What Is A Feeling Anyway?

From Why Can't I Lose Weight? blog by Brooke Castillo

You have heard me say it often: "The only reason you eat is a feeling." Your thoughts cause your feelings which cause your actions. So you have a negative thought that causes you to feel a negative feeling which causes you to fog eat.

My advice is to feel the feeling instead of eating. But what is a feeling? What does it really mean to feel instead of eat?

Here is my simplified answer. "A feeling is an experience in the body, caused by a thought in the mind." Here are some examples of what I mean by an experience in the body:

Fear is felt as a heightened heartbeat, increased “flinch” response, and increased muscle tension.

Anger, based on sensation, seems indistinguishable from fear except for heat.

Happiness is often felt as an expansive or swelling feeling in the chest and the sensation of lightness or buoyancy, as if standing underwater.

Sadness is often experienced as a feeling of tightness in the throat and eyes, and relaxation in the arms and legs.

Shame can be felt as heat in the upper chest and face.

Desire can be accompanied by a dry throat, heavy breathing, and increased heart rate.

Ultimately the reason we fog eat is to distract ourselves from the current physical sensations, caused by our thoughts, to instead focus on the physical sensations caused by eating.

If we can learn how to experience the physical sensations caused by our thoughts long enough to change the thoughts- we will no longer have the need for the distraction of eating when we aren't hungry.

So next time you want to fog eat- sit down and document the physical sensations in your body; see if you can identify the feeling and name it; then try to access the thought and change it.

If you repeat this process enough, you will never be fat again.

Eat Or Feel

I love reading motivational posts, or blogs. Often others can put my thoughts or feelings into words far better, or should I say, far more eloquently that I can. Brooke Castillo is one of those people. Her blog is amazing, and I highly recommend her book.

This is the choice we have in front of us. Anytime a negative feeling comes up we have the choice to go the kitchen or visit ourselves. So many times we tell our own selves to "talk to the hand." We ignore our need to feel. We ignore what the feeling represents or what it is trying to tell us. We choose not to listen. We walk away from ourselves and into the kitchen for crackers, oreos, or left over mac and cheese.

Imagine how we must feel when we do this to ourselves. Imagine what it must feel like to be ignored and "shut up" with food. Imagine what it is like to be burdened with excess weight and unfelt emotions. But you don't have to imagine this scenario do you? You don't have to imagine what this feels like, because you know. You are familiar with self neglect if you are overfed.

It really is a choice. You can choose to feel an emotion from beginning to end. You can choose to write about it in your journal in detail. You can choose to let a vibration go through your body. That is what a feeling is-a vibration in your physical body that you try to dull with lots of food.

So next time you feel the urge to eat, sit on your couch and feel. When you think you can't stand it for one more second-keep sitting and keep feeling. Don't fight the feeling with your willpower, allow it with your heart. Repeat until the feeling is gone. Notice the thought that caused the feeling.

If you continue this process you will find yourself and hear yourself. You will give yourself the attention you are seeking. You will be in your body without distraction-awake for each moment. Connected.

Meet yourself. You're waiting.

Exercise

The following was posted by Brooke Castillo today. It speaks truths to me about my relationship with exercise.

How are you treating your exercise?

For some reason, I don't like to talk about exercise to my clients or in seminars. Maybe it is the revulsion in their faces, maybe it is the eye rolls, or maybe it is because I know they don't want to do it and I have my sales job cut out for me. Bottom line is that exercise is required and exercise is distasteful to many many people.

I think maybe the reason is that we mis-use exercise. Some of us use exercise the way others use people. We use it to get what we want. We use it to lose weight fast. We use it to punish ourselves. We use as proof that we are incapable of losing weight. If exercise were a friend of ours, or a person we knew, we could describe the way we treat it as downright rude.

We rarely ever spend time with it and when we do we complain the whole time. We get angry at it for not giving us what we want-namely pounds lost the minute we are finished. We say we are going to show up to see it and we don't. We make excuses as to why we can't spend time with it. We tell it that it is important and valuable and that we are committed and then we let it down time after time.

Think of exercise as the person in your life that is only there to help you. Exercise wants to give you health and vigor. Exercise is the person that wants to tell you the truth about where you are physically. Exercise is honorable, consistent, and true. Exercise is the loyal friend who is worth your time. It may not be exciting each time you spend time with it, but each time you do-you feel yourself getting stronger and stronger.

Sometimes I consider keeping people in my life by who I am when I am with them. If exercise were a person that I hung out with, I would know this is a person I want to keep in my life. Whenever I spend time with it I feel proud, capable, strong, and committed. I give myself the gift of exercise-not because of what I can take from it-but because I am a better person with it in my life. Weight loss or not.

Give yourself the gift of exercise. It is a relationship worth nurturing.

For more great motivational posts - see Why Can't I Lose Weight?

Fat is merely Tissue, Stored Potential Energy

Fat is not a feeling. You cannot be fat. Fat does not reside as an emotion in your psyche. Fat is merely tissue, stored potential energy.

(my comments: That says to me that my fat has the potential to do something useful, like burn off and go away! Yipee!!! )

When you are "feeling fat", you are really feeling something else. Fat is another decoy emotion. Fat is a substitute for what is really going on with you.

Know that your feelings about your weight and the feeling you create from overeating or depriving yourself are engaging you in a decoy struggle. It is a distraction from your real emotional life. It gets you thinking about food and your weight instead of what is really going on under the surface. ... Each time we try to feel, we rebel, playing this rebellion out by overeating. It's good for immediate gratification, but bad for our long term happiness. This great drama can fill our minds and keep us distracted quite well.

Your real work on this planet is not your weight or your fat. The fabric of your emotional journey is not about deprivation and overeating. It is about love and fear and manifesting the magnificent person you already are. It is time to pay attentionto your real life. Stop distracting yourself from your emotional life. Find out what you are feeling, and feel it. It is then that you can find the way to who you really are. I promise you, it is not just fat.

Excerpted from If I'm So Smart Why Can't I Lose Weight, by Brooke Castillo

Feelings & Beliefs

I am struggling too some days on Kimkins (especialy last night). The struggles are no different to any diet I've been on before. But now I have some tools to teach me to deal with issues that come up.

Yesterday I was spending some time listening to Brooke Castillo's audiobook If I'm so Smart, Why Can't I Lose Weight? I am trying to focus more on feeling my feelings, instead of just eating to cover them up. ('cos if I'm berating myself afterwards about overeating I am certainly not feeling lonely, bored, angry, fearful, you fill in the blank...which is obviously the point, but I'm not dealing with my emotions effectively, I'm just gaining pounds!) Apparently by sitting there and studying the feeling you will uncover eventually the belief that underlies the feeling. The belief is probably wrong and outdated, and so the idea is to change the belief, update it so to speak, and thus change the feeling - all without touching food and beating oneself up. Sounds easy, but it is hard. I do not like some of the feelings and beliefs that doing this so far has brought up for me. And what I am coming across is going to take some working with. But it is a step in the right direction.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Today is my 39th birthday. While I am a little disappointed that DH is out on the road, it does make it easier because I didn't have to do that "birthday meal out at a restaurant" which to be totally honest frightens me a little right now. I am looking at incorporating many of the great tips and ideas from Brooke's book (If I'm So Smart, Why Can't I Lose Weight?: Tools to Get it Done) over the next few months so that when I am in a restaurant I feel much more in control of myself.

I was also disappointed to not see the scale drop down to under 180 lbs as I'd been hoping for. In fact, it inched up 1/2 lb instead. I think that all the red meat I've been eating over the weekend was pretty much to blame, especially after reading to newsletter that Kimmer sent out with the fat levels in beef. It does sit heavy in my stomach too. I am going to limit beef to only one or two days each week and get back to Tilapia & Chicken.

If I am So Smart, Why Can’t I Lose Weight?

Ask yourself, “Why am I overweight?”
Your first answer will be that you eat more than your body requires for fuel.
Your second answer will be that you don’t exercise enough.
Then ask yourself, “Why don’t I eat better fuel or exercise enough?”
Write down your answer.
Knowing the answer to this question is imperitive if you want to lose weight permanently. You need to know what got you here in the first place so you won’t repeat it. Revisit this question often. Anytime you miss a workout or overeat ask yourself, “Why am I eating this?” or “Why am I doing this?”

Never let yourself get too hungry and stop the minute you are full.
So many of us wait way to long to eat. We get really, really hungry and then eat more than we really need. Make sure you keep food with you so you can eat high grade fuel the minute you get hungry. Try to eat protein with each meal to keep you sated for longer. Stop eating the minute you get sated. No matter if you are in the middle of a bite, put the food down when your stomach is done. You should feel light and energized after every meal or snack. Remind yourself that you can eat the minute you get hungry again.
How can you plan to eat when you are hungry? Write down your ideas.

Stop being mean to yourself.
Watch how you talk to yourself during the day. Notice the thoughts you have and how they make you feel. Are you kind to yourself. Do you encourage yourself? Do you give yourself the gift of patience? Through the process of losing weight and understanding how you got overweight in the first place, show yourself some common decency. You would never let someone else be as mean to you as you are to yourself-you would never choose them as a friend. So make sure you are being a good friend to yourelf.
Write down the ways in which you are mean to yourself.
What are the thoughts that you are having on a daily basis about yourself?
Know that when you are losing weight there will be times you want to eat when you aren’t hungry. If you can be kind to yourself during these times you might begin to understand why you feel like eating and then with that knowledge begin to change it.

These three tools have been summarized and simplified from "If I am So Smart, Why Can’t I Lose Weight?" by Brooke Castillo

Book Review

Among the many diet and weight loss books published each year, this is one that provides a realistic and effective program for changing your thinking about eating and dieting. Some of the book is about feelings, some of the book is about goal setting, some of the book is about self management and some of the book is about eating itself. While there are questions to write about, it is not just a book of self awareness exercises. The book explains a viewpoint that frees you from old habits of thinking related to food as well as your feelings about yourself. The process described helps you examine the deeper reasons it is hard to regulate yourself in any area of your life.

This book takes all the piece parts from all the diciplines-psychological, physical, and spiritual-and puts it together in a well organized program. Brooke doesn't just focus on diet, exercise, or emotional eating issues, but rather creates a integrated system, which can be applied to many life challenges. If you have finally come to realize that conquering a weight problem is not a simple or easy task, then this book will give you a concrete method to get your weight under control.

This program works. I know. If you use the tools you see a difference in all areas of your life. This has made a positive difference in many areas of my life. The work is hard, you will not regret "trying this on" If you ever wondered how everything in your life is connected to what you think and do this book will answer the questions in ways you never dreamed. This book is the cheapest way I know to access what you want and to know what it is you want. Do the work, your life will change for the better.

I have first hand experience with Brooke's program, having been her client for 4 months last year and having read the book. Brooke is more than a coach; she is an amazing, rockin', healing, intuitive wonder. She has her finger on the pulse of where its at with weight loss; where we have socially evolved to and if you do what she says, you will succeed, no ifs ands or buts. She will support you every step of the way. I was so pleased to read her book and see how she was able to really capture the program so precisely in the book. Its a wonderful tool, full of her bright energy and power, and it will serve its users well. The work is deep and simple and real. Brooke will take you to where you want to go! Good luck and blessings!

This book is available at Amazon.com