Summer’s here and the trend is warmer weather and coats off. That means baring those arms and legs. For years, this time of year struck the fear of God in me. It meant that I had to face another swimsuit season as a fat woman.
Today for once I see myself differently. For over 33 years I battled an eating addiction and my life was miserable because of it. I tried to get it under control with diets and exercise but it always seemed to win out over me. When I learned about Intuitive Eating, I discovered a door to freedom. However it came with a hefty price. To test out the process of Intuitive Eating, for about 5 months, I ate like there was no tomorrow and decided to toss out my energy coaching tools and NLP coach know how and just eat every single time I got hungry. Pretty soon I noticed that I was hungry about every hour on the hour. That’s when I knew that this process worked best by integrating energy coaching tools to coddle the feelings that show up as a physical desire to eat. That’s the benefit that I bring to my clients.
I tell my clients that they have a choice. They can either choose to do what I did which is to give up exercising and eat through every craving and systematically eat their way through every old food obsession and gain weight in the beginning or they can use the energy coaching tools that I teach to question their phantom hungers and avoid the huge weight gain that I suffered.
Nonetheless, I felt that I made the right choice for me. In order to share this with other women, I had to know this worked without using any crutches like EFT to derail my cravings. Now a bit wiser, a part of me regrets that decision but it’s too late to turn back now. That cost me a gain of about 20 pounds. I’m not sure because I haven’t weighed myself in awhile.
In truth, on the whole, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I had to know that I could eat all the foods that I used to lust after and learn to discriminate the taste of foods naturally in my body. I had to know that I had internal controls and that I didn’t have to rely on diets to control my eating. These extra pounds that I wear on my hips and tummy will never be back again because now I treat food differently and I express my emotions differently, not stuffing them down anymore.
Now I know that I am no longer ruled by food. Although it hasn’t shown in any significant weight loss, I know that it is just a matter of time before that also falls into place. I can also give myself back the gift of moving my body again. I’m beginning to realize that I don’t have to follow the same frenetic and fast paced workout schedule as before. I can be gentle with myself and reacquaint my body with movement in new ways.
To my chagrin, many of my clients lose weight faster and more easily than me. That is fine. I am in no rush and willing to wait for as long as it takes. I refuse to deprive myself with dieting anymore and choose to continue to develop a peaceful relationship with food. I realize that for me, being diet free is the only way to live. In retrospect, I feel that it’s worth the extra weight that I have gained to know that I can trust myself with food and come to the point of accepting my body as it is now.
I think that the hardest lesson that I’ve learned through all of this is to be gentle with myself and not beat myself up for not being thinner faster. Today I’m finally okay with myself now enough to know that weight loss is not the essential ingredient to living a happy life. I’m now willing to wait for weight loss. Are you?
If you knew that you could really trust yourself with all foods and that you could stop eating before you stuff yourself and change your habits and notice your life changing in the process, then would you be willing to give up the search for the quick fix diet? Would you be willing to wait for weight loss? Please share your comments with me. I’d love to hear about your experiences.