Self Forgiveness

So, what do you do when you “mess up”? I’m going to keep this one short. The answer is: Forgive!

We have all experienced this: You’ve been avoiding “junk food”. No cookies, cakes, candy. But, one day you are emotionally spent, exhausted, all over the place! You just want to make it all go away. So, you search in your kitchen and find the most delicious brownies ever. And it’s all over from there! LOL You eat brownie after brownie after brownie, with no conscious awareness of how much you are eating. You are in a trance. And then the trance ends. And you look at your empty plate. And you realize what you have just done! “Oh no!” Judgments: “I’m fat!”, “I’ll never be thin!”, “I can’t control myself!” “There is no point!” …Sound familiar? Now, you are drowning in the emotions of guilt and shame and a sense of failure. What do you think you will do to deal with those feelings…eat!

Well, interestingly, the problem is not that you had a brownie. The real issue is that you ate emotionally instead of mindfully. I need to address this issue. We need to let go of the mindset that it is the brownie that is making us “fat”. It is the fact that we are giving that brownie so much power that is making us “fat”. If you obsess about not eating particular foods, you will use these foods, inevitably, to control or deal with your emotions. When you make a certain food forbidden, you are more likely to obsess over those foods at times when you are vulnerable, especially. If you trust that all foods will contribute to your nourishment; ironically, you will crave healthier foods most of the time. And, it really won’t matter if you have your occasional brownie or cookie or cake, or even chocolate. Yes, even chocolate. Your thoughts hold more power than you think. Which is why you are likely to engage in maladaptive eating behaviors that uses “forbidden foods”, especially when you are emotionally eating. If you are hungry and decide that you want a slice of cake and stop when you are pleasantly satisfied; you have engaged in mindful eating and that food does not have power over you!

With all of this being said, this is a hard part of the process. Because we all have times when we “mess up” and binge eat to cover our emotions. Or, maybe you try to stop at a 6 or 7 on the hunger scale (Paul McKenna: I Can Make You Thin); but, when you look up, you are at a 10 and “need a bucket!” Well, you have a couple of choices for how to react. You can choose to engage in the same habitual cycle of guilt. Judge yourself. Judge the food. Externally blame and internalize shame. Tell yourself how fat you are and how disgusted you feel with yourself. That’s one option. But, aren’t you tired of that same ol’ thing?!!! The healthier, new choice is to make the conscious, empowered choice to forgive! Forgive yourself. Recognize that you are human and you engaged in behaviors that you were not particularly happy with. Process what happened. Were you having a bad day? Did you remember a past hurt or trauma? Did someone piss you off? Were you bored? Or, did you just decide that you HAD to eat everything on your plate because that is what you were taught as a child? Make sense of it for yourself and even write it down.

Then…FORGIVE! Forgive yourself. Affirm yourself again: “I AM at my perfect health and weight!” Visualize yourself in perfection, healthy, and whole! Open your eyes and see yourself as the wonderful person you are!

I am still working on this! Who is going to work on this with me?!!!

“Now…I’m hungry…I think I am going to have a plate of mixed fruit cause that’s what I am craving at this particular time. Grapes are my favorite! Strawberries too! You know, someone once told me that strawberries are bad for you. Well, I’m going to chose not to judge the strawberries or the grapes. And when I am full, I will stop…hopefully…no judgment, no shame, just self-care”…

Remember, the word of the day: FORGIVE!

With Total Gratitude,

Dr. Karen

Visualize!

Today’s Thoughts: Today, I would like to talk about the power of the mind through visualization. Do you realize how powerful our minds are? Our thoughts are very powerful! There is something that always amazed me: Most people are more willing to believe that their negative thoughts will eventually manifest than they are willing to believe that their powerful thoughts will manifest as well. Have you ever heard someone say, “I’m too scared to think positively or have hope because I know I’ll be disappointed!” That same person is likely to say something like, “I know its going to be a horrible day!” When that “horrible day” happens, this person strongly believes that this was inevitable and predictable. This is so fascinating to me because it is so difficult to get people to believe that they can speak positivity into their lives as well.

Faith is based on believing. And, what is faith? It is the belief in something that you may not have seen yet. So, when you think about your weight and being in perfect health, what is your belief? Do you look in the mirror everyday and say, “I am meant to be fat!” or “I will never be thin” or “I will always look like a pig” or “I am going to keep gaining weight!” and on and on. If you are saying these negative things out loud; You are affirming what you think you see. You think you see a fat person who will never lose weight. And your belief about yourself is based on these negative judgements that are based on what you feel are realities that exist today. In this case, you don’t believe that you have the power to think great things about yourself and see them manifest. But, every time you gain a pound or don’t lose a pound, you perceive this as confirmation of those negative judgments about yourself. Why? If this describes you, take some time to ask yourself why this is the case.

What does all of this have to do with thinness? Well, Paul McKenna (I Can Make You Thin, 2008), says that the imagination is more powerful than willpower. When most of us try to lose weight; we try to use our will power to make the “right” decisions about food and eating and exercising and so on. This requires using so much energy and possibly being disappointed at the end. I totally agree with Dr. McKenna. What if you took time to imagine what life would be like as a thin person every day? Would this motivate you? Would this help you change your habits around food? Take a one minute break from reading this and close your eyes: Imagine what your life will be like when you feel good about yourself and your body! What will you wear? How will you behave? What will your confidence be like? Vividly imagine these things. Now ask yourself, how did you feel during your daydream? Naturally thin people do visualize! They talk about what they will wear to the next party and visualize themselves wearing that outfit. They imagine themselves in that swimsuit at the beach. Its time for us to visualize! Visualize yourself at your ideal weight. Remember, perfect weight does not mean you are perfect. It just means that this is the weight that feels good for you. Now, take time every day to visualize yourself in perfect health. How will you feel? What will you wear? Visualize yourself eating whatever you want, whenever you want, but stopping when you are full. How will that feel? Visualize yourself as confident and secure! What dreams do you have? What goals will you achieve? Affirm these things to yourself. Take time everyday to say to yourself, “I AM at my perfect health and weight!”. And when you eat, no matter what it is, take time to say to yourself, “this food is contributing to my perfect health and weight!” Remember food is used for the total nourishment of your body. You CAN eat and be thin at the same time!

Are you willing to believe that you are what you visualize? This level of faith is SO hard! But, I am personally tired of so easily believing in the negative. This motivates my willingness to believe in and visualize positive things for my life. One thing that I have done is to keep clothes in my closet that are in the size that I imagine being in one day. I visualize myself wearing those clothes one day, including a very hot swimsuit! LOL Another exercise that helps with this is creating a vision board. Many people have talked about creating a vision board. I have a couple of vision boards. To make your vision board, use a poster board. On this poster board, freely associate and put on your board everything that you want to visualize about your life. Include things about your career, finances, family, relationships, home, friendships, job. Make room on your board for things related to being in perfect health and being at your ideal weight. I usually cut out words, pictures, and images from magazines to put on my board. I also have a picture of myself when I felt I was at my ideal weight and my healthiest self. Take some time to create this board and place it in a place where you can see it every day. It may feel funny to you at first because you may feel a little crazy or even delusional. Well, I call these healthy delusions! LOL!

DREAM BIG!!!! Put this on your board. Take your time. Once you have completed your board, take time every single day to meditate on the things on your board. Visualize that these things are current realities even though they have not physically manifested yet. My favorite quote is, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not yet seen”.

Visualize today!

With total gratitude,
Dr. Karen

Emotional Eating

Emotional eating is opposite of mindful eating. Emotional eating is based on eating that attempts to self medicate, deal with, or avoid your emotions or emotional experience. It can be a very unconscious experience much of the time. We will explore this more extensively a little later. First, let’s explore mindful eating: Mindful eating involves being present in the moment and enjoying your current experience. When you eat mindfully, you are able to savor every mouthful of food. You are able to enjoy the taste of your food and every other sensation that comes with that experience. There are steps you can take to mindfully eat. First of all, it is important to eat very slowly, so that you can be mindful. Also, chewing about 20 times helps with this process. It is OK to enjoy the foods you enjoy and not feel guilty about it. You will find that even if you eat a piece of chocolate cake, for instance, you will eat less of it if you are mindful, because you will stop when you are satisfied! Many people find that some of the foods that they shovel down are not even foods that they like, once they eat them mindfully. One example, that I am reminded of, is when I worked with a woman several years ago as a client. She had gained a significant amount of weight over a short time period. She had many external stressors in her life, including the job she hated, and was also facing other emotional issues. As we explored her behaviors further; she admitted that on the way to work and on the way back from work, she would stop by every fast food place to get a Vanilla shake. This added up to about four shakes on the way to work and four shakes on the way back. She had done it so unconsciously that she didn’t even really realize it until she spoke about it out loud to me. I instructed her to start eating mindfully, including mindful consumption of those Vanilla Shakes. Something amazing happened! After a couple of weeks of engaging in mindful eating, this client discovered that “she HATES milkshakes!” She didn’t even like them! Guess what happened? She stopped drinking all of those darn shakes and the weight started coming off! Another situation I can think of was very similar. Another client, about one year ago, reported that she could prepare and eat an entire box of macaroni and cheese or an entire box of mashed potatoes. She said those were “her favorite foods”. She was also instructed to eat mindfully. Well, this client discovered that she still liked these foods. However, when she engaged in mindful eating; she consumed almost 3/4 less than she had previously! What an accomplishment!

Emotional eating comes from a much different psychological place. Real hunger is based on the physical need for nourishment. Real hunger is felt gradually and needs to be responded to by taking care of yourself and eating. Emotional hunger comes on suddenly and feels like it needs to be responded to instantly. The reason is that we have the need to settle that emotion right away. Some of these emotions include anger, sadness, depression, anxiety, and even boredom. How many of us eat when we feel lonely or bored? There is nothing else to do, so why not just eat? And, oh my, it feels soooooo good! That bag of cookies or doughnuts or icecream is better than great sex! Well… at the time, right? But, afterwards, we feel soooooo guilty! And in order to deal with the feelings of guilt; we binge on even more food. What a vicious cycle! Keeping a journal is sometimes helpful in becoming more mindful of your emotions. Here is another challenge: try to become more aware of your emotions on a daily basis. Becoming aware is part of a crucial process. Once aware, you can take the steps necessary to deal with your emotions in healthy ways instead of maladaptive ways. Sometimes it is difficult to process these emotions on your own. For instance, some people have experienced severe trauma at some point in their lives and it would not be wise to try to deal with this alone. In this case, seeking the help of a licensed professional is important. I tell all of my clients that psychologists, themselves, are strongly encouraged to be involved in therapy and/or analysis for a considerable amount of time. How can a therapist help others who hasn’t worked through his or her own stuff?!! I, myself, saw an analyst for many years and really think therapy is quite valuable. I think the worst psychologists or therapists I have ever met are ones who have never been in therapy! So, this is not something to be ashamed of. Working through your emotions and being mindful of them is key to stopping the cycle of emotional eating. In Paul McKenna’s literature, “I Can Make You Thin”, he describes an example of a woman who becomes more mindful of real hunger versus emotional hunger. Dr. McKenna says that one woman hung a question mark on her refrigerator, so that every time she reached for food, she could ask herself if she is actually really physically hungry. I think this is a great idea!

So, let’s all try to be mindful of everything in life. Of all of our experiences. I challenge all of us to be mindful in our eating! We can do it!

With total gratitude,

Dr. Karen

Scale

For those of us who step on the scale every day, every other day, or even every week; STOP IT!!!  Sometimes the numbers on the scale lead to self-destruction. It can be discouraging at times because of the fact that our weight can fluctuate from day to day. There are various reasons why our weight goes up and down including water retention, hormones, etc. I, personally, work out 5 days a week and do 3 days of weight training. Muscle is greater than fat and may lead to the numbers not being as low on the scale. Also, obsessing over numbers on the scale every day may lead to feeling like a failure if you don’t see the number you want to see. And, this may lead to not trusting this system, which is to pay attention to your body’s natural signals of  hunger and fullness. Paying attention to your body’s natural signals of hunger and fullness leads to thinness. Thin people eat this way and their metabolisms are amazing. Most naturally thin people don’t even weigh themselves, believe it or not! So, put the scale away!
I like the ideas of Rhonda Byrne, author of “The Secret”. She suggests that we should visualize ourselves at our ideal weight on a daily basis. See yourself the way you want to be. Do not focus on weight or how “fat you are”. “Do not focus on how ‘fat’ other people are.”  The more you obsess on losing weight, the more weight is attracted back to you. Only see yourself as you want to be. For this reason, she suggests that getting on the scale and obsessing over how much has been lost or gained is not a favorable idea. Instead, focus on your perfect weight. And, this will be attracted to you. One idea, as mentioned on “The Secret” audio CD, is to write your ideal weight down on a small label. Place this label on the reading section of the scale, covering that section. When you weigh yourself, all you will see is the number you wrote down. I thought that was a pretty cool idea. This tells the subconscious to accept that number.

Conclusion: put away the scale!!!!

With total gratitude,
Dr. Karen

Judgments

Today’s thoughts: Judgments. Sometimes judgements can be so automatic that we do not consciously notice when they occur. We can be most critical of ourselves, particularly when it comes to assessing our physical appearance. How many times do we look in a mirror and think: “OMG, I am so fat” or “my arms could look better!” or even more subtle judgments like, “Just two more pounds and I’ll be OK”. Negative judgements do nothing but bring us down. These are the types of judgements that tend to be the most automatic and natural. Let’s consciously work on integrating and dominating our thoughts with positive judgments. Positive affirmations may seem delusional at first. I call them “healthy delusions”! LOL But, they help our subconscious mind see ourselves in a totally different light. So, next time you look in a mirror, try saying something like, “I am beautiful just as I am”. This makes your body want to work for you, believe it or not. One of my favorite affirmations, as taught to me by my mentor, is “I am at my perfect health and weight”. And when I eat, I learned to say, “this food is contributing to my perfect health and weight”, no matter what the food is. Even Doritos! LOL
No food is assigned a judgment of “bad”.
Remember to be mindful today, even with your eating. Mindfulness is the act of being present in the moment and fully participating in the present experience. Enjoy!

With Total Gratitude,

Dr. Karen