After I wrote this I realized how long it was, sorry!
I actually learned this a while back and used it in other areas of my life, and never really thought about it applying to weight loss. But when I started losing weight a little over a year ago, it turned out it helped a lot.
Through practice, this helped me change a lot of my bad eating habits, maybe it will work for you too.
If you think about it, human beings do pretty much everything, or avoid doing anything, based on pain or pleasure. We either do not do things because they will give us pain or we will do things because they give us pleasure. Usually, pain is the ruler - we will do things way more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure.
I started really thinking about this in my life to overcome procrastination. For example, I would procrastinate doing something at work, because the boredom of doing it (the pain) far outweighed the pleasure I would get (the satisfaction of getting it done), so I put it off to "avoid the pain."
As a deadline approached, I would hurry and finish the work because the pain (not meeting the deadline, getting reprimanded, etc.) far outweighed the previous pain of the boredom in doing it.
To overcome this procrastination, I switched what I associated pain and pleasure to. I linked extreme pain to the procrastination, and pleasure to getting it done early. It took A LOT of practice, but eventually I overcame my procrastination.
So, how does this apply to weight loss?
Well, you can apply the same principles.
For example, what are some bad habits you have when it comes to eating and your weight? For me, it was overeating - I would literally stuff myself at meals. I first figured out that I was doing this to relieve stress. Food was a stress reliever to me. At the end of the day I really looked forward to dinner and having 3-4 servings. It was my "reward" for such a tough day at the office.
Well, what I did was write down all of the negative things I didn't like about the overeating. For me, it made me uncomfortably bloated, I felt fat, I couldn't breathe, my clothes felt tight, I felt like a slob, I felt embarrassed for eating so much, I was tired, and I felt really guilty because I knew I would not lose weight this way. I also identified some way to relieve my stress other than through food.
Over the ensuing weeks I constantly thought about the pain I got from overeating. I envisioned the pain, and how yucky I felt when I overate. Over time, I built up so much pain association to overeating that I begain to not eat as much at dinner (and other meals) because that pain was constantly on my mind. I DID NOT want to have that pain.
As time went on, I slowly stopped overeating as I had this new, empowering vision of myself and who I wanted to be. The pain (or at least the "perceived" pain in my mind) helped me to stop overeating.
It takes practice and some getting used to, but harnassing this power of pain made a huge difference for me.
Hopefully it can help you as well.
I actually learned this a while back and used it in other areas of my life, and never really thought about it applying to weight loss. But when I started losing weight a little over a year ago, it turned out it helped a lot.
Through practice, this helped me change a lot of my bad eating habits, maybe it will work for you too.
If you think about it, human beings do pretty much everything, or avoid doing anything, based on pain or pleasure. We either do not do things because they will give us pain or we will do things because they give us pleasure. Usually, pain is the ruler - we will do things way more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure.
I started really thinking about this in my life to overcome procrastination. For example, I would procrastinate doing something at work, because the boredom of doing it (the pain) far outweighed the pleasure I would get (the satisfaction of getting it done), so I put it off to "avoid the pain."
As a deadline approached, I would hurry and finish the work because the pain (not meeting the deadline, getting reprimanded, etc.) far outweighed the previous pain of the boredom in doing it.
To overcome this procrastination, I switched what I associated pain and pleasure to. I linked extreme pain to the procrastination, and pleasure to getting it done early. It took A LOT of practice, but eventually I overcame my procrastination.
So, how does this apply to weight loss?
Well, you can apply the same principles.
For example, what are some bad habits you have when it comes to eating and your weight? For me, it was overeating - I would literally stuff myself at meals. I first figured out that I was doing this to relieve stress. Food was a stress reliever to me. At the end of the day I really looked forward to dinner and having 3-4 servings. It was my "reward" for such a tough day at the office.
Well, what I did was write down all of the negative things I didn't like about the overeating. For me, it made me uncomfortably bloated, I felt fat, I couldn't breathe, my clothes felt tight, I felt like a slob, I felt embarrassed for eating so much, I was tired, and I felt really guilty because I knew I would not lose weight this way. I also identified some way to relieve my stress other than through food.
Over the ensuing weeks I constantly thought about the pain I got from overeating. I envisioned the pain, and how yucky I felt when I overate. Over time, I built up so much pain association to overeating that I begain to not eat as much at dinner (and other meals) because that pain was constantly on my mind. I DID NOT want to have that pain.
As time went on, I slowly stopped overeating as I had this new, empowering vision of myself and who I wanted to be. The pain (or at least the "perceived" pain in my mind) helped me to stop overeating.
It takes practice and some getting used to, but harnassing this power of pain made a huge difference for me.
Hopefully it can help you as well.
