Overcoming Emotional Eating: Reprogramming Your Mind to Control Your Weight

Changing the look and shape of your body requires a holistic approach. This means the change has to come both with your physiology and psychology especially if you struggle with emotional or stressful eating.

Physiology simply means getting your calories under control, making more sensible food and eating decisions as well as sticking to a regular exercise program that is well designed to move you towards your health and fitness goals whatever they may be.

Dr Nicola Bird Founder of Self Imaging Therapy

You can even think of the physiology part as the things that are obviously outwardly such as going to the gym, choosing smaller portion sizes, and ensuring that your diet is based more on whole foods that satisfy your needs without over consuming calories from dense sources.

The physiology is what you read about in fitness magazines, and it’s the information that gets cluttered, contradicted, and over consumed. This is because the physiology for many people isn’t the problem. For some people it’s the psychology.

Getting a handle on the psychological aspects of weight control is an entirely different matter and it’s not so obvious what is happening in your mind and with your emotions. Taking control of your psychology and learning to reprogram yourself for weight loss success requires just as much work as the physiology, but this is a different kind of work.

If you think you have an emotional or psychological issue with eating and weight control the first step is getting to the root of the issue. This is hard and in many cases uncomfortable work, and the answer isn’t always obvious. In many cases you’ll be the last person to know what the real issue is until you start doing the work to find out.

Click this image to check out Nicolas book on Amazon

These are usually deep rooted issues that touch on your sense of identity and self worth. It will involve undoing old psychological patterns and laying down new ones, and it requires repetition to make it stick, just like working out.

To truly change your body for good, you must change both your physiology AND your psychology. Changing one without the other isn’t enough.

In todays podcast I interview Dr. Nicola Bird about changing your psychology to help overcoming emotional and stress related eating to make a real lasting change in your body. She is my psychotherapist and the ace up my sleeve that helps me stay balanced and keeps me moving forward.

We’ll discuss the root of the identity crisis that many people face when they do finally make a change in their body. We will also talk about why so many people self sabotage and become their own worst enemy when they try to change their bodies.

This is a great interview and I suggest you take notes if emotional or stress eating is an issue you’ve been struggling with.

Finally if you like what you hear from Nicola you can visit her website here and even book a session to start working through your own issues with her over the phone. I highly recommend it if you feel stuck or hitting a sabotage point that you cannot overcome. I find that her methods are the most effective way to start getting your psychology inline with your physiology for a lasting change.

John

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About John Barban

John is the co-founder of Venus Index, chief developer of the Venus Index workouts and our supplement industry insider.

He will show you exactly how to work out and (not) eat to build your ideal body shape using simple and easy to follow Venus Index approach.

Check out his personal blog at JohnBarban.com

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Comments

  1. This might be the best, most useful podcast I have EVER heard. Just made me think on so many diff. levels – and not just about weight.

  2. Wow, thank you for the brilliant podcast. I agree with “A” above i think it is the best and most relevant interview i’ve ever heard.
    I recognised myself in just about every scenario she mentions and i am trying to recognise my “patterns” and change but it is extremely difficult especially the anxiety responses i have. She mentioned asking questions for a later interview. Could she go over tools and/or stategies we could use to overcome the bad habits, patterns, limiting beliefs and bad self talk. Recognisng it is one thing, changing it is another especially when it has been a part of you that you didn’t even know existed since childhood. I always thought it was my “personality’ but i am slowly recognising I am mostly the way i am due to life’s circumstances (of which I have been through alot) and the treatment i have gotten, and still get, from people in my life. I am on a journey to change my life as at 44 years old i am tired and cannot keep living this way and she is right that it has to start with loving and accepting myself first. A very hard thing to do when you are depressed, have very low self esteem and feel like you are alone in this world and that everything is a battle. Thanks again for the enlightening call. This is one i will listen to again and again for inspiration and guidance to help me on my path to enlightenment in all aspects of my life, not just weight and bad eating habits.

  3. I have to agree with “A” above! It could be that my mind is now opened to reflecting on self image, but this podcast provided a lot of key elements (guiding questions) for my journey.
    John, thank you for the opportunity of getting in touch with Nicola’s wisdom! I really appreciate it!
    And I have a question for Nicola: how efficient is therapy when the therapist does not speak the patient’s language and they have to use, let’s say… English, to understand one another? I mean, is language a barrier in therapy? and if so, to what extent?

  4. deanneh says:

    Thank you John and Dr. Nicola! This podcast was SO ENLIGHTENING! What really hit home for me was the concept of being self-critical and I received an “aha moment” while listening that I never let go of that during my transformation and it has been making maintenance so challenging mentally.

    Now I am aware, and I can begin to let that go… and begin to truly connect and feel that I am worth being taken care of!

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