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Authors: Marisa Peer

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‘No’, ‘not’ and ‘don’t’ are all neutral words in that they don’t make a picture and have little effect on the subconscious mind. Thinking I am
not
hungry, I
don’t
crave chocolate, I
don’t
want to eat chips, causes the mind to lock onto the only descriptive words in the sentence –
hungry
,
chips
and
chocolate
.

If I ask you not to think of pink snow in order not to think of it you have to think of it and see it even though you have never seen pink snow before. Try right now not to think of pink snow and you will see what happens – you cannot help thinking about it. By turning over any negative thoughts you will find the positive. The subconscious mind is only in the moment; therefore when you visualise create images that are occurring now, this instant. For example, ‘My body is becoming more fit, healthy and attractive every day’, or ‘I am adapting to this new eating lifestyle so well and dropping weight’.

Make your words dynamic and descriptive: ‘I am confident and so successful with my diet’.

Make it personal:

•
I am slimmer
.

•
I look leaner
.

•
I will make it work
.

•
I always make healthy food choices
.

•
I can do this, I enjoy it
.

•
I do whatever it takes willingly
.

•
I always eat this way now and it always works
.

Using the ‘I am, I can’ technique, add your own words to the statement below or make a completely unique one incorporating changes that are personal to your own life so your statement reads something like this:

I feel so confident about my body, I am slimmer and becoming leaner and lighter all the time. I feel proud when I look at the contents of my shopping basket; I always make healthy food choices. It feels great when people pay me compliments. Knowing I will reach my ideal weight, I am taking control of my life. I look so much slimmer and feel happy. I will eat this way for the rest of my life. I willingly and happily do whatever it takes. I love going to the gym and always make time to exercise. I always have portable food to hand. I am wearing smaller clothes. I look good, I feel amazing, my body loves what I am doing for it. I am in great shape physically and mentally and my healthy attitude to food and my body keeps me slim.

You can add things like, ‘My partner admires me’, ‘I go swimming with my children’, ‘I wear————’, ‘I look and feel younger’. Whatever is appropriate and inspiring for you. Write it out and put it somewhere you can read it every day.

Visualise Your Progress

Many people get disheartened on diets. They may drop a lot of weight quickly and then put it all back on again. As a result people shed the same 10 pounds over and over again. It is better to shed weight realistically. Two pounds a week is a great achievement, if you get to a point where you feel disheartened because you have only shed 5 pounds, carry around a 5 pound chicken or 5 pounds of potatoes all day or even for twenty minutes and you will soon feel very different and pleased that you have shed all that weight and be inspired to shed more. I was explaining this to the participants on
Celebrity Fit Club USA
and the following week the host mentioned that he had being doing that all week, carrying around an item that weighed 5 pounds for a few hours each day and it had totally changed his attitude and left him proud of the weight he’d shed and excited and inspired to shed more. Instead of feeling that he was not making enough progress he could literally feel the amount of weight he had already shed and it motivated him to continue.

Next time you are in a supermarket pick up an item equivalent to the weight you have shed – it can be anything from a bag of soap powder to a turkey to a bag of carrots. If you want to be precise you can even weigh out some carrots to the exact amount of weight you have reduced by. Carry that item around the shop in your hand not in the trolley and feel how heavy it is. Then feel so good about dropping that amount of weight and excited by your progress and inspired to make even more.

STEP SEVEN

Breaking Patterns

To find the most effective way of breaking the patterns that you have picked up through your life in relation to overeating, take the following test to see which type of eater you are and therefore which methods are best suited to getting results.

There are six types of overeater and they are:

• Addictive eaters.

• Emotional eaters.

• Habitual eaters.

• Ignorant eaters.

• Destructive eaters.

• Angry eaters.

Answer the following questions to find out which one you are or are predominantly. If you answer yes to more than 50 per cent of the questions you can identify yourself with that category.

• Do you think about food all day then, when you are eating, cram food into your mouth and eat really fast so you don’t even taste it and want more food?

• Do you repeat this pattern over and over?

• Do you crave sugar? If you have sugary snacks in the house do you eat them and are unable to save them for later or another day?

• Do you eat sensibly all day and only break your diet in the evenings?

• Are there some foods that once you start eating them you can’t stop? i.e. jumbo bags of crisps or family size bars of chocolate?

• Do you eat something like a bar of chocolate so fast that when it’s finished you realise you didn’t enjoy it, savour it or really even taste it?

If you have answered yes, you are an addictive eater.

• Do you overeat in secret?

• Do you use food to block your emotions and feelings, i.e. eating when you are lonely, unhappy or bored?

• Do you prefer to eat alone and do you eat differently when eating with others?

• Would you find it hard to be without chocolate, sweets and biscuits?

• Do you at times crave food full of salt, fat or sugar?

• Do you eat when under pressure?

• Do you particularly crave carbohydrates when you are unhappy?

• Do you believe that certain foods comfort you and make you feel better?

If you have answered yes, you are an emotional eater.

• Are your children or partner overweight?

• Do you no longer recognise when you are full and when you are hungry?

• Do you put on weight predominantly around your stomach?

• Do you eat whenever food is in front of you regardless of whether or not you are hungry?

• Do you finish everything and always clear your plate?

• Do you find it particularly hard to throw food away or ‘waste’ it?

• Were you always made to finish meals as a child?

• Do you find yourself using every occasion to eat i.e. watching television, in a car or on a train journey, at the cinema, etc?

• Do you eat quickly and finish before others?

If you have answered yes, you are a habitual eater.

• Do you think that all salad is healthy including coleslaw and the dressing?

• Do you think cheese is good for you and pizza is a complete meal because it has some peppers and tomatoes on it?

• Do you believe that bread, potatoes, cereal and milk are good foods?

• Do you think all foods labelled low fat, reduced sugar and diet must be good for you?

• Do you count potatoes as vegetables?

• Do you think fruit bars, fruit drinks and canned fruit are as good as fresh fruit?

If you have answered yes, you are an ignorant eater.

• Do you sabotage your diet every time you come close to your ideal weight?

• Do you feel anxious and uncomfortable when you are slimmer?

• Do you still buy clothes in bigger sizes and keep your fat clothes?

• Do you shed the same 10 pounds (or thereabouts) every year then gain it back?

• Do you feel more comfortable when your body is covered up and uneasy when it is on show, i.e. do you prefer winter because you can wear layers and hate summer because you are supposed to wear less?

• Do you celebrate your weight loss success by resuming eating the foods you had denied yourself?

If you have answered yes, you are a destructive eater.

• Do you prefer crunchy food like crisps, nachos, apples, popcorn, French bread or very chewy food like toffee and beef jerky?

• Do you feel better after chewing and biting food?

• Do you eat something after an argument or if you feel tense or wound up because it changes your state?

• Do you feel agitated if you have to wait too long for your food to be served to you in a restaurant or on an airline?

If you have answered yes, you are an angry eater.

It’s Not What You’re Eating It’s What’s Eating You

Addictive eaters
crave sugary food, caffeine, junk food, colas and refined carbohydrates because they are addicted to the chemical composition of these foods. They always find these foods stimulate them to want more and have great difficulty resisting them or eating just a little of this type of food.

Emotional eaters
find loneliness, boredom and sadness are temporarily abated when they fill their stomachs with refined carbohydrates. They fill them up quickly and they feel satisfied and sedated, even tranquillised, for a while. Comfort can briefly be found in soft sweet foods like ice cream or cake that reminds us of childhood. Depressed people often want caffeine and sugary foods. Emotional eaters try to get rid of a bad feeling fast and try to feel good even faster by using comfort foods and bulk eating.

Habitual eaters
have often been made to eat everything on their plate. As children they were often not allowed to leave food and have conditioned themselves to continue this habit. They will eat at every occasion and eat everything in front of them without being aware of whether they are hungry or not.

Ignorant eaters
have been completely brainwashed by food manufacturers to believe that what they are eating is healthy or harmless. They eat a lot of convenience and ready meals and believe they are as good as home-cooked food. They may exist primarily on diet foods and diet drinks but still have a weight problem.

Destructive eaters
usually have a deep-rooted need to hide their sexuality and feel vulnerable when they look attractive or desirable. People who have never had enough like volume and frequency of meals as they always feel they may not get enough. They often feel panicky in a situation where food is shared, i.e. a group Chinese meal, in case they get less. They feel uncomfortable when they cannot dish out their own portions and a host does it for them in case they don’t get enough to satisfy them.

Angry eaters
like crunchy food like crisps and apples and tough food like meat and thick bread that they can chomp and chew on. Hard mastication is effective when we are feeling tense and wound up. Stressed people often want salty foods. They will always eat after a fight or disagreement to make themselves feel better.

As you categorise which type of eater you are you can use the following case histories to find the right affirmations to change your habits of thought and actions. If you fall into more than one category that is okay and not unusual, just use the affirmations for both categories. People of a normal weight will answer yes to some of the questions – the difference is it does not run their lives. It might help you to know that over 70 per cent of over-eaters are emotional eaters and addictive eaters. Another 20 per cent are habitual and ignorant eaters. Only around 10 per cent fall into the destructive and the angry category.

Up to 43 per cent of people use food to alter their moods every single day. There is so much going on behind our seemingly unconscious eating habits. It is essential that you know what your issues are in order to fix them because it’s hard to fix what you don’t understand, but once you have that understanding you also have the power to change. The understanding and the solutions that each chapter offers you are changing you on every level. In the next chapter you will find the information to adjust how you eat. These adjustments are crucial for addictive eaters.

As you read some of my client case histories you may find one or more that feel applicable to you or that resonate with you. If so follow the instructions for that person in order to sever the emotional links that have caused you to eat badly (or incorrectly). Of course you may need to alter the affirmations since we are all unique and following the case histories you will find instructions telling you exactly how to do that.

For many overweight people the weight is simply the presenting problem – the visible effect or symptom of the real problem underneath. Excess weight can have a role, a function and a purpose. Often it is to insulate someone from being rejected or to hide their sexuality from the world or to offer up as a reason for failure: ‘I could have been a success if only I was thinner’, ‘He/she would have liked me if I was not overweight’, or ‘I would have got that job if I wasn’t so fat’, and so on. Once the true reason for the excess weight is uncovered most clients go on to reduce their weight and keep it off permanently.

Addictive Eaters

Lorna had battled with her weight for years. She was a compulsive eater and craved food almost all the time. She told me that she had begun to develop very early and had noticeable breasts when she was ten. Her mother was horrified by this and put her on a very restrictive diet to stop her body developing. Lorna did not want to be denied food and resisted all her mother’s attempts to put her on the grapefruit diet or any kind of diet. While her family were having toast and cereal for breakfast she was given only half a grapefruit. Soon Lorna was banned from eating any kind of cakes, biscuits, desserts or bread although other family members ate them freely and in her presence. Her mother was so determined to make Lorna thinner that she locked the pantry and put her on a 1,000 calorie a day diet. Lorna told me she would volunteer to clear the table and wash up just so she could secretly eat the rest of her family’s leftovers. She would wolf down food from anybody’s plate rather than be denied it. Because she was deprived of food and had no say in the matter, while her friends and family were allowed to eat with no restriction, she developed an obsession with the very food she had been denied: sugar, junk food and refined carbs. She ate them so often, in an outdated need to defy her mother and take back control, she had become addicted to them. We cured the addiction once she understood how and why it had begun.

Solution

The following statements are essential to changing your addiction habits. Remember the explanation I’ve previously given of how they work and use them to work for you:

• I can have whatever I want now but I just don’t need it.

• I am choosing to be slim and healthy for me not anyone else because I can, I am ready, I want to and it’s easy now.

• My understanding gives me power and freedom to be the correct weight for me.

• I recognise addictive foods and happily refuse them.

• Sugar is not a food. I enjoy its absence and feel better without it than I ever thought I did with it.

BOOK: You Can Be Thin: The Ultimate Programme to End Dieting... Forever

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