Lefkoe Belief Process – Lefkoe Eating Report

She was gaining weight again

A week or so ago I called a woman who had been a client of mine several months earlier about her emotional eating problem. She had used the Lefkoe De-conditioning Process to get rid of all the triggers we could find and the Lefkoe Belief Process to eliminate all the relevant beliefs. For several months after our last session she had been eating normally and healthily and had been losing weight.

But instead of hearing that the weight had continued to fall away, she told me during my follow-up call that she had gained back all the weight she had lost and was eating badly again. I asked her why she hadn’t called me and asked for help. She said she didn’t know why she hadn’t called

In a situation like this, there are two possible explanations: First, what we had done hadn’t worked. Second, it had worked and there was some other explanation. I decided to check out the second possibility first.

I asked her to tell me everything about her life for the past few months. She told me that she had had knee surgery last December and had been unable to walk, much less exercise for over two months. That could partially account for the increase in weight, but it wouldn’t account for overeating and unhealthy eating. For example, she had totally stopped drinking Pepsi for several months but had gone back to several bottles a day. She was eating pizza for dinner frequently.

Almost in passing she mentioned that after she realized that she would be unable to exercise—which meant to her that the constant weight loss she had been experiencing probably would stop—she had the thought: What’s the use. I’ll never lose weight no matter how hard I try.

That was a new belief that partially explained the re-emergence of her eating problem. So she eliminated that belief. During the session she found and eliminated another, older, belief that had contributed to the problem: Even if I lose weight, no one will ever be interested in me, so why bother.

When we talked the following week she told me that she was not consciously doing anything different, but she was drinking far less Pepsi and had stopped her overeating. She noticed that she would unconsciously go to the pantry, look in, then realize that she wasn’t hungry, and close the door and walk away.

In a second session a week later she told me why she had not been eating healthily during the prior couple of months. Because she was unable to shop and cook for herself because of the foot surgery, she ate whatever her children brought home—usually pizza—and wouldn’t ask them to buy her something healthier and less fattening.

The beliefs she identified and eliminated that caused this behavior included: I can’t count on other people. I’m not worthy. I have to do it on my own. These beliefs explained by why hadn’t asked her children or friends to buy the food that she normally purchased for herself.

A few days later I received the following note from her:

“I just want to thank you again. It is awesome to experience hunger! Before, I was eating all the time and never got hungry. I’m so happy. I feel in control of myself again. I thought if I called you, I was a failure, but now I see how we can still take on bad beliefs that we need to get rid of. I won’t wait next time. Thank you again. I appreciate you so much!”

So although her “relapse” could have meant that the de-conditioning and the belief eliminating hadn’t worked to stop her emotional eating problem, on further investigation we discovered that what we had done previously had worked—and there was a little more that needed to be done.

Don’t ever give up hope. It is possible to totally stop your emotional eating problem.

For more details, please see my eBook, The Secret to Ending Overeating For Good, at http://emotionaleatingreport.com. You also can get answers to specific questions at my office, 415-884-0552.

Why Do You Keep Eating After You’re Full?

In order to understand why people with an emotional eating problem keep eating after they are full, you have to understand what eating means to them.

Emotional eaters don’t want to face unpleasantness in their lives. They don’t want to feel any negative feelings. So they eat to get a pleasurable distraction from the feelings, to numb themselves, or to go unconscious when negative feelings show up in their lives. (I call these negative feelings “triggers,” because they “trigger” eating as an automatic response.)

How long are you able to escape the negative feelings? Usually only for as long as you are eating! So if you are having feelings you want to escape from, how long would you want to eat? … For as long as you possibly can, because the feelings will be suppressed only while you are eating and will re-surface as soon as you stop eating.

So you will start eating whether you are hungry or not in response to your triggers. And you will keep eating long past the point of being hungry whenever the triggers are present. Most emotional eaters have at least 15 different triggers, so at least one is present almost all the time.(As I point out in my free eBook, How To Stop Emotional Eating For Good, http://emotionaleatingreport.com/, triggers are the main source of emotional eating, but beliefs usually are involved also for most people. And the beliefs are affecting you all the time.)

When you de-condition eating as the conditioned response to the triggers, you will no longer automatically want to eat when a trigger appears in your life. At that point you can choose other things to distract you from the negative feelings; you can find alternative ways to cope with the triggers.

But there is a better way to handle the negative feelings.

Instead of looking for a healthier way to suppress your negative feelings, why not just allow them to be? True, they don’t feel good, but what if you just allowed yourself to feel bored, lonely, stressed, anxious, etc. when those feelings arose? What if you faced your feelings instead of looking for some way to avoid them?

Here is a suggestion on how to do it.

After you eliminate a belief using the Lefkoe Belief Process (if you haven’t already done so, go to http://recreateyourlife.com/free where you can eliminate some of the most common beliefs free), you go into an altered state of consciousness where you have the profound experience that you are the creator of your life. You no longer experience yourself as the sum total of your beliefs; you experience yourself as the creator of the beliefs, as consciousness.

In that state it is clear you have feelings, but you are not your feelings. You have thoughts, but you are not your thoughts.

When you are in that state it is easy to make a distinction between your “self” and your “SELF.” After you’ve made that distinction you are able to observe your feelings (which still feel very real) without being at the effect of them, without being run by them.

When I use this method when I am having an upset, I imagine myself outside my body, looking at Morty, and saying to him: “Morty, you are really upset. I wonder what you believe that is causing this upset.” The mere act of talking to myself in this way enables me to distinguish between who I really am and the “Morty” who is having the feelings. And doing that significantly minimizes the impact of the feelings.

Whatever technique you use, once you have de-conditioned eating so it is no longer an automatic, unconscious response to your triggers, see if you can allow yourself to experience your feelings. They might not feel good. But you will survive them, I promise. And facing them is the first step to getting rid of them permanently.

For more details, please see my eBook, The Secret to Ending Overeating For Good, at http://emotionaleatingreport.com. You also can get answers to specific questions at my office, 415-884-0552.

How Our Parents Can Unwittingly Cause Emotional Eating Problems

Most overeating is the result of emotional eating. And a significant cause of all emotional eating is conditioning. In other words, eating becomes a conditioned response to a number of triggers, such as loneliness, anxiety, depression, and feeling unlovable. When those triggers appear in your life, you are conditioned to want to eat.

In addition, however, another important cause of overeating is beliefs, most of which were formed in childhood as a result of interactions with parents.

Here are just a few of the common things parents say and do that lead to beliefs that, in turn, lead to emotional eating.

“Finish everything on your plate (whether you are hungry or not).”

“It’s time to eat (whether you are hungry or not).”

“Don’t eat that or you’ll gain weight.”

“Good” foods and ”bad” foods.

“If you gain weight you won’t have any friends.”

“Shoulds” and “shouldn’ts” around food and eating.

Parents who are often on diets or who have an eating problem.

Which of these situations were present in your household?

Here are just a few of the possible beliefs that can result from this type of parental behavior and comment.

If I don’t control my eating I’ll put on weight.

The way to stay thin is to control my food and exercise a lot.
If I’m heavy I’ll be rejected.
I can’t trust my body (to tell me when to eat or stop eating).
I can’t trust myself to know how much to eat and when to eat.
The only way to know what and when to eat is to keep things the same.
If I look fat I’ll be rejected.
If I gain a few pounds it means I’m out of control.
My body is revolting. (One woman with this belief is 5’9” and weighs 110 pounds)
I need to exercise to deserve food.
I’m not deserving.
I have to be deserving to eat.
I’m a fake.
Sense of self: big, chunky, uncoordinated.

If I can’t eat “bad” foods, I’m missing out.

Bad” foods make you fat.

To lose weight you can’t eat anything “bad.”

The way to keep food from running my life (like it did my mom’s) is to eat whatever I want to eat.

If I don’t eat when there’s food around there won’t be any later.

The way to be in control is to eat what I want, when I want.

The way to keep from being hungry is to have a lot of food in the house.

Which of these beliefs did you form?

It is possible to permanently stop emotional eating by de-conditioning eating as the response to triggers and the desire for certain rewards, and by eliminating all the relevant beliefs.

For more details, please see my eBook, The Secret to Ending Your Overeating For Good, at http://emotionaleatingreport.com.