What No One Ever Tells You About Eating Healthy And Losing Weight That Sabotages Your Progress. Part 3

Hello again!

In my last two articles, I talked about the emotional numbing effect of food, and how it may be stopping your health and weight loss success, and then I gave you some tools you can use to move past this emotional numbing into your healthiest life. You can read Post One here and Post Two here

If you did not resonate with those two articles - if you feel emotional eating is not something that you deal with in your life, but you still feel that there is something holding you back, then this article is for you 🙂

If you feel that you do struggle with yo-yo dieting, with wanting to change your eating so that it is healthier and more conducive to you feeling your best, if you have starting a million diets only to end up going back to your more negative habits over and over without knowing why, if you have an illness or a condition that you can't seem to ever get over, or if you are someone who tends to always have something going wrong with your body you may be dealing with a secret fear of success.

That's right. You may actually be afraid to get healthy, happy and well.

Now, I know what you are thinking. Why in the heck would you fear feeling and looking better? Why in the world would you ever want to keep feeling poorly, keep struggling with diet, keep battling your weight, keep holding onto an illness if it were really true that you could get better right now?

There are actually several reasons why.

First - remember you only do what you feel is going to be the LEAST PAINFUL THING. Which means that there is something inside of you that believes that letting go of the weight, letting go of the yo-yo dieting and being stable, letting go of being ill or having chronic health issues is more painful that holding onto them is.

This does not make you crazy or broken or wrong. This does not make you anything negative at all. This simply means in order to move forward, you simply need to identify your currently unconscious beliefs around your weight/illness and you need to create new, healthier ones.

So lets look at some of the most common reasons for holding onto health and weight issues. Today will we talk about the first two, and tomorrow we will look at the other three. The truth is once you identify what is going on for you - you usually do not need to 'do' a whole lot about it. The realization is generally powerful enough to help you move in a different direction. When you really realize what you are doing, there is a good chance it will suddenly make no sense, and this will enable you to start making different choices 🙂

The 5 items are the most common ways people use their weight or their health issues as 'tools'. I encourage you to really sit down with each item and reflect to see if it is impacting you on some level. Again these are things that no one talks about when it comes to weight and health issues - but we are talking about them now because they will empower you to move forward.

Tool Number 1 - Your Weight/Illness Helps You Achieve A Positive Intention - It Helps You Meet A Need

At this moment you are using your weight or your ill health as a tool. It is meeting a positive need in a less than optimal way. What do I mean by this? I mean that you are doing the best thing you know to do in this moment, with the skills and knowledge you have. Everything you do has a positive intention - which means holding onto your weight and or holding onto an illness has a positive intention.

• Perhaps you have attached a portion of your identity into being someone who struggles with weight - this is meeting your positive intention to be different from others, to be distinct.
• Perhaps you use your illness to help you get out of doing things you don't want to do - you are meeting your positive need for rest and escape from situations you do not want to be in.
• Maybe your weight is there as a protective barrier between you and others because you have been hurt in the past - thus your weight is meeting the positive intention of separating yourself from harsh people.
• Maybe your sickness or weight is a way for you to call attention to yourself that you secretly do not feel you really deserve - thus meeting your positive intention to attract love and compassion towards yourself.

I personally held onto my weight and my ill health for several of the above reasons. When I really sat and imagined myself healthy, imagined myself thin and where I said I wanted to be - I realized that I didn't know what I would have to talk about. If I could not tell people about my latest diet or my struggles, what would I say? Also, I had invested so much of my identity into being sick that I really didn't know who I would be without my illnesses.

I also realized that if I was not getting sick all the time, then I would have no excuse for taking days off. I realized that I had been using my stomach aches as a permission slip to rest - because I never would allow myself the 'luxury' of rest. I realized that if I let my illness and my weight issues go that I would have nothing to talk about and would have to be working all the time - or so I thought!

Once I truly identified my reasons for keeping my weight and illnesses, I realized that there were much healthier and more enjoyable ways of getting my need for identity, rest and attention met. I realized that I could either continue holding onto the weight and illness, OR I could learn new tools and strategies for getting my needs met that were more in alignment with my health and happiness overall.

Of course is was strange and a bit awkward at first - I really had to delve into my own 'stuff' to see why I had decided I was not special without illness, not deserving of rest without being sick and not deserving of positive attention and love - but once I started going there I started to heal. Eventually the need for the weight and illnesses melted away, as a replaced getting my positive intentions met in other, healthier ways.

So ask yourself: What positive intention is my weight/illness serving for me? Then, why do I feel that this is the only way to get this need met? Then, what else could I do to get this need met that is also supportive of my health and wellness?

Tool Number 2 - It Is A Part Of Your Identity

We talked about this in the last point, but I feel it bares some extra attention.

I want you to sit right now, and really imagine yourself at your optimal state of health. Envision yourself at your optimal weight. With no more diet problems. You have this whole health thing totally and completely figured out. You will never gain weight or be ill again for as long as you live.

Who are you now? How will you relate to others? How will others relate to you? What will you talk about?

If you feel slightly, or really, uncomfortable as you imagine yourself totally healed, that is a sign that you have put a part of your identity in being the way you currently are - which would make you subconsciously not want to let it go.

For this, I want you to start taking notice of who you really are. Who you are outside of your weight, outside of your illnesses, outside of your body. What do you like? What do you enjoy? What are you interested in?

If this is hard to think of right now, that is OK. It may take some time for you to get re-acquainted with you.

What I would encourage you to do is sit in a meditative state - picturing yourself at your ideal weight and state of health for 5-10 minutes each day. Then start to notice what you gravitate towards in these mediations. What do you think about? What are you doing? What makes you feel excited? If you need more support with this, I have an in-depth version of this meditation in my book which you can check out here.

You are not your body, you are not your weight, you are not your illness. I promise you are so much more.

Take some time to digest and absorb this. Both of those points are big! We will look at the last three tools tomorrow.

Do you identify with either of these? Let me know what this article brings up for you - much of the processing can come from