By It can be hurtful and a bit in your face, but I’ve seen it all the time. Heck, it’s even something I used to do regularly, which got me nowhere.
Sadly, we have to face the reality of what we do day in day out.Is it giving us what we want — or taking us in the opposite direction? Undoubtedly, if you think about it, these little things we sneak in do every day don’t serve our weight loss goals. I don’t know why we feel compelled to self-sabotage all the things we want in our lives. It doesn’t end with weight loss either; It could be your private life or even your career. All it takes is one little thought that can set you off the weight loss path you just started on. Perhaps you tell yourself: One small chocolate won’t make a big difference.That turns into several treats consumed throughout a couple of months. It’s just a couple of slices of vegan pizza; it won’t do much harm.It’s vegan, after all, so I can eat more. I’ll have a little sleep in today, as I had a rough night.Then three months go by, and you haven’t even touched a hand-held weight. I’ll just put a little bit extra on my plate – as this is a small one after all. Then you’re constantly putting a lot more food into your mouth than you need. Sooner or later, these small, seemingly insignificant things can cause an impact on the following:• We start to feel terrible• Lacking energy and stamina• We discover that our bodies have changed – in the wrong way• We lie to ourselves and say it was just a bad meal/month• Our sleep becomes disturbed a lot more frequently• Health issues suddenly start to come up for us• Worst still, our clothes become even tighter Hands up, who’s done a couple of these things and found themselves in the red? I know I have, and one day, I woke up to clothes being a lot tighter & looking a lot rough than what I’d typically accept of myself. How did this happen? I discovered in this situation that there is always a catalyst to trigger some destructive habit in your life. It could be a stressful event or something new and uncomfortable occurring. It could be starting a new job, transferring to a new city or even death or sickness in your immediate family. Maybe it’s divorce or break-up. Anything unfamiliar to our bodies, our minds, or our environment is uncomfortable. Whatever it could be for you, it triggers a need to seek comfort or solace in something that can either numb or bandaid the pain. Some people may use food, alcohol, or another restrictive element to self soothe. You could compare it to the self-soothing of a baby who’s got a dummy in its mouth. Come to think of it; it’s; it’s precisely the same thing – only now, as an adult, the self-soothing dummy is something else we can put in the mouth that’s closer to our age bracket! Notice how soothing occurs in the mouth? The scary thing about this is that it can take over us quickly, and before we know what’s happened, the damage has already occurred. It took me a whole lot of moments such as this to finally understand the trigger for me. The amount of brutal honesty is quite painful. We human beings have a hard time facing the cold hard truth. We would do anything (including becoming or doing the very thing that doesn’t help us) to cover up that big dirty secret. We don’t want anyone to know – not even our self! Now, I know it’s not easy, but here is something that you can do in private that no one has to know about, which will help you to face the truth. Think back to the time you started doing that “thing” that caused you to start putting on weight. Was there a significant event or situation that caused you to stress? Two: Uncover the things you did as a self-soothing mechanism. For me, that was snacking far too often and too much – leading to unnoticed weight gain. For another person, it could be skipping the gym. Three: Whatever the thing is for you, say internally – “I acknowledge the hold you’ve had on me, and I am thankful you brought this to my attention. I appreciate that this is causing me to feel uncomfortable – but I don’t want to do this anymore. It’s made me put on weight without realising. I want to be of sound health and have the body shape I want – I won’t allow stress to dictate the direction my physical body will take.” You can make up your mantra – but I found that this worked for me Four: Practice the art of forgiveness on yourself. I know how hard it can be when you realise, hey, I can’t believe I did this for so long. You are not the only one on the planet to experience this. Please give yourself a big pat on the back. This is seriously a turning point right now- and you are in the driver’s seat from this day forward.
This is the first step to eliminating it.
Five: In the beginning, make an effort to notice the trigger event happening again and how you cope with it. Now when it happens, you have an awareness of it and called it out. You will immediately understand what’s going to happen and, therefore, choose to continue or stop. Isn’t it great now to finally choose whether to continue with this self-soothing habit or stop it? Before, it seemed like you were out of control. Now, it’s you calling the shots – which is how it should always be. This worked so well for me, and it was a hard lesson to learn. No matter how great your lifestyle strategy is, something can and will happen to throw you off. Building self-awareness around your trigger will help you learn a lot more about why you do what you do. Not a day goes by when life isn’t trying to teach us something about ourselves. Most of the time, we are too busy trying to cover up our shame than to realise what’s happening. Next time something comes up for you, have a little kind conversation with yourself. You never know, you might make a best friend