You already know that you are prone to using food to comfort yourself, and that you often eat as a way of dealing with stressful situations. This is your opportunity to track back through time, and find early, or the earliest, instance of turning to food in this way. By exploring those early triggers you can release, and resolve, your compulsions to eat, and begin to find new ways of soothing yourself that do not involve eating.
Begin by considering the current events and situations that trigger you to comfort and stress eat. Focus on the feelings you experience at these times. Really get in touch with those feelings and emotions as strongly as you can, then use them as a link to track back those familiar feelings to much earlier events.
Refer to the Timeline protocol you worked with earlier in the book (see page 62). It could help you track back your familiar feelings through the years around comfort and stress eating. The Timeline worksheet enabled you to chart periods in your life when your weight felt in balance, and other times when you experienced weight gain and felt out of balance.
Allow your mind to drift back through those broad brushstrokes of time to focus not on events, but on those feelings that are familiar. Allow memories of those times to return to you, and focus on your emotional responses to whatever was happening to you. Give yourself time to feel those familiar feelings all the way back through time when you were triggered to eat in the past. Gain an awareness of what emotions you were stuffing down with food.
As you recall your emotions around these different events, on your timeline make a note on the comfort eating worksheet (see page 108, http://your7simplesteps.com/book8) of the ones that still have an emotional heat to them. Give each one a SUD score with zero signifying no emotional heat and 10 signifying the greatest. It is very important to resolve those feelings with PSTEC and EFT.
To download the A4 printer-friendly PDF version of the ‘Comfort eating’ worksheet go to www.your7simplesteps.com and click on the Worksheets tab.
The following script is a guide to using EFT (as described at the start of the book – page 21) to end comfort eating. As we’ve said before, the actual words used are purely illustrative – the most powerful words are those you come up with yourself provided they reflect the positive and negative sequences set out here.
‘Even though I need to comfort myself with food and I’m unable to stop, I completely and fully love and accept myself.’
‘Even though food is my comfort because I feel loved and warm when I’m eating, I completely and fully love and accept myself as I am now.’
‘Even though I use food to comfort myself when I’m stressed or feeling lost, I completely and fully love and accept myself without judgement.’
Firstly, take three fairly deep and gentle breaths. Breathe in through your nose and softly out through your mouth. Don’t use any force or pressure.
| First round of tapping | |||
| EB: | ‘I need that food so I can feel comforted.’ | ||
| SE: | ‘Part of me is longing for that comfort | ||
| UE: | ‘of a full stomach.’ | ||
| N: | ‘I’m feeling so hungry, | ||
| C: | ‘so hungry for love.’ | ||
| CB: | ‘I’m drowning in stress | ||
| RIBS: | ‘and don’t know how to feel okay.’ | ||
| UA: | ‘I want to let these cares and woes slide right off me.’ | ||
| W: | ‘I need that food so I can feel some relief.’ | ||
| TH: | ‘I’m feeling scared and overwhelmed.’ | ||
Pause. Take one easy, deep breath.
‘Even though I still have this need to comfort myself with food, I completely and fully love and accept myself.’
‘Even though I’m using food to make myself feel better, even though it’s so bad for me, I completely and fully love and accept myself as I am now.’
‘Even though I’m trying to make myself feel okay by overeating, I’m willing to see that there may be better ways to deal with these emotions and I completely and fully love and accept myself without judgement.’
| Second round of tapping | |||
| EB: | ‘I’m trying to wipe all these emotions away.’ | ||
| SE: | ‘I don’t have the support I’m longing for, so I’m using food to soothe myself.’ | ||
| UE: | ‘I’m trying to create the illusion of feeling full, and complete, | ||
| N: | ‘but the truth is it’s not working very well for me.’ | ||
| C: | ‘It’s only creating more and more pain as I get fatter and fatter.’ | ||
| CB: | ‘What if I could start being more responsible and recognising that I can support myself on an empty stomach?’ | ||
| RIBS: | ‘Rather than just punishing my body with too much food, | ||
| UA: | ‘I could choose to start making some changes now, | ||
| W: | ‘even though it feels really scary.’ | ||
| TH: | ‘I can start to support myself now in positive and healthy ways.’ | ||
Pause. Take one easy, deep breath. Assess your level of needing to comfort yourself with food and rate it again from zero to 10.
‘Even though I’m still scared of letting go of this need to comfort myself with food, I completely and fully love and accept myself.’
‘Even though I am unsure if I can make the changes needed to move forward and be more responsible, I completely and fully love and accept myself as I am now.’
‘I want to release this habit of comforting myself with food and stop this self-sabotage, so I’m now starting to find healthy and positive ways of rewarding and comforting myself.’
| Third round of tapping | |||
| EB: | ‘I now choose to forgive myself for all the damage I’ve done to my body.’ | ||
| SE: | ‘I’m choosing to find healthy and rewarding ways of soothing myself.’ | ||
| UE: | ‘I’m releasing this old, damaging need to comfort myself with food.’ | ||
| N: | ‘I was doing the best I could with the resources I had, | ||
| C: | ‘but I can see now there are better ways of taking care of myself.’ | ||
| CB: | ‘I now know how to treat my body with love and kindness.’ | ||
| RIBS: | ‘I’m so much stronger and more capable than I ever allowed myself to believe.’ | ||
| UA: | ‘I love this feeling of strength and joy, | ||
| W: | ‘as I release all the old hurts and resentments from every cell of my body.’ | ||
| TH: | ‘I’m feeling so powerful as I make these wonderful changes.’ | ||
Pause. Take one easy, deep breath.
Assess your level of need to comfort yourself with food and rate it from zero to 10.
Repeat the first tapping round if required to further reduce your SUD rating.
If possible, before you begin working with EFT on your cravings, it is helpful to have some of your chosen craving food to hand. Choose the one that you really love best of all. If you are finding it hard to choose, then form a mental image of your favourite craving foods and score each one individually. Work with the food with the highest desirability score.
‘Even though I need this food [name it specifically here], I completely and fully love and accept myself.’
‘Even though I’m craving this food, I completely and fully love and accept myself as I am now and I accept these feelings.’
‘Even though I really want this food, I completely and fully love and accept myself without judgement.’
Then take three fairly deep and gentle breaths. Breathe in through your nose and softly out through your mouth. Do not use any force or pressure.
Now focus for a moment on your breathing and assess the level of your craving again. The number may have increased, decreased or stayed the same.
| First round of tapping | ||
| EB: | ‘I really want it.’ | |
| SE: | ‘I have to have this food right now.’ | |
| UE: | ‘It tastes so good.’ | |
| N: | ‘This intense craving – | |
| C: | ‘it feels overwhelming in my body.’ | |
| CB: | ‘My head is full of this craving.’ | |
| RIBS: | ‘I have to have it now.’ | |
| UA: | ‘I can’t think of anything else.’ | |
| W: | ‘This craving – | |
| TH: | ‘I have to have this food right now.’ | |
Pause. Take one easy, deep breath.
‘Even though a part of me still wants this [name it specifically here], I completely and fully love and accept myself.’
‘Even though there’s a part of me that still wants [name it specifically here], there’s another part of me, a bigger part of me, that is ready to let it go, and I completely and fully love and accept myself as I am now.’
‘Even though I still want this [name it specifically here], I am now starting to choose health and wellbeing and I completely and fully love and accept myself without judgement.’
| Second round of tapping | |||
| EB: | ‘This remaining craving, | ||
| SE: | ‘I just want to let it go.’ | ||
| UE: | ‘I want better health.’ | ||
| N: | ‘Oh no, I don’t!’ | ||
| C: | ‘Oh yes, I do!’ | ||
| CB: | ‘I want to be healthier so I’m starting to let go of this craving.’ | ||
| RIBS: | ‘This remaining craving – | ||
| UA: | ‘I’m feeling calmer now.’ | ||
| W: | ‘I’m feeling a little more in control.’ | ||
| TH: | ‘I’m releasing this remaining craving.’ | ||
Pause. Take one easy, deep breath.
Assess your level of craving and rate it again from zero to 10.
‘Even though I’m still craving this [name it here specifically], I completely and fully love and accept myself.’
‘Even though I still have a little remaining craving, I completely and fully love and accept myself as I am now and I love and accept these feelings.’
‘Even though I have a little craving still remaining, I choose to let it go effortlessly and easily.’
| Third round of tapping | ||
| EB: | ‘This remaining craving – | |
| SE: | ‘I choose to let it go easily and effortlessly.’ | |
| UE: | ‘I’m feeling calmer now.’ | |
| N: | ‘I’m feeling centred now.’ | |
| C: | ‘I’m feeling in control of this food.’ | |
| CB: | ‘I’m feeling more peaceful and in control.’ | |
| RIBS: | ‘I can say yes, or I can say no, to this food.’ | |
| UA: | ‘I’m choosing now to say no to this food.’ | |
| W: | ‘I’m breathing out this remaining craving.’ | |
| TH: | ‘I’m letting go of it easily and effortlessly.’ | |
Pause. Take one easy, deep breath.
Assess your level of craving and rate it from zero to 10. Repeat the first tapping round if required to further reduce your SUD rating.
If you are finding it challenging to reduce your desire for this food completely down to zero, go to the EFT 9 Gamut point instructions (see page 34) and focus again on your food craving to help fully resolve this work.
To view a video sequence using EFT to release and resolve a popular food craving, go to www.your7simplesteps.com and click on the video sequences tab.
The click tracks are wonderfully successful in reducing and collapsing cravings.
Working with them removes the emotional pull that cravings can exert over you, leaving you feeling peaceful whenever you think about that particular food item (rather than your wanting to inhale an entire block of chocolate or packet of biscuits, for example, each time you see or think about it).
If possible, before you begin working with the click tracks on your cravings, it is can be helpful to purchase some of your craving food – the one that you really love best of all.
So, you’ve done a round of the click track. Now, on a scale from zero to 10, how high is your craving for the food? Zero is no desire at all and 10 is the highest possible craving. Has the number come down? Is it the same?
If it’s the same, just run the track through again. It should start coming down in intensity with the second round. Do ensure that you don’t switch to another food or drink at any time when running the click track – just stay focused on the item you began with. This process works best when you just concentrate on one food or drink at a time.
If your craving has reduced, then make a note of your new number. Run the audio track again and continue to do this until you have reached a zero.
Now open or unwrap the food you were focusing on. Hold it… smell it… what happens to your level of craving now? You may find you have no desire whatsoever. If this is the case, then go ahead and have a small taste. What’s that like? Does your craving go back up again or is it still at zero? If it’s still at zero then you’re done!
If your craving level has increased, then run the click track again, this time concentrating on the taste aspect. Continue until you get your craving down to a zero.
Not all families are happy families and not all families are emotionally healthy. Growing up as a child in a dysfunctional household can be a fraught and stressful experience, a veritable minefield to tiptoe through on a daily basis. Parents who struggle to cope; have money worries, mental health issues, drug and alcohol dependency, and crushing unhappiness, can make the landscape of childhood seem harsh and brutal.
Mealtimes will often be the arena where all the deficiencies and pressures on the household come into sharp relief. Do you have unhappy childhood memories about mealtimes in your household? Were mealtimes chaotic? Do you have memories of food being scarce, of there not being enough of it to go around so that you were left hungry? Did you witness arguments at mealtimes? Were they times of open hostility or oppressive stress?
If you have unhappy memories particularly associated with mealtimes, then write them down in your notebook. Give each one a SUD rating. Always begin working on the memory with the highest intensity, and clear it using the free PSTEC click tracks (see page 186). Use the SUD rating to check back, and when you are certain that the memory no longer has any emotional intensity, then focus on the next memory on your list. Work through your mealtime memories clearing the emotional intensity of each one with the free PSTEC click tracks.
If eating large portion sizes is a problem for you, then you can use the click track to deal with this.
After running the click track through, on a scale from zero to 10, how high is your need to eat all of this food? Zero is no desire at all and 10 is the highest possible need to finish your plate. Has the number come down? Is it the same? People often find that the image of a large plate of food starts to shrink down in size and, in some cases, even disappears.
If your number remains the same just run the track through again. The desire should start coming down in intensity with the second round of the click track.
If your desire for the large portion of food has reduced, then make a note of your new number. Run the track again and continue to do this until you have reached a point where you can’t imagine eating that much food in one sitting.
When you are working with the free PSTEC click tracks to reduce your portion sizes, you may become aware that there is a part of you that is reluctant to stop eating before your plate is completely clean. This is simply another aspect of the same issue. You may need to resolve and release early parental rules on leaving food on your plate before you can successfully reduce your portion sizes. Full guidance on how to achieve this is outlined next.
Many of us can recall growing up at a time when wasting food was seen as an almost criminal act. Or perhaps we were raised by adults who had grown up themselves experiencing great economic hardship. Those parents who grew up experiencing food scarcity themselves often sent a clear message to their offspring that wasting food was unacceptable.
If you have a belief system that says you must eat everything on your plate and that you will not allow yourself to scrape leftovers into the kitchen bin, then that waste will surely end up on your waist. If you feel compelled to clear your plate, you will never reach your healthy target weight.
If possible, use the leftovers for another meal, but if that’s not an option you can use the click track to clear the uncomfortable emotions around your reluctance to dispose of excess food.
Some people are confused and amazed about their excess weight as they are barely aware of how often they eat, or even what they eat. Increasingly, people eat as a secondary activity while walking, driving, watching television or surfing the net, so that their food consumption barely registers with them.
It has been proven that keeping a food diary can be a useful tool to help encourage a greater awareness, and even an enhanced sense of accountability. For some people, knowing they have decided to log everything they eat makes them less likely to binge or make poor food choices.
A food diary can be even more illuminating when it makes the connection between your hunger levels, and when you actually eat. Using a zero to 10 scale, where zero is not hungry at all and 10 is ravenously hungry, you will soon be able to see a pattern in your eating. You may be surprised that you are accustomed to grazing on food most of the day, and only ever reach low levels of hunger. For some people even a slight feeling of hunger can trigger strong emotions so they eat often, with only small gaps between meals.
See below to download the Food and mood diary template and start keeping a food diary; then play detective with the evidence you compile. What are you missing or what would you rather have in your life that could be triggering you to eat?
Alternatively, you may see from your food diary that long stretches of time go by when you do not eat at all, so that by the time you do you are ravenous and feel completely out of control around food, leading to overeating or making poor food choices.
Here are some examples of trigger times from other clients. There is space on the next page to note down your own patterns of emotional eating.
As you complete the next page, sit quietly. Tap with a soft fist on your collarbone and tune in to your inner detective. What would your patterns of eating be telling you if you were to listen?
To download the A4 printer-friendly PDF of the ‘Food and mood diary’ go to www.your7simplesteps.com and click on the Worksheets tab.
To download the A4 printer-friendly ‘Secrets Revealed’ worksheet go to www.your7simplesteps.com and click on the Worksheets tab.
As we highlighted in the previous section, ‘Your eating secrets revealed’, some people are eating a large percentage of their food intake while engaged in other activities so that what they eat barely registers with them at all. Eating mindfully is the exact opposite of the zoned-out eating or eating on the run that are now so popular. Fifty years ago it would have been a rare sight to see anyone eating anything except when seated at a table. The modern widespread habit of walking along the pavement eating fried chicken from a cardboard box would simply never have happened, and the whole takeaway food culture was then in its infancy. In many ways we were a fitter, leaner people when eating took place in a more formal setting.
Just a couple of generations back, food was cooked from scratch with fresh ingredients and served at a table in the family’s dining room or kitchen. If you think it is progress that you need never cook food for yourself, and just ping something in the microwave, we would like you to reconsider your view.
However, for now we want you to understand that whatever your food choices, it is important both physiologically and psychologically to be more aware of when you eat. When you prepare food and cook it, all your senses are engaged, and they send messages to your brain that food is on its way. The brain in turn sends messages to your digestive system to stimulate production of enzymes necessary for optimum digestion.
The body also responds well when it regularly goes through times of eating, and times of not eating – in other words, regular mealtimes as opposed to constant grazing throughout the day. With regular meals two or three times a day, you learn how your body feels when it is hungry, and how your body feels when it is replete. Clients who constantly graze on food tell us that they are confused about when they are hungry and find it difficult to tell when they are full so they just eat all day long.
We recommend you apply some of the key principles of mindful eating to your own meals:
If you usually eat lunch at your desk, make it a rule to eat somewhere else in your workplace instead, or better still, take a break away from the office or factory to be in the open air if possible. We understand the pressure of ‘presentism’ in the modern workplace, so even if leaving your desk for an hour would be radically against your workplace’s culture, then just a 20-minute break away would be a positive improvement to your wellbeing and your day. If you do have to stay at your desk or work station to eat your lunch, turn off any screens or dim down their brightness to minimise distractions.
If you usually eat your meals at home on your lap while sitting on the sofa watching television, try eating at a table instead. If that’s not possible, at least for the duration of your meal turn off the distraction of the television and focus on what you are eating. Mindless eating while watching TV or surfing the net makes it easy for you not to recognise the messages your stomach sends to your brain to tell you when you are full, making it all too easy to overeat.
You may live with other family members where everyone is used to collecting their food from the kitchen at different times, and even eating it alone in their rooms. Instigate the eating of one meal a day, or even one meal a week, when all the family comes together to share the experience of eating together. If the family mealtimes of your childhood were stressful, you could break that pattern with your own family. Mealtimes can be an opportunity to share news and catch up with each other over good, simple food.
Eating quickly is also at odds with optimum health and the principles of mindful eating. Try to chew each mouthful until the food is properly broken down before swallowing. Many people under-chew their food, swallowing pieces that are impossible to digest properly. Even if you are eating nutritionally-rich food, your body’s digestive system would struggle, and probably fail, to extract the full nutrient content from large chunks of food.
A good habit to adopt while you consciously slow down your eating is to follow the mantra of ‘mouth full, hands empty’. This means putting your cutlery down between mouthfuls and only picking it up again when you have chewed and swallowed the previous mouthful. This will make eating a meal a much slower experience, and you will find you will almost definitely be content to eat less than you would usually.
A common, mindless sort of eating is eating leftovers from your children’s plates as you clear away. Implement a rule to scrape all waste food into the bin. If you are hungry, then you need to eat a proper meal, preferably your own proper meal. If you have issues around wasting food, and it feels challenging for you to throw food away, then refer to the previous section in the book on PSTEC and leaving food on your plate (page 118) for guidance on how to clear that particular block.
Finally, whatever you eat, serve it wherever possible on a plate while you are seated at a table. Focus on the act of giving your body nutrition. Give your body the best nutrition you are able to provide for yourself. Work on achieving this, one meal at a time. Look at your food; breathe in deeply its fragrance; take a moment to acknowledge that you are giving this nutrition to yourself with love; acknowledge that you deserve the best you can provide.
As told to the authors and included here with Emma’s permission.
‘When I started therapy I reckon I wanted to lose around two and a half stone (35 lb/16 kg), which isn’t a lot when you think of how much some people want to lose, but it was the heaviest I’d been for a long time and I felt miserable, overwhelmed and tired of it all. I’d always been slim, skinny even as a child and teenager. I’d put on my weight in my 20s, carrying more with each of my three children. Somehow I always managed to claw myself back, but not quite to my former slim self.
‘Over 20 years ago, when our children were small and I was coming up to my 30th birthday, my husband had an affair with someone at work.
Out of sheer bloody-mindedness, and revenge I guess, I got down to nine and a half stone (133 lb/60 kg) in under four months. It was an ego boost while it lasted, but basically my heart was broken. I had all this anger around his betrayal that I didn’t know what to do with, so in the end, I just ate and ate.
’When I started therapy I was approaching my 50th birthday. I felt middle-aged and over the hill. I was also still full of anger. Fury just consumed me. It was like a big fist in my stomach and it felt like it had been there for years. The only way I knew how to calm myself down was to eat.
‘My husband and I didn’t split up over his affair. In fact, we hardly ever spoke about it. Twenty years later, when I first talked about him in my therapy sessions, I called him every swear word I could think of. Even our grown-up children knew I thought of him with total disdain and whenever I had the opportunity to put him down, or make him feel small, then I would. I was remorseless. When it had come to the crunch, he had chosen to stay with me and I was committed to being with him, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t beyond exacting my revenge for what he’d done by taking out all my fury and anger on him.
‘When I was asked if I wanted to split up with him, I was taken aback. I began to slowly acknowledge the truth to myself about how I loved the very bones of the man and how much sadness I carried in my heart that our relationship had turned out the way it had. My anger just covered all the pain I was in and the way I coped with it was to use the ways I had learnt growing up. I was raised in the kind of family where my Dad, and even my Granddad, were casually cruel to me, my brothers and my sister. I learnt very early on not to show any weakness. If I was hurting and they could see it, I’d just get more of the same. I also learnt very early on not to speak out because as far as they were concerned I didn’t matter, or they would just use it as another opportunity to slap me down.
‘Over time, I developed this impenetrable shell. I was as loving as anything to my own kids, but if I was crossed by a friend or a neighbour, then this hard front came down and they would be as good as dead to me. In therapy I came to see that these were strategies I’d developed to get me through my life. They sort of worked, but I paid a high price as it never felt safe for me to show my vulnerability, so everyone thought I was as hard as nails. All of my vulnerable feelings had to be swallowed down and that’s what I did with food.
‘As I worked in my therapy sessions, I learned to get in touch with and express the emotions I’d never felt safe to express before, and with that my eating came into balance. I started to lose weight and steadily got my weight down. With my husband it began to feel right to me that I showed him how much I loved him. I simply didn’t need to punish him any more and the changes in our relationship have been remarkable and enduring. Glen is absolutely at the centre of my life.
‘My weight loss hasn’t been without its hiccups. In the last few years I’ve had some huge challenges to face that have thrown me back into some of my old behaviours and habits. My much loved sister-in-law has an inoperable brain tumour. We all watch pretty helplessly as she edges closer to her passing, which is hard to bear, especially for my brother and our extended family. My Dad survived my Mum by several years, and the last four years have been exceptionally difficult as my sister and I cared for him at his home while he fought cancer. To the end, not once did he miss an opportunity to undermine me, say something critical, or set my sister and me at odds with each other. He remained manipulative and unkind to his dying day. That makes me sad as I so wished it could have turned out differently. I think the little girl in me was really hoping right up to the end for an acknowledgement, a kind word, a gesture of love, but he just wasn’t able to give that to me.
‘These big life events certainly threw my eating into chaos for a while. In the past I would have responded with a downward spiral of binge eating that could have led to possibly months, or even years, of weight gain. Nowadays I recognise my old patterns and can interrupt them. It doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes feel overwhelmed with everything and sorry for myself, but I also understand that while my Dad couldn’t love me, that was his loss. It was never about me. He was damaged. I understand now though that I can love me. That little girl inside of me is safe with me, and I’m never going to let her down.
‘Key to me and Glen sorting out our marriage was me learning that Glen was not the same as my Dad. When the betrayal happened I was triggered into old responses I’d learnt from my Dad. The emotional bullying, the lack of tenderness, were just learnt habits that I used to hide behind. As I got more in touch with my real feelings the more I was able to share them with him again. He made a mistake, we both know that, and he chose to stay with me so what was the point in letting it eat me up, or even fatten me up, to ruin our chance of a happy life together? My opening up to him has been the most wonderful happening in my life and we are closer than ever.
‘I’ve figured out other stuff too that used to make me feel dreadful about myself and would trigger me to emotionally overeat. Glen has times when he needs to withdraw a bit. Sort of man-cave stuff. Maybe it’s work or something else he’s trying to get his head around, but I realise now that it’s not a judgement about me. It’s his stuff and I can let him be and I’m still fine. It’s a huge relief. Also, I used to really resent that I was the family’s social secretary, holiday co-ordinator, forward planner and generally the one the buck stopped with. I used to want him to be different, to step up. The truth is, it’s not his way and I’m good at it. I’ve found peace with who he is, and who I am. When I think back to how our marriage was, it is like someone else’s life and I’m so glad it’s not mine.
‘A while back I did lose over 23 pounds (10.5 kg) and I felt and looked amazing. I’ve put a bit of that back on in the last year just because life got in my way, but I know exactly what to do to let those extra pounds go and they really can go now. If I catch myself soothing myself with food I can say to Glen, “Can I have a hug?”, and he’s always happy to oblige. My life is better than I thought – better than I dared hope for.’