The Real Way to Break Free from Overeating

Have you checked out a newsstand recently? You won’t be surprised that there are dozens and dozens of tips, plans, and miracle programs being promoted just this month to help you slim down, lose a pant size, make your butt smaller and lose your midlife muffin top.

More and more women—many of you–are struggling with the scale than ever before, and it’s not just concerns about appearance that motivate you. Many of you have concerns about heart disease, diabetes, and losing your energy and vitality. You want to feel good about yourself—you want to feel like yourself again and you’d love to take all the energy that gets spent on struggles with food and your body and put it somewhere more productive and fun.

Concerns like this can lead a woman to pursue all sorts of craziness. I won’t ask you about the weirdest plan for weight loss you’ve ever pursued. Just about all of us have stories that make us roll our own eyes.

The truth is that most of you have read, tried, witnessed, and researched more approaches to slimming down or ending overeating than you ever, EVER wanted to. And you are well aware that you still don’t have the answers that you need. Because even if you feel one hundred percent certain that you know what you need to do, if you haven’t been able to make it happen, something is missing.

Food plans, calorie counting tools, and fat burning tricks don’t do you any good if you can’t or won’t stick with them.

Women do break free of overeating and emotional eating, they do achieve a size they love and maintain it, and they find out how to make food a much smaller part of their lives. There isn’t one way that works for everyone, but there is one thing that all the successful women I know have in common. This includes women who’ve battled obesity and eating disorders, women who’ve had weight loss surgery and women who’ve dieted their entire lives.

The real way to break free of overeating must start with understanding why you’re doing it.

Until you’re clear on what’s behind your constant hunger and what triggers you to reach for more than your body really needs, you won’t be able to effectively address the biggest source of your struggle. Here’s the other—brilliant—side of the story. Once you discover how to tune in to what your appetite and cravings are really about, you’re empowered to take care of those needs in ways that are going to take you places that the bag of chips never will.

It’s really not an exaggeration to say that creating peace with food changes lives.

Where ever you are in your journey with food and eating, if it’s not a happy, successful place, I challenge you to try this. For a few hours, stop thinking about what to eat and allow yourself to focus on why you eat. What’s the pull that eating has for you? What gets you craving the snack you don’t need and what makes it hard to stay on track? Stop and write down everything you know about what your overeating is about. This simple exercise can be an eye-opening starting point and a great way to identify your next best step in breaking free.