Tackling the issue of weight almost always boils down to how to stop overeating. Anyone who has ever tried to lose weight knows that when it comes to changing eating habits and fighting cravings, having a plan and being able to stick with it are two very different things.
Busy women can be especially challenged by overeating. Time is always an issue. Multiple responsibilities, stress, and often exhaustion, can all be powerful triggers for overeating. Many smart women know that what they are doing isn’t working. They end up frustrated with themselves and their situation but aren’t sure what else to do or when they are supposed to do whatever it is that will get them unstuck and on track.
If you are trying to figure out how you can move forward, stop overeating, and create changes that will last, I suggest reviewing the following checklist of ingredients I believe are essential to making peace with food and putting an end to overeating. Identify what you have already put into place and set the goal of addressing any gaps or weaknesses in your recipe for success.
The essential ingredients busy women need to stop overeating and make peace with food:
- Know your why. You eat for a reason. Always. If your reason isn’t your body’s need for food or fuel, there is something else driving or triggering your overeating. Knowing what this is is critical because you can’t address something if you don’t know it exists. Getting clear on your emotional eating triggers, the situations, circumstances, and even relationships that contribute to your overeating is an important first step to creating success.
- Crack your unique code. If you don’t respect who you are, you aren’t likely to develop a plan that respects you either. A plan for long term success needs to honor the truth about you, your preferences, the realities of your schedule, your relationships, and your life. Setting yourself up for long term failure by ignoring what you know about who you are is not what you want to do. Learn to prioritize yourself and your needs and include this any plan you develop.
- Get the tools, and expertise to stop overeating effectively. Knowing that you struggle with emotional eating or that you eat to procrastinate or that you binge at night is very different from knowing what to do about it. If you are busy and time crunched you probably don’t feel like you have the time (and who does?) to experiment with lots of things that might not work. Do yourself the respectful favor of seeking out skilled help, emotional eating tools, and strategies that address your triggers and your unique situation.
- Plan for long term success. Peace with food should feel peaceful. That means you don’t want to set yourself up by doing everything the hard way. Consider your unique strengths and the things that come easily for you. Ask yourself how you can leverage these talents as you move forward to stop overeating and emotional eating.
It is both possible and extremely rewarding to break free from vicious cycles with overeating and food. Just make sure you start out with a recipe that sets you up for success.
Take good care,
