Hacking your mind to lose weight
Controlling the kind of food we eat is not the one and only thing that we can do to lose weight, we can also find out why we were over eating in the first place and then we can change our behavior.
I succeeded in losing weight and not putting it back on again, but I did not do it by controlling what I ate alone. I did it by controlling my behavior.
Solving the riddle of weight gain was for me the realization that eating sugar and carbohydrates raised blood sugar, insulin and the bodies mechanisms to store fat. Breaking this cycle was rather like working out how to solve a Rubik’s cube. I had to find the right combination of moves to solve the puzzle.
But this was the end of a longer journey that had to start with my understanding why I over ate in the first place. My reasons were, I believe bound in my childhood when a sibling died and there after I was taught that eating was going to make me strong. Weakness, in this pattern of thinking would be the result of not eating enough.
And so I always ate to keep strong and avoid my losing my strength and by extension, my life. I was taught that eating was a way of keeping alive and so I ate to keep alive.
This is an over simplification but was at least a start in understanding why I over ate.
Realizing this and facing up to how this had happened unlocked the door to not fearing going without food and so I could then start to eat less.
A simple tip can be to just use a smaller plate when eating. I found that this simple ‘hack’ was one step to breaking the cycle of over eating.
But before I could do this I had to acknowledge the reasons for over eating and allow my mind to accept that I could go without food and not suffer as a consequence.
Everyone is different and each have their own experiences and reasons for over eating. But I believe that if we can understand why we over eat, then we can find a way to break the cycle.