think?

Take good care,

Melissa

My Six Word Memoir: “Life is not the dress rehearsal”

I posted this quote (attributed to Rose Tremain) on my bedroom wall when I was sixteen and now it lives on my website--you can find it (here).

Here’s a bit about what it means to me:

Make sure you are writing the script you want to be living.

Get clear on your priorities, your values, and your goals and then spend your energy accordingly. Spending the time to do this will pay off in ways you won’t believe. Ask yourself, “Are you running your life or is your life running you?” If your life isn’t what you want it to be, spend the energy, the time, or the dollars to get the help you need to get on YOUR track.

Don’t wait for someone else to yell, “Action!”

Don’t wait for permission from anyone else to live your life. Make sure to create space for you. If it seems like there is never time or opportunity for the things you value or for your priorities, there is something wrong.

By the same token, don’t neglect yourself in the care you extend. Remember--put your oxygen mask on first. It’s essential. Self-care and attention to your needs will make not only your life, but the world, a better place.

Be brave. Don’t let stage fright stop you.

Even Oscar winners get stage fright. Courage does not mean having no fear. Courage means doing the hard thing anyway. Acknowledge your stage fright. Take a deep breath, be afraid, and then do the thing you need to do. Just take the first small step. We tend to have more regret around the things we didn’t do than the things we did that didn’t go perfectly.

Don’t be afraid to improvise.

You don’t have to know every step of the process in order to get started. If you have a goal or a dream and you can identify one step that you can take towards it—get moving. Plans unfold and evolve as we live them. Things that originally seemed impossible from a distance aren’t usually so imposing once we find a way to start approaching them. Take action and let the momentum and the plan unfold and build as you go.

This entry was inspired by Diana who blogs over at Iowa Avenue and also has a blog called The Menu Coach Chronicles. She tagged me to write a Six Word Memoir. It’s now my turn to pass the blogging baton by tagging people myself.

The rules are simple--write your own six word memoir following these five rules:

• Write your own six word (max) memoir


• Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you want


• Link to the person who tagged you in your post.


• Tag at least five more blogs.


• Leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

I invite the following bloggers to play. Some of you I know and some of you I haven't met. I just love your blogs and am interested in what you'll have to say. Hope you decide to play along.
Karly, Gregory Anne, Jay, Henrik and Stephanie --Tag—you’re it!

Mistakes That Sabotage Weight Loss and Contribute to Emotional Eating: Part Two

The term emotional eating is used a lot, but not everyone understands what emotional eating really is.

Emotional eating is eating and overeating that occurs when we use food as a way to cope with a feeling, situation, or a need that is not physical hunger. Emotional eating is eating that happens when we want to eat but our bodies don’t really need the fuel. Common kinds of emotional eating are “nervous eating,” eating when you are bored, using food as a “reward” (to feel good), or eating when you are lonely. Because this kind of eating isn’t tied to a physical need for food, it can easily cause weight gain.

Here are three things everyone trying to lose weight needs to know about emotional eating:

1. Many people don’t know that they are emotional eaters. How’s that? Well, emotional eating isn’t always as straightforward as feeling a feeling (“I’m anxious”) and then making a choice to eat. Here’s the tricky part. Over time, if you’ve learned to use food as a way to cope with certain feeling states or situations, your brain can stop identifying that you are eating for emotional reasons. Here’s an example. If when you’re stressed, you reach for a snack to comfort yourself, over time, your brain stops telling you, “You are stressed and you are going to try to cope with it by eating a cookie.”

Over time, your brain may start skipping the emotion and move directly to interpreting that stressed feeling as physical hunger. You might not even realize that you are feeling stress. Your thinking will go like this: Something stressful will happen and you will start wanting a snack. You might even feel physically hungry. Food, not stress, will be the central thought in your mind. If you are someone who feels hungry “all the time,” emotional eating could very well be playing a hidden role.

2. Emotional eating and self-blame, shame and guilt go hand in hand. If you are feeling “out of control with your eating,” odds are that emotional eating is happening. The problem is, if emotional eating goes unrecognized, or if we don’t take it seriously, it’s easy to fall into a trap of guilt and self-blame for not being able to “stay in control” of your eating.
Shame and guilt are never helpful when it comes to long term weight loss. They tend to breed isolation, negative self esteem, decreased hope, and ultimately more emotional eating and self-sabotage. If you are struggling with emotional eating and you don’t learn the tools you need to cope with the feelings, the odds are that you will continue to feel out of control with food.

3. If you don’t take control of emotional eating, it can take control of your weight loss plans. Research studies of individuals trying to lose weight find that people who eat for emotional reasons lose less weight and have a harder time keeping it off. The journal Obesity recently published an article concluding that successful weight loss programs should teach clients how to cope with emotional eating in order to improve the clients’ ability to lose weight and not regain it.

If emotional eating is something that you struggle with, it’s important to know that no diet, no fitness program, and no weight loss surgery will fix that for you.

Taking control of emotional eating requires learning new effective ways to cope with your emotions. It’s not about the food.

It’s also important to know that learning new tools to cope with emotional eating can be one of the most rewarding and life-changing gifts that you can give yourself. Learning new ways to cope with life issues and feelings allows you to tackle life head-on. When you do this, food becomes simpler, and your life grows bigger, and ultimately, more rewarding.

Take good care,

Melissa

The New and Improved Emotional Eating Toolbox is Here!

I'm pleased to announce that the Emotional Eating Toolbox(TM) 28-day Program for taking charge of overeating and emotional eating is now available as a soft cover workbook and CD set! The previous version, which was downloadable, is no longer available (thanks to those who helped me with my Spring cleaning!). The workbook is hefty--150 pages--and, just as it was before, it's packed with powerful tools, individualized strategies, templates and schedules to help you take control, move beyond dieting, and put food in a much smaller place in your life. If you check out the new graphic on this page you can see the snazzy new cover.

One of the reasons that we moved to a non-downloadable version was because we've had so much interest from groups, programs and support groups who want to purchase the program in bulk quantities and work through it together. If you are interested in volume pricing, please contact us.

Take good care,

Melissa

Mistakes That Sabotage Weight Loss and Contribute to Emotional Eating: Part One

One of the biggest mistakes that people make when they are trying to take control of their overeating is to deny their hunger. This is often the result of lots of bad diet advice. It goes something like this: "The hunger is all in your head, you don't really need any more food, it's "just" emotional hunger, so ignore it and don't give in to it."

This advice might work in the short-run--sometimes. In the bigger picture, it is NOT a recipe for success.

I'm here to tell you that the hunger IS real. When we feel hungry even though our body doesn't actually need fuel, we need to respect that we are thinking about food for some reason. The odds are that we are hungry for something. It might be stress relief, or a break, or love or even excitement or sleep.

Our job, if we want to take control of emotional eating is not to deny the hunger, but to acknowledge it, respect it, and develop the tools to identify whether it truly is a hunger that will best be fed with calories, or whether we hunger or yearn for something else, and we're just using food as a stand-in. Make sense?

It's only by respecting and exploring our hungers and feelings and needs that we can start to develop better strategies for feeding ourselves--strategies for meeting our emotional needs, our feelings, and our desires.

This can be tricky, and for many who struggle with emotional eating, it's a whole new world. Some of us have gotten so good at addressing our emotions, needs and desires with food that we don't even register the emotional part anymore--our brains try to convince us that we REALLY ARE just hungry for food. What we may need then, are more effective tools for clarifying and responding to those hungry feelings. Lots of people need help with that--and a good coach or emotional eating program can be the best resource we provide ourselves. What we really don't need is to ignore what is going on. Because if we do, the thing we are hungering for--whatever it is--never truly gets fed and never really goes away. And if we haven't figured out any other way to cope with it, eventually we overeat, blame ourselves, and the cycle begins again.

Take good care,

Melissa

Emotional Eating Toolbox(TM) Spring Cleaning Deal!

There are some exciting changes coming up at Enduring Change, and our Emotional Eating Programs. In the spirit of my last post, you are invited to help with some of my Spring Cleaning. There are a limited number of Emotional Eating Toolbox 28-Day Self-guided programs available at a discounted price. The information about the program and about how to order is here. (this is the self-study program, NOT the Emotional Eating Coaching Groups). A limited number have been set aside. Type in the coupon code springfever at checkout and the price will be discounted by $34! When they're gone, they're gone!

Take good care,

Melissa

Spring Cleaning For a Better Life

I saw a chiropractor for the first time last week. I have to admit, the long series of crunches, cracks and pops that echoed in my ear when he made his first "adjustment" thoroughly unnerved me. However, within seconds after that single, weird twist of my neck, I was flooded with the most amazing feeling of relief--from a pain I hadn't even realized that I had.

Thinking back, I realize that I've been living with this discomfort for months. I'd gotten "used to it." I'd adjusted and "forgotten" about it. And it felt SO GOOD when it was gone.

The experience got me thinking. So many times, a client struggling with weight and eating will be frustrated by their lack of energy or focus or motivation. When we dig deeper, they'll realize that something is going on that is putting their life out of balance--some stress or some difficult situation or some added demand. Whatever it is, they don't quickly identify it because, like the pain in my neck, they too have "adjusted" or learned to tolerate whatever it is. They've come to think of it as "normal" and they've been trying to "work around it." For emotional eaters, "working around" or not thinking about things tends to be related to overeating--because food and eating are ways to distract ourselves or "not think about" things.

The other problem is, these annoying, irritating or difficult things that we learn to tolerate or put up with, AREN'T WORKING FOR US. They use up our energy. They wear us out. They disorganize us. They keep us from being in optimal balance and from moving forward in the direction we really want to go. And many of them, with a little direct attention, can be dealt with.

So what are you tolerating, putting up with, "adjusting to" or trying not to think about?

Do you have a pile of anything in your life that you have to walk around anytime you want to get somewhere?

It might be a literal pile like laundry that needs to be folded or the junk in the garage that needs to go away, or it might be a metaphorical pile like a truth that needs to be told or faced or an ache or pain that you need to deal with. What is there in your life, big or small, that is sub-optimal? That gets in your way?

I'll make you a bet. I bet that if you started a list of all the things you are tolerating that could be better--or ignoring instead of addressing--you could begin to take care of many of them in less than one hour a piece. I know I'm amazed at what I'm starting to cross off my list.

So here's your Spring Cleaning Challenge:
Make your list. Put it somewhere where you can add to it as you recognize new items. Then commit to spending a minimum of 15 minutes a day clearing things off of it. Making the appointment to get your teeth cleaned only takes five minutes. Cleaning out a drawer takes about fifteen. Most tough phone calls or conversations you've been dreading will take less than an hour. You can knock out a round of errands in an amazingly short time if you make an organized plan first.

Take the challenge. I promise you that a little focused Spring Cleaning can make a noticeable difference.

Take good care,

Melissa

The National Mindless Eating Challenge

Last year I blogged about (and recommended) Brian Wansink's book Mindless Eating: Why we eat more than we think . The book has great insights, tips and strategies for curbing eating we don't even know that we do. It's really an interesting and helpful read and an invaluable tool if your goals are to have more control and awareness of your eating.

Now, in conjunction with the Cornell Food and Brand Lab, Brian is offering another great (free!) resource: The National Mindless Eating Challenge.

When you sign up for the challenge (did I mention that it's free?), you fill out a brief survey about yourself, your goals, and your lifestyle. As the website says, this isn't a challenge based on height and weight and BMI, it's about taking steps that allow you to become more mindful of the way you eat, and make food choices that leave you feeling healthy, and give you the energy you want to have.

The program allows you to choose from a variety of goals. Again, this is not a weight loss challenge, although you could definitely use it to develop some habits that will help you lose weight. Don't tell anyone, but I chose "improve my family's health without their knowledge" as my primary challenge goal.

Once you've completed the survey, you will receive concrete suggestions about how to make small, relevent changes to your behavior that are customized to your survey responses. The program provides a checklist that you can use to track progress, periodic emails, and new challenges each month. I like the way the program had me chose achievable goals and actually asked me to do some strategizing around potential hurdles I might face in achieving them.

Finally, I love this quote from the Mindless Eating Challenge website:

"Food is such an important part of our life and our world, it shouldn't be the source of frustration and concern that it is to so many people. Our hope is that we can help you (and your family) make small, painless changes that can help you eat better and enjoy food more."

I've just started the challenge, but so far I give it two thumbs up!

Melissa

Alltop

Peace With Cake is growing! I am pleased to announce that Peace With Cake: Ending Emotional Eating is now featured on Alltop. If you aren't yet familiar with Alltop, you will be. Guy Kawasaki and his team at Alltop import the top news websites and blogs for any given topic. They aim to be the "table of contents" or a "digital magazine rack" of the internet. I recommend that you check them out if you haven't already. If you are like me, you'll find that you bookmark Alltop and use it all the time.

Peace With Cake is now listed in the Health section along with the Mayoclinic.com, WebMD, and CNN Health. Thank you Guy, I'm honored!

Emotional Eating Program for Weight Loss Surgery Patients

People sometimes mistakenly think that weight loss surgery is a quick fix. Not true. Bariatric or weight loss surgery is a tool that is sometimes helpful in helping people take control of obesity and lose a significant amount of weight. However, as all weight loss surgery patients learn, the surgery is only one tool of several they will need to lose weight, keep the weight off, and live the life that they truly want to live. One of the areas I specialize in is helping weight loss surgery patients acquire the other tools they need to make weight loss permanent.

Many weight loss surgery patients continue to struggle with emotional eating after surgery. Sometimes this is an issue immediately, but often it is over time that the emotional eating habits (and the weight) start to come back.

The Emotional Eating Toolbox (TM) 28-day program is a self-guided program that is very adaptable for weight loss surgery patients and that bariatric surgery patients have used successfully to take control of their eating and maximize their success with bariatric surgery. In fact, Bariatric Support Centers International (BSCI) reviewed the program and now features it on their website for members.

The Emotional Eating Toolbox(TM) Deluxe Program for Weight Loss Surgery Patients was designed for weight loss surgery patients who want to use the Toolbox program but would like more personalized support, accountability and coaching through the process. This deluxe program includes the Emotional Eating Toolbox(TM) 28-day program, four weekly hour-long coaching groups led by me and attended by other weight loss surgery patients (these small groups are held by phone so that you can participate from anywhere you are), and an individual coaching session with me to help you really fine-tune and customize your work on the program.

Sessions of this special program begin on April 17 and on May 29. The deadline for the April group is approaching quickly, but if you sign up by April 16 (assuming space is available), we can get you your materials in time for the first group meeting.

Take good care,

Melissa

More quick tips

Emotional eating, nervous eating, stress eating, bored eating--the eating that happens when you aren't physically hungry--tends to happen when you don't know what else to do about how you are feeling, or you don't feel like you can take the time to do it. If my last post about enhancing the quality of your life in quick ways interested you, you should check out Lisa Newton's post, 50 Ideas for a Healthy Lifestyle That Take Ten Minutes or Less. Lisa is the founder of Iowa Avenue, a healthy living social community where I am privileged to be able to share my blog posts. Lisa's post above appeared at another site you might want to check out, Dumb Little Man. It's a blog about making life simpler with lots of tips for how to stay satisfied when you live a really busy life. Pretty cool!

Take good care,
Melissa

The Good Life

What if I told you there was a simple, five minute ritual that research has shown can actually increases someone's level of happiness and reduce symptoms of depression? What if I told you that either the ritual or the results (or both) were so compelling that six months after researchers first introduced the technique to their subjects, they were astounded to find that many of them were still using it even though the study had ended after the first week. Would you be interested?

We spend so much time thinking about problems and how to solve them. Some of our brain seems to be wired to focus on the things that don't work and that we want repaired. The truth is, there are some delightful, easy things we can do to enrich our lives and they don't have to take a lot of money or time. The good life doesn't require private jets and a lot of time. The good life comes from aiming consistently for "a better life." I'm talking about the small things we can do to keep the good feelings, the good relationships, or to make things even a bit brighter or nicer. It's like making sure we are applying fertilizer regularly and also making sure the set-up of our life allows us to notice and savor the parts of it we truly love.

What am I talking about? Well it's different for everyone, but here are some ideas: recently, I wrote about the power of music to transform your mood, your activity, and to help feed your spirit. Sometimes taking the time to put on a CD or grab your mp3 player is all you need to make whatever you are doing one notch better. One of my favorite inventions in the world is my coffee maker with a timer on it. Even better is that my incredible husband gets things ready every evening so in the morning when I stumble downstairs, I am greeted by the smell of a great pot of coffee. For me, it makes starting every day perfect, no matter what happens after that.

I have a friend who makes sure she always has cut flowers from her yard on her desk. It truly adds to the quality of her day. Someone else cherishes her morning and evening walks alone with her dog. They help reset her brain and her mood for the next part of her day. In our family, a face-to-face start and end of the day are important. I cherish saying good morning to everyone and wishing them a good night's sleep at the end of the day. If someone isn't home for the night, I find I really really miss that ritual.

Another idea suggested to me was to set aside five minutes every day to send a brief email or make a phone call to a friend you haven't talked to lately. Just to connect and say you were thinking about them or to deliver a compliment.

Think about it. What are the routines and rituals that you already have in place that make your life good? What rituals (remember, I'm talking short and sweet) could you add that would make your good life one notch better? This isn't a rhetorical question. Share your good life routines by adding a comment below. We can all learn from each other.

If you are you curious about the study I mentioned at the beginning, you can read the details here. In the study, participants were asked to take the time each evening to write down three good things that happened each day and their causes. After one week, researchers found that subjects who had kept track of the three good things reported higher levels of happiness and fewer symptoms of depression. While they were not surprised, they were delighted to find that when they retested these subjects three months and then six months after the study ended, these subjects STILL reported increased happiness and decreased symptoms of depression. It turns out that the research subjects had found the ritual so satisfying that they had continued it on their own! You might want to consider the Three Good Things exercise as another routine that can make your good life better.

If you are looking for more ways to add good stuff to your life, check out my complimentary Self-care Package. You can subscribe in the upper right corner of this blog and when you do, you will receive five weekly audio lessons (short!) that you can listen to on your computer.

Take good care,

Melissa

How your iPod can help you take control of emotional eating

A lot of overeating (and emotional eating) happens when we use food to try to "feel better" or improve our mood or our day. Interestingly, music can be an incredibly powerful tool that can serve the same purpose--and doesn't cause weight gain.

At a conference recently, I experienced a very convincing demonstration of the power of music. We were shown a short three minute video, filmed from the perspective of someone walking on a trail through the woods down to a beach. There were no people visible in the video, we only saw the journey through the eyes of the person walking.

We watched the short movie twice. The first time, the video was accompanied by a soundtrack of "scary movie music" (think Jaws and waiting for the shark to break the water). We were all on the edge of our seats, anxious and waiting for something horrible to happen. Then we were shown the video again. This time the music was bright and happy. Watching the video, I noticed the sunny day and the beauty of the woods. It was peaceful and I wanted to be there. I wanted to BE the person walking down the trail. Music changed the mood and created a completely different experience. The music MADE the movie.

Think about it. Music can touch us in powerful ways. A certain song can transport us instantly to a different time or place. Music can elevate our mood. It can be incredibly motivating (think about the theme song from Rocky). Music can relax us and even help us slow down our heart rate.

Belting out the right song can be a great way to work out our anger (Alannis Morrisette anyone?), our hurt, our sorrow or our determination (I knew a woman who prepared to defend her doctoral dissertation by listening to Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive). Music can soothe us. The right music can feed our soul.

An IPod or mp3 player is a great way to carry a library of music with you and make it instantly accessible. I have this Zune but the teeny-tiny green iPod Shuffle has also caught my eye. Listening to the music on my mp3 player can instantly change how I feel when I run and can make doing boring paperwork a peaceful and enjoyable experience.

Think about it. How and when could you use music to enhance your life, decrease your stress, and maybe even reduce your urges to overeat?

Take good care,

Melissa

Cravings, emotional eating, and knowing what to do about overeating

Emotional eating is a term that’s all over the media this month. There is lots of talk about Paul McKenna and the show I Can Make You Thin and how to stop emotional eating. I confess that I haven’t seen the show yet, but I understand that this week's episode showcased his use of Thought Field Therapy to address emotional eating.

I don't use Thought Field Therapy with my clients. Instead, I teach my clients how to get beyond their emotional eating by showing them the tools they need to identify what is driving their urges to overeat. I teach them how to identify what they need to feed their REAL cravings and hungers and emotions so that they can feel satisfied and stop focusing so much on food. I also don’t tell my clients to ignore their hunger (as many weight loss programs do). I don’t ask my clients to try to distract themselves so they can avoid their hunger until the next time when they are “supposed to eat.” I help my clients face their hunger head on. I help the people I work with recognize that their hunger means they are wanting or needing or feeling something and I help them figure out how to get clear on what that really is, and then how to respond to it.

When we have the tools to accurately respond to our emotional needs and wants, we are empowered to take care of ourselves in a way that overeating will never provide. THAT helps us make changes that last. Having the right tools helps people learn to give food a much smaller place in their lives and get on with focusing on the people, things, and goals that are truly important to them.

Tomorrow I am offering a free teleclass on How to REALLY Feed Your Cravings So You Can Lose Weight.

The class is tomorrow, Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 7pm Eastern, 6pm Central, 5pm Mountain and 4pm Pacific time and you can still enroll.

In the class, I'll teach you five ways to feed yourself what you are really hungry for that won't cause weight gain and should make weight loss easier. Trust me, these are NOT gimmicks or diet tricks. That's simply not what I am about. These are the real tools that you need to know to be able to lose weight and maintain weight loss.

Teleclasses are easy to attend. Once you are registered, you'll get an email with the phone number to call. You simply dial in and provide an access code. Note that you will be responsible for any long distance charges. You can go here to register.

Take good care,

Melissa

Are You Dreaming Big Enough?

Often, emotional eating happens when people are trying to fill unaddressed gaps in the rest of their lives. Emotional eaters tend to be some of the most giving people on the planet--to everyone but themselves. Taking control of emotional eating also involves taking a close look at the rest of your life. Are you giving yourself what you need? Are you feeding your mind? Your body? Your spirit? I promise it will be much easier to avoid the munchies if you are feeding yourself high quality stuff in these other areas.

Do you dream big? Do you dream at all?

I talk to so many people who have been jolted by the realization that they've been so busy chasing their lives and doing everything that's "expected," that they've stopped moving towards creating what they really truly desire.

So many people have wonderful dreams that are buried just beneath the surface--a book they'd love to write, a business venture they'd like to pursue, a race they'd like to sign up for, or a trip they want to take. If only.

If only they had: more time, more motivation, more get-up-and-go. If only they weren't so busy, or if only they had--more money, more connections, more support. If only they could get organized, or if only they could get some time to think. If only they could figure out the first steps.

Here's what I know:

1. The bigger we allow ourselves to dream, the more we accomplish and the more we start to see what is possible.

2. We don't have to be any more amazing than we already are to do amazing things.

3. We don't have to know exactly how we are going to make our dream come true in order to start pursuing it. But we do need to HAVE the dream. We do need to have to have a clear intention that we're going to do whatever-it-is and we do have to create space in our life for our dreams to emerge.

4. Big dreams usually don't require immediate big steps. Small, steady, consistent steps tend to create the most solid and enduring results.

My coaching challenge for you:

1. You've heard this from me before--set some goals.
It is vitally important to put what we want into words. Set goals that are concrete and goals that you can get excited about--both short term and longer term goals. Think about what you WANT to do, not what you think you SHOULD do. Choose goals that make you smile when you think about achieving them.

2. Ask yourself how and when you can commit time to your dreams.
If you need to create some space, ask yourself what you can give up, say "no" to or delegate. Even if you only have fifteen minutes a day or one Saturday afternoon a month, claim your time. Schedule it for you and write it in your calendar.

3. Ask yourself what you need to get started.
Do you need a boost in motivation or some inspiration? Do you need an actual place to work on your dream? A supporter or a mentor? More information?

Don't expect yourself to solve this problem in one fell swoop. Try to define one small step you could take towards obtaining what you need. Write the step down and set a date by which you'll accomplish that piece.

4. Take Action.
Sharing our goals is one of the most powerful steps you can take. Add a comment and share your dream or your goal and your first concrete step.

Take good care,

Melissa

Another free teleclass: stop overeating and keep the weight off

It's time for another free teleclass with more great tools to help you take control of emotional eating.

This month's topic is: How to REALLY Feed Your Cravings So You Can Lose Weight.

Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 7pm Eastern, 6pm Central, 5pm Mountain and 4pm Pacific time.

In the class, I'll teach you five ways to feed yourself what you are really hungry for that won't cause weight gain and should make weight loss easier. Trust me, these are NOT gimmicks or diet tricks. That's simply not what I am about. These are the real tools that you need to know to be able to lose weight and maintain weight loss.

Teleclasses are easy to attend. Once you are registered, you'll get an email with the phone number to call. You simply dial in and provide an access code. Note that you will be responsible for any long distance charges.

Attendance at these calls has been growing dramatically each time we offer one, so register early to hold a spot. If you can't attend, don't worry, the calls will be recorded and I will provide the recording to enrollees after the call.

Go here if you'd like to sign up.

Hope to see you in class!

Melissa

Emotional Eating Recovery Guide: 3 things to do instead of eating the M&Ms

The “M&Ms question” is one of the most common questions I hear. I believe it has been asked in every emotional eating group I have ever led.

“I’m not even hungry and I don’t want to eat them--but they call to me. And then I’m eating them. I can’t stop. What do I do about the blasted M&Ms?”

Here are three things you can do to avoid the M&M emotional eating trap. The bonus of these alternatives is that they all build skills that can help you take charge of emotional eating in the future.

1. Identify it and label it
Don’t allow yourself to be on auto-pilot. Don’t allow any part of yourself to deny what you know until “afterwards”. If you do, the M&Ms will win and you’ll end up feeling guilty and disappointed in yourself. Say it out loud, in a nonjudgmental way. “I’m not physically hungry and I’m dying for those M&Ms. I am experiencing something that is triggering me to think about eating even though I don’t need fuel right now." Don’t skip this step. If you are sitting in your cubicle at work and you are embarrassed to say it out loud, pull out a pad of paper and write it down. While you are at it . . .

2. Explore it
Without judgment, try to be a detective and see if you can identify what this “M&M attack” is really about. Pull out a journal or type on your computer for a few minutes. If you can, you might want to go for a short walk while you think. Why is the candy suddenly so important? What was happening before you were thinking of it? What would you be thinking of if you weren’t thinking about the chocolate? What makes this hour different from one when the candy wasn’t calling quite so loudly or at all? If you figure anything out, be direct with yourself and say that out loud too. “I’m not hungry but I’m focusing on eating candy. I just realized it’s because I’m really stressed out about this report I need to get done and I’m worried about how people will respond when I turn in the report.” If you hit pay dirt here, you’ll now find you have a different problem. The problem isn’t really about M&Ms, it’s figuring out how to take care of yourself and the feelings or issues you identified.

3. Start a List
Take the information you gathered in step two and start a list NOW of everything you can think of that you could do to take care of that feeling in addition to eating M&Ms. Put it in your wallet or by your bed where you can add ideas as you think of them. Don’t censor your ideas for being unrealistic or impossible. Write down every possible thing (big or small) you can think of to do in response to worry or anxiety or tiredness or boredom (or whatever you have identified). Make a commitment to try two of those things, this week when the candy craving hits. Carry the list with you. Keep adding and experimenting.

Recovery from emotional eating is a process. It takes time, and it takes the right tools. If you allow yourself to stop, identify that emotional eating is happening, and explore the situation and your needs, you will find your way out of the M&M trap.

Take good care,

Melissa

MTV is exploring the impact of yo-yo dieting

MTV is reportedly doing a show focused on yo-yo dieting and on the challenges of trying to maintain weight loss. A producer with the network contacted me recently seeking help with an episode they are filming. The producer with True Life, a reality show on the network, told me that the episode is intended to be a show about the world of someone caught in a battle with his or her weight. True Life doesn't want to depict extremes or eating disorders in this episode. They want to show the day-to-day world of someone trying to successfully change their weight.

Interestingly (and true to life I think), the producers were finding that people are less willing to share their battles to maintain weight loss after they have lost the weight then they are to share their current weight loss attempts.

This makes sense to me. Losing weight is hard. Making permanent weight changes is even harder--and yet that reality is often under-emphasized or not talked about at all in weight loss plans and programs.

Change experts recognized that learning to maintain new behaviors and life changes is a separate and very important part of the change process. If a weight loss plan doesn't address that part of change--and do a really good job--then the odds of keeping weight off decrease dramatically. Unfortunately, many people don't recognize how important this maintenance stage is and most people don't address it as a distinct phase in the weight loss process. When the weight starts to come back on, we don't tend to think, "Oh, I must need more tools, more help, or something else to help me really solidify the changes I've made and master this maintenance phase." No, what often happens when the weight starts to come back on is that we blame ourselves and feel like we failed (again).

Shame and guilt frequently accompany weight regain, making us less likely to seek the help or tools that might get us out of the shame trap and back on the path we want to be on. It's an incredibly painful place to be and I can understand why people would be reluctant to share their vulnerability on national television.

I have no idea what the True Life episode will be like once it is filmed, but I hope they do a good job and I hope they talk about this shame trap and its potential pitfalls. Because once we know about the trap, and once we know that it's not just us that feels that way, it's a lot harder to get isolated and trapped in it.

Take good care,


Melissa

Weight Loss Surgery and Overeating: A Free Teleclass

In case you missed my free teleclass: Taking Charge of Emotional Eating After Weight Loss Surgery, there is still time to listen to an audio recording of the class. Just click on the link to access the recording.

There are serious misconceptions out there about bariatric surgery being "a quick fix" or an "easy solution." Not true. Weight loss surgery requires a major investment--and not just financial--in order to develop a successful post-surgery lifestyle and to attain weight loss that lasts. Gastric bypass, lap band, and other bariatric procedures all require patients to develop new relationships with food and additional coping tools. In the teleclass I talked about some of the common mistakes people make and tools that can make things a lot easier.

We talked about:
why ignoring emotional cravings is a big mistake
how shame and guilt can sabotage your weight loss
why it's not selfish to take excellent care of yourself
why curiosity is an incredibly valuable tool for taking control of emotional eating.

Take a listen if you are interested. Please leave a comment sharing your thoughts, your struggles, and your successes.

Take good care,

Melissa

Take small steps for enduring weight loss

It’s one thing to read about the alarming increase in obesity in our country. It’s a stunning thing to see this visual depiction of the growing problem on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website—check this out:

Obesity Prevalence Map

Despite the millions of dollars being spent on weight loss every year, we are dramatically moving in the wrong direction, and clearly the advertising enticing us to try the newest “quick fix” isn’t helping the way the ads promise it should.

So what to do? The need for long term, enduring solutions is greater than ever. When we see a huge problem, we are tempted to think big. The problem is, big changes usually overwhelm. It is important to remember that the path to permanent change is so often achieved through consistent but small, reasonable sized steps. Rapid drastic changes don’t fit easily with our lives and they often don’t last.

This week, I challenge you to come up with one small reasonable step that you can take to improve the health of you and your family. Select a step that you can imagine sticking with for the next ten years—not a short term fix.

Think reasonable and think realistic. Think about improving something about your lifestyle just *one notch*. Think about a pace that you can live with.

The change you select might be serving plates in the kitchen instead of at the table, or leaving the salt shaker in the cupboard. It might be cutting the sugar you put in your coffee in half or cutting your TV time by 30 minutes to do something more active. Maybe you’ll decide to always take the parking spot half a row farther away then you need to. Be creative but think honestly about who you are, what your family will tolerate and what you can commit to.

Leave a comment and let me know what you committed to. Let's start changing the map!

Take good care,

Melissa