Losing Weight without Dieting: A Step By Step Guide for Female Survivors of Abuse

How much would you love to be able to eat the foods you love without fear or guilt and never, ever, ever, ever have to worry about dieting again?

You can.

I'm sure by now you already know that dieting has failed you. That's because your excess weight is not due to lack of self control or laziness. It's just a symptom of another problem which is rooted in your emotions and diets fail to address your feelings. If you are overeating because you're seeking out food for comfort, then you are not alone. Many women who have histories of abuse have found comfort in food.

You may have already thought that you handled your abuse years ago by talking to a therapist or taking a more traditional route to healing, however the excess weight you carry may just be the last vestige of evidence of your abuse. Deep down, you may be conflicted, feeling the need to hold onto excess weight in order to feel safe. This could be the core of the reason why you may not have had success with dieting. Your subconscious mind has been responding to your brain's messages that you needed to continue to insulate yourself from hurt and protect yourself.

Speaking as a woman who is an abuse survivor, I've learned that it is possible to change your relationship to food and your body and in so doing love yourself more than ever.

However in order to successfully stop dieting, it is essential to focus on releasing negative emotions from the past and combine that with a non diet approach to food called Intuitive Eating.

Intuitive Eating is a term first used by registered dieticians Elyse Resch and Evelyn Tribole to describe a natural process that we all have to listen to our bodies, eat when we are hungry and stop when we are satisfied.

However after years of negative reinforcement programming from dieting, you may have learned to mistrust yourself around food and hate your body, thinking of certain foods as either good or bad and judging yourself harshly for wanting to eat.

Despite that negative conditioning, you can relearn how to trust your body. After all, it's already taking care of you in so many ways. It tells you when you need to relieve your bladder, regulates your heart beat, blood circulation and sleep rhythms, and so much more. Face it. Your body is miraculous and once you begin to learn to listen to it, you will naturally eat less and eventually return back to a normal weight that is perfect for you.

Getting there is a two step process. You have to legalize all foods and eliminate feelings of deprivation by dealing with the emotions that crop up when you want to turn to food when you're not hungry.

The toughest part is to resist the urge to fall back into the old habit of eating when you're overcome by emotions.

As a survivor of abuse, your brain made a connection that food=love. Therefore, any time that you feel pressured, anxious, upset or unloved, your brain sends signals to your body to seek out food.

As a coach, I tend to favor using the Emotional Freedom Technique or EFT. EFT will break this subconscious connection and puts the power of choice and control back in your hands. You don't have to rely on anyone else.

EFT is based on the science of Acupuncture and often considered to be it's emotional equivalent without the pain of needles. Anyone can use it anytime to balance their energy, feel better and overcome negative emotions in minutes.

Now without further ado, here are 9 steps you can take to lose weight naturally and effortlessly without dieting.

Step #1: Say Goodbye to Dieting. Toss out the old diet books, stop counting calories, points, carbs or fat grams and get rid of your scale. You are going to learn to rely on your body to gauge what is right for you. No more diets.

Step #2: Pack Your pantry and stock your fridge. The battle is over. Give yourself unconditional permission to eat what you want. By doing this, you will quickly develop new abilities to be discriminating. You will soon learn that you truly can trust yourself with all foods.

Step #3: Eat only when you are physically hungry. By waiting to eat until you are hungry, you will be able to tune in and discover how satisfying your food can really be. It also reinforces the message that you are in control of your food.

Step #4: Eat without guilt. Take back your sense of self by setting a new precedent. Eat what you want in full view of other people, let critics know that they have no right to comment on your body or what you eat.

Step #5: Feel Your Fullness Listen to your body and become sensitive to the new sensation of a gentle feeling of satisfaction and fullness. You might like to pause in the middle of a meal and ask yourself how satisfying the food tastes to you and gauge your level of comfort.

Step #6: Rediscover the Satisfaction Factor in your food When you eat what you want, in a pleasing environment, your satisfaction will be enhanced. As you gain more pleasure in food, you will naturally find that you eat smaller portions. Feast all your senses. Smell, taste, touch and fully enjoy your meals.

Step #7: Cope With Your Emotions Without Abusing Food When you realize that you want food, and you're not hungry, explore your feelings and address them without food. I call this questioning your phantom hungers.

Step #8: Be Gentle With Your Body Respect your body and realize that this is a process that will take some time to learn. It's important to question your old negative black and white thinking to reduce the stress load in your life.

Step #9: Get Support Join a group of like-minded women also on the road to losing weight without dieting. Share resources, encourage and support one another as you learn new techniques and strategies to love yourself more and yummy up your life one bite at a time.

Now that you have these 9 steps, the next step is up to you. Are you ready to learn how to lose weight without dieting?

Author: Andrea Amador

Andrea Amador, CEC, M.NLP is President of The Juicy Woman. She is devoted to empowering women to love themselves more, yummy up their lives and lose weight without dieting. Join her free Yahoo group: http://health.groups.yahoo.com/thejuicywoman/

Keywords : emotional freedom technique, abuse survivors, stop cravings, juicy woman, eft, weight control, zap cravings, empowering thoughts, weight loss, neuro linguistic programming, ericksonian hypnosis, control cravings

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