To get on track with your healthy lifestyle goals? Lately I’ve been encountering many women who tell me they don’t.
I’ve been hearing from women who are incredibly frustrated with their eating habits, their weight gain, their lack of progress on important health goals. I’ve talked to women who fear their family history of diabetes or heart disease. I’ve talked to women who’ve even had weight loss surgery and are terrified because they are seeing the weight they’ve lost start to creep back. I’ve also talked with too many women who have put some aspect of their life “on hold” until they can start losing weight. Their struggles with food and emotional eating or overeating are something they think about every day.
But they aren’t moving forward.
They aren’t moving forward because they are using a faulty recipe for success. These busy woman are trying to make a positive change by cutting back; taking things (food) away and doing with less. But they aren’t adding anything else in—because they don’t have time. They don’t have time to feed their spirit, their soul, their passion in non-food ways. They don’t have time to go to the groups, the seminars, the inspiring places or activities that could keep them on track. They don’t have time for themselves.
Really, we all have time. The truth is, we choose how we spend it.
Struggles with food are created in many ways. Struggles with food end when we learn how to really truly feed ourselves the things we need (these are different for everyone) and this can only happen when we take the time to listen and hear ourselves, sort it all out, and respond. Ending emotional eating, overeating, and weight struggles requires us to take the time—to spend a portion of our time on ourselves. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a lot of time, but it does have to be dedicated time we allot for ourselves and our needs. It’s not food-focused time, but it’s time that helps us become less focused on the food. It’s essential. There really are no short cuts with this step.
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Are you a smart, busy woman struggling with emotional eating, overeating, and balancing work and life? Claim your free psychologist-designed audio series:"5 simple steps to move beyond overwhelm with food and life” at http://TooMuchOnHerPlate.com. Just look for the yellow post-it note at the top of the page.
Melissa McCreery, PhD, ACC, is a Psychologist, ICF Certified Life Coach, emotional eating coach, and the founder of TooMuchOnHerPlate.com, a company dedicated to providing smart resources to busy women struggling with food, weight and overwhelm.