Freedom from Emotional Eating

Two weeks ago, I started reading Paul McKenna's Freedom From Emotional Eating. It has been an amazing, revealing, enlightening fortnight.

This book has changed my life. Honestly.

On day 2, I noticed that I felt calm and happier, in a non-specific sort of way.
On day 3, it all started to fall into place, and I realised for the first time that I ate because I felt entitled to food. Without conciously trying to eat less, I was eating less.
On day 4, I challenged myself to eat more slowly and conciously.
On day 5, I found myself at one of my usual feeding frenzy times, when I can't help myself snacking - at home, fed up, with squabbling children. I didn't eat. I didn't want to. It no longer seemed like a helpful thing to do.
On day 6, I got home late at night and had a cup of tea. No toast, no nuts, no yoghurt - just a cup of tea. Which is unheard of.
On day 7, I got up, put on my skinny jeans and felt fantastic. It was the first Sunday for years that I didn't lurch from one snack to the next.
On day 8, I realised for the first time why I was using eating to help me deal with my emotions.
On day 9, I cried, all day.
On day 10, I stopped crying, but I wanted to run away and hide, all day.
On day 11, a friend told me about the problems she's been having recently, and made me realise that it really has been a long, long time since I've been properly switched on emotionally, either to myself or other people.
On day 12, I realised I'd lost over 4lb in two weeks. In the past, it's taken me literally months of calorie counting and long walks to lose those 4lbs.
Today, I had the best Sunday I've had for several years, feeling relaxed, connected to my family and contented.

I am amazed by how effective this book is, and the CD and DVD that go with it. To not emotionally eat has not been difficult. I have not needed to use willpower or self-restraint. I've simply felt differently about food. I have found it amazingly easy to eat when I'm hungry, and stop eating when I'm not hungry. Nobody is more surprised about this than I am.

In the last few years, for various reasons, I haven't given myself space to acknowledge, accept and act on my emotions. I've been forcing my feelings down and trying to "get on with" as much as possible, focusing on productivity over emotions. I had forgotten how to feel. I hadn't cried for years. The last two weeks have found me starting to reconnect with myself. I feel happier and more relaxed in most parts of my life. And I haven't once found myself in the kitchen looking for comfort, in two weeks.

This post doesn't seem to do justice to the emotional journey I've been through in the last fortnight. When I read back what I've written, it sounds like an advert for the book! But I don't know what else I can add. I want to rush out and tell almost everybody to try it. I want to salute Paul McKenna, hug him, and thank him for this amazing book.

Getting rid of my emotional eating.

I like Paul McKenna. I blogged in 2012 about using his book and CD, Change Your Life in 7 Days and how useful I found it. Here he is on the Dr Oz Show.

So when I went to Waterstones with a £13.02 gift card and saw Freedom From Emotional Eating for £12.99, I thought it must be a sign.

It's not very comfortable to admit that I'm an emotional eater. I'm not overweight. I weigh about 55kg and I'm 1.61m tall. My diet is good, especially now that I'm NSNG and I've cut out sugar and grains. I have lots of organic veggies, plenty of avocados, eggs, meat. I rarely eat out and pretty much all of what I eat, I've prepared myself. I love exercise so when I over-eat, it's offset by activity.

But there are times when I just can't stop eating. It's mainly nuts, seeds, yoghurt, fruits - nothing terrible, but I can pack them away like a maniac when the urge takes me. And I don't seem to be able to do anything about it. I realise it's self-destructive and that later on I'll wish I hadn't - but there's not cut-off switch in my brain. As much as I'd like to lose 2kg to hit my best running weight, I can't seem to translate that desire into the movement of walking out of the kitchen.

Chiefly it happens at weekends and evenings. Recently I've been trying to pause and analyse why I'm eating. I think I'm usually anxious, bored or tired. Those seem to be the three things that send me to the kitchen cupboard. I am totally sure, however, that whatever it is, it's not hunger.

So, there you are. That's my confession about emotional eating. This morning I read the first chapter of Paul McKenna's book and, just like Change Your Life in 7 Days, I felt it working even though it was just the introduction. The mytical magic of NLP, I think! This book is a 7-day challenge too, and this week I'm going to do what he asks and beat my emotional eating.

I'm going to blog every day and keep track of how I'm getting on.

Talent vs Hard Work

I heard a brilliant episode of FourThought on Radio 4 tonight. Matthew Syed is a former table tennis champion who was spending 15 minutes of airtime talking about the tensions between talent and hard work, and which of these is the key to success.

Syed argued that anybody who is any good at anything has practiced that activity for thousands of hours. Even Mozart, as a young boy, had spent thousands of hours working on his piano playing, and his progress had not always been astronomical - he progressed at a normal pace, but spent so long working hard at it that he became the child prodigy he was.

London's black cab drivers have a massive knowledge of the capital's roads and how to get around them. In fact the relevant part of their brain is larger than it is in non-cab drivers! But they weren't born that way - they developed their brains through hard work and practice.

While talent may be important, it is hard work that leads to success.

Also Syed discussed how, if the key component to success is talent, there would be no point in working hard. And talented people would always expect to rise to the top.  Which would give us a lazy society, where nobody bothered to work subjects they weren't top of the class in.

Running Guru Jack Daniels makes similar points in his book Daniels' Running Formula. Assuming there can be no hard work without motivation, Daniels believes

"there are four kinds of distance runners:
1. Those who have inherent ability and the motivation to use that ability
2. Those who have the ability to do well but aren't motivated to use their ability
3. Those who lack much ability but have great motivation to achieve success
4. Those who lack ability and aren't motivated."

While Daniels states that it's the type-1 runners who are champions, he also helpfully says that it is type-3 runners who are "fun to coach and deserve your appreciation and attention."!

Daniels adds that opportunity and direction are key factors in achieving success in running.

Paul McKenna makes more similar points in Change Your Life in Seven Days. He talks about "neural pathways", and how learning new habits - like believing in your own success - is a matter of strenthening those pathways in your brain.

So, whether or not you are born with "talent" - you can still achieve ANYTHING YOU PUT YOUR MIND TO.

A chance to shine

I am twelve hours away from my college interview and feeling a bit nervous.

I have a 9am interview at Jewel & Esk College for a place on their HNC course in Fitness, Health and Exercise - a one-year full time course which hopefully would lead me to their SVQ Level 3 course, Exercise & Fitness: Personal Training Award. It willbe a group discussion and an individual interview, and I am to take "full indoor kit", which I assume is gym wear!

I am just about over the fact I can't find my certificates to prove that I got O Grades and Highers in the late 1980s; I have looked out my clothes, printed out the details of my referees, checked that I can get parked when I arrive. But I still need to do a bit of work to fix my head!

This is my opportunity to check out the course, the department and the college to see that it's right for me. After all, if it isn't, there are other choices, other course providers, other qualifications. This is as much about *them* being right for *me* as it is about me being right for them.

I want to (as I said in my application) "work in the fitness industry, and it is my ambition to be a personal trainer. I am enthusiastic about fitness, and I find helping others achieve their goals to be rewarding and worthwhile." And tomorrow is one of the early steps along that path. Tomorrow is an opportunity to be seized, not a test to be afraid of!

I suspect this course can take me where I want to be. If it is right for me, things will flow easily. I am good enough for this course, and this course will be better if I am on it. I read this quote by Marianne Williamson in a book by Paul McKenna and I find it inspiring:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. 
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. 
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.' 
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? 
Actually, who are you not to be? 
You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. 
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. 
We are all meant to shine, as children do. 
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. 
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. 
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. 
As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

I'm off to shine now.

Eight days and counting...

On April 10 I have an interview at Jewel & Esk College to get on to their HND in Health, Fitness and Exercise. That's one week tomorrow. It's been a long time since I had to prove myself in an interview situation and I'm pretty nervous, even though I know it's an opportunity to prove myself and get further towards my goal of being a personal trainer.

As well as having to bring with me any certificates of qualifications I have (I'll need to get my degree and post-grad diploma out of their frames and, more challlenging, search the house for my higher and o-grade certificates!), I'll need a pen (I can manage that, I think), "indoor practical kit" (that'll be gymwear, right?) and supply a referee, "either academic or work related which is current (i.e. no more than 6 months old)." I haven't studied for a decade, and as a self-employed person, I'll need to think creatively about the reference - I don't think they'd be too impressed if I went to my boss for one!

And if that wasn't arduous enough, "the interview will take the form of a group discussion and an individual interview." Not only difficult questions but interacting with other people!


Tomorrow is a four-mile run, which is well within my comfort zone, so I won't be too tired to be preoccupied with preparing for the interview! My biggest ally here will be Paul McKenna, the hypnotist. Earlier this year I prepared for a dance show using his hypnosis CD and book "Change Your Life in 7 Days", and it was an amazingly positive experience. It was doubtlessly the best performance I've done, and it was all down to fixing my head with Paul McKenna. I'm really looking forward to doing it again for this interview.


Better knuckle down!