7 psychological barriers that prevent you from losing weight
Strict diet, balanced diet, intermittent fasting, exercising several times a week... You may have tried everything, but you can't lose weight. And what if the problem ends up in the head? Discover the barriers that prevent us from losing weight.
For months, you've tried everything to lose your extra pounds and regain your healthy weight, the body you feel comfortable in. You've tried many diets, cut carbs from your diet, incorporated more fruits and vegetables into your daily meals, and even tried intermittent fasting, but to no avail, your weight on the scale remains the same. Perhaps this blockage is deeper and needs to be "gently loosened," suggests Marielle Alex, a holistic shift coach and hypnotherapy.
Your body thinks that extra weight is necessary
To free yourself from food urges in a permanent way, like this addiction to sugar, or this uncontrollable nibble at the end of the day, and understanding what has been playing in our brain for years, even our early childhood can be a good thing.
Behind the inability to lose weight, this difficulty resisting food cravings, there may actually be a part of you (unconscious, of course), that thinks losing weight or managing these urges can put you "at risk," or at least not. make you safe.
As explained by Marielle Alex, during her RTT (Rapid Transformation Therapy) hypnotherapy sessions, she helps her clients ask their subconscious why they can't shed that extra weight. And the answer that keeps getting repeated is that this quest for weight loss is not "safe". As we grow up, we experience certain things (we speak once an adult of our "inner child") that we must understand.
“The sole purpose of our brains is to keep us safe, and for this, we subconsciously integrate that we have to be loved, accepted, and valued by a tribe, or else you won’t be able to survive,” the hypnotherapist explains.
As we grow up, we will be able to give meaning to the events we have experienced, but sometimes it is necessary to address our 'inner child', to unconsciously break down the barriers associated with the 'badly experienced' events.
For example, when a parent drops their child into foster care, they may feel abandoned by a parent. He does not have the necessary perspective to understand that simply because he has to go to work. He can then tell himself that if his mom and dad really loved him, they would be with him, and thus he was "not worthy of love" if they weren't around with him.
This physical wrap that seems a little overweight to you, these impulses that permeate your life, can be a way to "protect" you from the outside and can come from your early childhood.
Start by trying to identify the blockages that may exist within you, either by questioning yourself or by seeking help from a hypnotherapist who can guide you.
There are unconscious secondary benefits
Ask yourself the question if behind this extra weight or this addictive relationship to food you are experiencing, there may be no unconscious secondary benefits.
What are the side effects of that weight, that sugar when I eat it?
At first glance, you would probably answer that there is no secondary benefit, but if you dig a little deeper, you might notice that when you eat sugar, you feel left out when you throw yourself on the fridge. When you get home, or your stress subsides, or when you're bored, or when everything is tough around you, food is the only thing that relaxes you or keeps you company.
To identify these subconscious secondary benefits, you can write down the times you "shove" food into a notebook, how and what foods you turn to, and how you feel before and after eating it.
Sugars and snacks.. Food helps to escape from negative feelings
Regardless of age, the brain is always trying to rid you of pain, and it will find a solution to calm the negative emotions that pass us by.
“Food comes in very quickly when you are young (from a very young age with the bottle). Pleasure hormones are activated when you are given food,” explains Marielle Alex.
Our body is able to self-regulate in front of food and only know when satiety is reached. Children will express this quite naturally, with “I am hungry,” which the parents, in spite of themselves, will ignore by saying that you should always finish your plate. As a result, we learned not to listen to each other, but to eat in large quantities, “to please my mother,” even if the body says stop.
You can notice it as an adult: you're not feeling well, tired, you've had a bad day, drunkenness, or food in general will "calm" these pains and you'll feel "better" fairly quickly after giving in to the temptation and comfort that food provides.
Nipping occurs in many women around snack time, and there we can only see the very strong emotional connection to the memory of a child's snack, a moment of pleasure that children especially appreciate.
Food is often a way to reduce psychological pain associated with stress, anxiety, and deep wounds. “Food will help escape these feelings and is often associated with being the only thing that really allows us to let go of it,” the therapist defines.
And even if we realize it, but can't get away from those cravings for sugar or snacks, we often say, "He's stronger than me, I couldn't resist those pastries!" that part of our inner child doesn't want to shed those extra pounds. This happens at the level of your subconscious mind, which prevents you from losing weight, and it believes that "if you lose this weight, these impulses are there to protect you from negative emotions and other pains, you will not survive."
To move forward, we must let go of false beliefs
As you understand, your subconscious mind may be inclined to play tricks on you. Once you identify those false beliefs that you have instilled in you since your very young age, it is a matter of deprogramming them.
Be aware that when we come into the world we are as healthy as we are and simply by growing these beliefs stabilize and thus are far from fundamental and can even slow us down on our life path.
So the goal would be to work on this unconscious protective mechanism. You deserve love today and this so-called weapon against pain (food) is actually the root of your pain (that extra weight that you can't get rid of despite all your efforts).
That old mechanism no longer works now that you're an adult, it's time to put a new one on stage to feel good, listen to your appetite and your satiety, we were born with a self-regulating function, let's find- there!
Reconnect with the pleasure of feeling good
To be in tune with yourself, take care of your body and mind and feel good, start embodying what your life will be like once you lose that extra weight, or those cravings are gone, can help. We simply visualize ourselves on a daily basis, in a very tangible way, in order to send this positive message of well-being and happiness to our bodies.
In this anticipated incarnation there are important questions that will redefine pleasure. What will I replace this snack that I make myself in the evening, for example, before bed? What do I like to do, what makes me feel good? Is it reading a book, taking a nice relaxing bath. Target? Look for options to replace those sugar cravings, that evening snack, or that clearing when you get home.
Learn to welcome your feelings and let them be
Learn to manage your emotions differently from consuming sugary products, and gaining weight, because food is perhaps a sponge, a foil for the feelings we found hard to manage around us.
Instead of feeling an emotion, we built ourselves up by suppressing feelings, by putting them in boxes (negative feelings/positive feelings).
Whether they are positive or negative, we will try not to suppress our emotions, but, on the contrary, allow them to express themselves.
Therefore, we will not consider it “good or bad”, but only observe this weather forecast of what is happening inside us, which is just a mirror of what is happening inside us, without judgment.
Are you feeling sad today? Instead of saying to yourself "Oh no, you can't be sad, I should get myself together right away!" Say to yourself, “Okay, you’re sad,” just watch the feelings and let them live.
By letting your emotions live this way, without judging them, without trying to suppress them, you will see that they will leave your life more quickly. They will pass like a cloud in the sky, leaving no trace, because we don't put any energy into them, we simply allow them to exist.
Work on self-confidence, boost self-esteem
When I amplify my love for being me, when I strengthen my self-confidence, no matter what my body wrapping, my extra weight I want to lose or not, whatever I will do as a business next will be able to fit in.
Therefore, working on your self-esteem, even before you start losing weight, is important: Yes, you deserve love, you are great and you can put together a whole bunch of little clues to show you that: your daughter tells you that she loves you, your friends are always happy to spend time with you, congratulate you Your boss regularly for the good work you've done...note all these little things that prove you're a great person, and do a great job. Confirm, by writing eg. Because we tend to only remember the negatives, but if you ask yourself a few minutes, you will inevitably find positive things about you!
Repeat sentences that you hear or don't hear but hear deeply inside of you, such as "I'm not like this enough", "You're too much", "You don't finish your plate, so you won't have to be careful or you will be punished (you don't deserve love) “You could be better off if you did that….” Replace these affirmations with positive things you hear or notice around you, and re-read them regularly, so that you incorporate these positive affirmations.