Lose Fat and Kick Emotional Eatings Arse!

by Christian Bossert

I’ve worked with hundreds of people on strength training, weight loss, and the development of positive lifestyle habits. I may have identified the core to this emotional eating dilemma.

How many times have we heard someone say they want to look like the models in magazines, the hollywood stars, or the fit attractive people they see in their daily lives?

Of course, it's easy to want look like them and live their lives. But do we ever hear those people say that they want to spend hours grocery shopping, food prepping, and working out weekly. Do they talk about how they’re excited about their 8:00pm bedtime and 4:00am wake up time? Of course not.

They just want the results.

I believe everything that is worthwhile and good in life takes a bit of sacrifice and hard work to receive. It’s hard to fully appreciate something if it’s free or easy obtained.

Unfortunately to transform your body or to lose five to ten pounds of body fat, permanently, is going to be tough at first. It’s going to involve change inside and out. We are where we are because of who we are. And if you want to lose that body fat for good, you will have to embrace discomfort and develop grit.

There are two forms of discomfort: physical and mental. Physical discomfort is easy to understand. Exercise or take a cold shower (you don’t have to do this, although I do recommend it every once in a while).

Mental discomfort is far more complex. It’s the reason we emotionally eat.

Here are my four triggers to overcoming emotional eating. Being aware of these and how they uniquely apply to you will help you build mental grit.         

1. Desire
2. Fear
3. Distraction (mental sloth/laziness, lack of focus)
4. Fantasies  

Desire

Desire is the wanting of pleasure. The wanting of fast food, alcohol, mindless swiping on dating apps, or an impulsive purchase of that new fancy thing are predicated on desire or pleasure.

Success overcoming emotional eating comes with the ability to postpone indulging in these things. Saying no to guilty pleasures will increase your capacity to resist boredom. You will fill “empty time” with life giving activities which I will discuss later on.

Fear

To overcome emotional decision making we must be comfortable with our own fears, acknowledge them, but not let them control us.

For example, I am afraid of public speaking. To combat this fear I have joined a Toastmasters group. This has been one of my best life decisions.

Identify your fears. In Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich” he identifies the Six Basic Fears. I think we can all relate to most of them.

1. Fear of Poverty
2. Fear of Criticism
3. Fear of Ill Health
4. Fear of Loss of Love (Loneliness)
5. Fear of Old Age
6. Fear of Death

Understand, accept, and embrace the opportunity to tackle your fears.  

Distraction

The mark of the unfocused mind. We all do it. We live in the age of distraction. Between the internet and social media, unwavering concentration is a key ingredient to stiff arming the jaws of emotional eating.

What does unwavering concentration have to do with emotions? Everything. When you have a nutrition game plan that you enjoy, understand, and successfully execute you are in a state of unwavering concentration. You may vear from the path occasionally, but you immediately get back on the wagon. That a sign of someone with unwavering concentration.

Focus will reward you like nothing ever has. Plus, it will strengthen your frontal cortex which is responsible for self-control and discipline.

Fantasies

This is controversial. If you don’t like the way I word this, message me so we can make it more relatable.

To be clear, I don’t mean fantasizing about what the future will be like or brainstorming a plan about something important that you want to accomplish. This means fantasizing about that girl or guy you’re crushing on, the body you would like to have, or your future wealth/vacation/car/etc. Fantasizing about yourself will keep you in a state of inaction. This leads to drifting. Imagining fat loss success instead of taking action doesn’t work very well.

Steps for building resistance to emotional eating

~Here are some practical steps for building your mental grit

• Reduce new purchases of non-essentials to a minimum
• minimize impulse spending in general
• save and wisely invest your money
• Delete all social media or minimize its use
• keep internet use to a minimum
• treat info-tainment sites (ie: sports, hollywood gossip, politics) like the plague
• Eliminate all phone notifications or bring them to an absolute minimum.
• The only notifications I have on my phone are: texts, phone calls, calendar events, and bedtime alert)
• Reduce fast food and sugar to a minimum
• Fast (ie: pick a day where you don’t eat from sunrise to sunset, or choose your preferred fasting method)
• Meditate
• This will increase your focus and ability to cope with emotions when they arise
• Read books
• Reduce smartphone use to an absolute minimum
• Know your schedule
• identify when you will workout, eat, read, meditate, grocery shop, write, etc
• Wake up and go to bed early
• Do public speaking or take an acting class
• Ask that guy or girl out
• Work on hard puzzles or problems
• Take up an instrument

I Believe in You!

You won’t be perfect. It will be a slow process. Going from impulsive decision making to completely discipline sounds like the opposite of fun. I promise you that you’ll experience greater happiness than you could ever imagine once you apply these daily disciplines into your regular routine.

It’s okay to be scared and unsure of where to begin. Send me a message (it’s facebook messenger, dangerously close to being social media) if you need help getting started.