Reasons Why We Eat

It’s probably safe to say that we can’t trust our own logic most of the time when it comes to making decisions about the foods we eat and the reasons we are struggling to lose or maintain weight. Often we make the decision to go on a diet or lose weight after some sort of positive or negative thought, which is always driven by emotion. For example, we put on a pair of jeans that doesn’t fit like it used to. Next, we get frustrated with ourselves for allowing this to happen which stirs up the emotions pot. Then we start making decisions fueled by those emotions to get back in shape, eat better, and start exercising and somewhere in all those emotions we find our motivation to look and feel better and tell ourselves we won’t allow this to continue. 

With our motivation awakened we decide to get started. With motivation moving us along, we continue to think, plan and prepare for the start of the new healthier you. Starting something new always has some excitement to it. The tasks for shopping for food, doing some research on diets, or perhaps buying a new workout outfit keep our excitement levels running high. 

Then the day comes to start and it actually goes pretty good. The second day the same. It seems as if we have finally found our motivation this time to get healthier and shed those extra pounds. But as the days progress this motivation starts to decline and so we call upon our WILL POWER to help us out. The trouble with will power is it rarely stays around for more than a couple of days at most. Then it leaves us feeling frustrated and telling ourselves we are just lazy and then the cycle of going back to those unhealthy habits of eating start again. Ask yourself how often motivation and will power has solely helped you reach your weight loss goals or helped you maintain the weight you may have once lost? For most people that answer or rarely. 

Why does willpower so often fail us when we need it? Why is it so difficult to stick to it? You may say, “This is my last soda pop, candy bar or a bag of chips and nothing is going to stop me from losing weight or improving my health,” and then before you know it your back eating it a few days later. 

The thing with willpower is it’s only meant to last a short while and that’s why our old habits eventually kick back in. Will power is meant to resist short term and immediate temptations. It’s there to help aide us in our long terms goals over our desires for instant gratification. 

According to American Psychological Association, researchers have defined willpower as: 

  • The ability to delay gratification and resist short-term temptations; 
  • The ability to override an unwanted feeling or impulse; 
  • The conscious and effortful regulation of the self; 
  • A limited resource capable of being depleted; 

Read that last definition again: A LIMITED RESOURCE CAPABLE OF BEING DEPLETED.

You see our conscious or everyday minds are there to make decisions and analyze how it can make our lives easier. It’s job is also to protect us from things that are uncomfortable or that could hurt us. Yes it’s true that eating healthier foods and exercising would never hurt us, but the conscious mind knows it will be uncomfortable and therefore resorts to any old programming that has already been placed in our inner minds about how we eat and ways to make us feel better. Once it finds information to support why we shouldn’t be uncomfortable anymore or validates why we deserve to take a break, motivation and willpower go bye bye. 

It doesn’t take very long for it to find that information it needs to tell us to quit. Likely you have been programmed to believe or think a certain way about yourself. Maybe you’ve said or thought a few of these things before: 

  • Boy I’m fat and overweight; 
  • I’m not attractive; 
  • I’m lazy and unmotivated; 
  • I’ll never be able to lose weight; 
  • I’ll start on Monday because that would be easier; 
  • I did a good job so I deserve to eat this; 

Unfortunately it’s the conscious (everyday mind) job to hold up a STOP sign to any suggestions to positive change that doesn’t match with our programming or ways of thinking about ourselves. 

All of this is pretty depressing right? But there’s good news! When you change your programming and ways of thinking about yourself in your inner mind you will naturally want to lose weight, and will automatically start thinking about food and your health differently. When you do this you are making a lasting change vs a temporary change. When you change the beliefs you have about yourself and how it uses food, the weight will naturally start to come off and stay off for good. 

There are two main ways when it comes to weight loss, of getting new ways of thinking into our inner minds. The first is repetition and the second is hypnosis. 

We know by repeating or doing the same thing over and over, we develop a new habit. Research shows that it takes a lot longer than 21 days to develop a new habit, and shows that 66 days is the minimum amount of time to cement a new way of thinking. Unfortunately, two repetitions or negative thoughts can be enough for us to repeat that behavior or form a bad habit. If you grab a coffee and donut on your way to work, or a bowl of ice cream before bed two times in a row, it’s likely that you will have no trouble repeating this new pattern over and over. 

The fact is that habits are hard to change and alter, but creating them is very easy and most of the time our excitement and willpower give out before we reach our goals or create that new healthy habit that leads to weight loss and improved health. That’s why hypnosis is and can be

very effective in helping people with their weight loss and health goals. Hypnosis can be used to safely and effectively get new programming and ways of thinking about ourselves into our inner minds. Our minds naturally go into a state of hypnosis at least twice a day. Sometimes it’s in the form of daydreaming or wandering thoughts and other times it’s that auto pilot we go into while driving and realize we missed our turn or catch ourselves driving to work instead of to the store. It’s our minds natural ability to go into an automatic way of thinking or doing on it’s own. 

So imagine if you looked at food as fuel for your body instead of something to do when your lonely, bored or stressed. What if your new way of thinking was to only eat to nourish your body rather than comfort it. Just like a vehicle, you would never put gas in it if its tank was already full. Then think about what would happen if you were to put the wrong gas in it. How would it run? It doesn’t take a mechanic to know that it would break down and our bodies are the exact same way. 

Our mind is the most important key to losing weight and keeping it off. By understanding how your own mind works and why it makes those automatic and often unhealthy choices the better you can form a new way of thinking that matches the new image of how you want to look and feel. Hypnosis can be a very fast and effective way of getting that new image to take hold in our inner minds and form new ways of responding immediately. Not in 66 days, but often after just one session. We often make things harder than they have to be, so consider this as a valuable resource to making lasting change and improving your overall health.

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Reasons Why We Eat

It’s probably safe to say that we can’t trust our own logic most of the time when it comes to making decisions about the foods