When is a treat not a treat? When it masquerades as pleasure but in reality causes massive pain. I saw a perfect example of this tonight watching “My Baggy Body”. Sarah, having lost 9 stone after bariatric surgery, was told she couldn’t have the operation she so desperately wanted to remove the skin, until she had lost another 2 stone and sustained it. We saw her talk passionately about how much she wanted the operation, that she wouldn’t get married until she had it, and then after successfully losing 5lbs at her slimming club, reward herself with fish and chips and fail to lose weight the following week. It’s easy for “us” to watch and see that what she is doing is completely contradictory, the problem is that she can’t see that she is simply running the same patterns of behaviour that led her to consistently overeat in the first place. When choosing a picture for this blog I Googled the word “treat”, and guess what came up? picture after picture of cakes and sweets. Even the internet thinks junk food is a treat!!
Eating lovely food can be a treat, and I am the first to say food is one of the pleasures of life and anyone who knows me will tell you I LOVE my food! but when what you eat is physically and emotionally harming you, then in no way is it a treat. It is self harming. This evening my daughter took me for a birthday meal to a fabulous restaurant in Soho where they serve amazing bowls of Pho, an amazingly tasty and nutritious noodle soup. Low fat, gluten free, packed with tasty ingredients, it was delicious, a genuine treat. Until we address the issue of emotional eating and the psychological approach to weight loss, in combination with the right nutrition and activity advice, people will continue to succeed then fail, then succeed again, then fail again. If you repeat the same pattern over and over again, you get the same result, over and over again. If you want to achieve something different you have to do something different. You have to delete old patterns and create new ones. Easy to do – but also easy not to do.
I have huge respect for bariatric surgeons who do an amazing job; but I wish the NHS would support them by providing psychological therapy to go with the surgery to ensure that as the surgeon changes their body, they are taught to change their own minds. This would I believe, drastically increase the long term success rate for patients, potentially saving the NHS a fortune. Just this week we saw on “Weight Loss Ward” examples of patients post op reverting back to their old habits. Is it just me or can anyone else see the elephant in the room?
If you would like to overcome emotional eating and learn how to use your mind to change your body, you can contact me directly janet@188.64.190.148 or come along to Champneys for one of my 2 night or 4 night weight loss retreats or you can take yourself through the programme with my unique Think More Eat Less programme which is a book with audio hypnotic downloads.