Self-Sabotage Of Healthy Eating Or Weight Loss

Have you ever set the intention to stop eating so much processed food or just eating less in general? And you eat well for a little while or maybe even a few months but suddenly everything gets chucked out the window and you go back to that old overeating and maybe even binging habits again.  Often clients tell me that every time they lose a little bit of weight, they start self-sabotaging again. So, why do we sabotage ourselves like that? 

1. Secondary benefit and gain

There is always a secondary benefit for every behaviour – even binge eating, overeating, taking drugs, etc.  Of course, in your logical mind, it might feel like ‘I am certainly not getting any benefits, I feel horridly sick and guilty after’.  Admittedly, on the conscious level, this is true.  However, in the subconscious mind (the part of the mind that is not currently in focal awareness, which drives 95 per cent of our decisions), there will be some benefit.  

THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND (CAUSING THE SABOTAGE)

To illustrate, this part of the mind is similar to the submerged part of the iceberg.  Namely, it sits there powerfully, but we are unaware as we can not see it.  Moreover, it will drive your decisions and behaviours without your awareness.  In this way, we might not be consciously aware of the benefits we reap from binge eating.  But as long as your brain perceives a benefit from a certain behaviour or it meets a need by this action, then you will simply continue doing it.  

Subconscious Benefits of binge eating:

• Pleasure (for example, food might be the only pleasure in your life and you fear losing this).
• Getting a break (working so much, if we binge we will feel sick and can rest).
• Avoiding work (won’t have to do housework or jobs).
• Protection (if you have experienced past sexual trauma, you might subconsciously want to stay a larger size to protect yourself from male attention and activating the trauma).
• Avoid emotional pain (if I eat, I won’t feel my loneliness, sadness or grief, etc).

2. Your belief of self-worth

We all have a fundamental core belief of our worth.  Undoubtedly,  this comes from a myriad of factors like childhood and life experiences.  So, let’s say this core belief of self is very low.  Now imagine you are doing well, eating great, exercising, and feeling amazing – you surpass and go beyond your core belief.  At some point, you will begin to feel uncomfortable.

WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

Everything inside you will scream ‘Who do you think you are? Do you think you can feel amazing? You deserve to be back down here because that is more comfortable.’  Further, maybe friends and family compliment you, so you feel pressure to stay that way.  Also, perhaps some friends are jealous, and you feel guilty and uncomfortable.  So you pull back (and sabotage).

The thermostat of self-worth

To illustrate further, it’s useful to use an analogy of a thermostat.  Imagine it is set to 20 degrees and goes up and down.  Set at 20 degrees is comfort zone.  At the bottom level is rock bottom; the place where you decide to change your life and no longer will tolerate your broken relationship, a job you hate, your current weight, binge eating or lack of exercise.  At the top is the upper glass ceiling.  This is where we move beyond our sense of conditioned sense of worth and move into what we want in life.  At this level, we make aligned decisions around eating, exercising, and our health. Life starts to flow and we feel amazing.  We have everything we wanted. 

DO YOU FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE?

But there comes a point when this upper ceiling becomes uncomfortable – the subconscious mind steps in and reminds us ‘Who do you think you are? You are not deserving. You have always been a failure and always will be.’  

Ultimately, the thermostat hits a ceiling and you sabotage back into old comfortable patterns and habits. You might continue bouncing back from rock bottom to upper ceiling.

So how do I stop self-sabotage?

Simply, we need to recreate a new identity.  Because if we believe the identity ‘I have always been fat’, ‘I have always had eating issues’, or ‘My family has always had eating issues’ – we will create this in our conscious reality.  And as humans, we are wired to want to keep our identity and know ‘Who am I?’  

BREAK THE BELIEF

So, we need to break that belief about who we are and what we do, so we can raise that bar and keep going higher to embody the new identity.

Stop the cycle of self-sabotage

Essentially, the re-creation of old stories and beliefs (identity) is the constant work that we need to do to stop sabotaging ourselves. This process will help generate a new identity to regain control around food to live a life you deserve – filled by freedom, joy, and happiness! Finally, this short video by Joe Dispenza talks about How The Subconscious Mind Works And How To Reprogram It.  Please reach out if you need support in this process. Eugenia x

6 KEY STEPS TO
END BINGE EATING CYCLE &
RELEASE EMOTIONAL WEIGHT

Regain power over food!

Binge eating and emotional eating is not a food problem, it is an emotional problem.

Ultimately, we can’t rely on will-power to stop binge eating. In this e-book I am addressing the underlying reasons why we use food as a drug and what our body is trying to tell us.