Changing the look and shape of your body requires a holistic approach. This means the change has to come both with your physiology and psychology especially if you struggle with emotional or stressful eating.
Physiology simply means getting your calories under control, making more sensible food and eating decisions as well as sticking to a regular exercise program that is well designed to move you towards your health and fitness goals whatever they may be.
Dr Nicola Bird Founder of Self Imaging Therapy
You can even think of the physiology part as the things that are obviously outwardly such as going to the gym, choosing smaller portion sizes, and ensuring that your diet is based more on whole foods that satisfy your needs without over consuming calories from dense sources.
The physiology is what you read about in fitness magazines, and it’s the information that gets cluttered, contradicted, and over consumed. This is because the physiology for many people isn’t the problem. For some people it’s the psychology.
Getting a handle on the psychological aspects of weight control is an entirely different matter and it’s not so obvious what is happening in your mind and with your emotions. Taking control of your psychology and learning to reprogram yourself for weight loss success requires just as much work as the physiology, but this is a different kind of work.
If you think you have an emotional or psychological issue with eating and weight control the first step is getting to the root of the issue. This is hard and in many cases uncomfortable work, and the answer isn’t always obvious. In many cases you’ll be the last person to know what the real issue is until you start doing the work to find out.
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These are usually deep rooted issues that touch on your sense of identity and self worth. It will involve undoing old psychological patterns and laying down new ones, and it requires repetition to make it stick, just like working out.
To truly change your body for good, you must change both your physiology AND your psychology. Changing one without the other isn’t enough.
In today’s podcast, I interview Dr. Nicola Bird about changing your psychology to help overcoming emotional and stress related eating to make a real lasting change in your body. She is my psychotherapist and the ace up my sleeve that helps me stay balanced and keeps me moving forward.
We’ll discuss the root of the identity crisis that many people face when they do finally make a change in their body. We will also talk about why so many people self sabotage and become their own worst enemy when they try to change their bodies.
This is a great interview and I suggest you take notes if emotional or stress eating is an issue you’ve been struggling with.
Finally if you like what you hear from Nicola you can visit her website here and even book a session to start working through your own issues with her over the phone. I highly recommend it if you feel stuck or hitting a sabotage point that you cannot overcome. I find that her methods are the most effective way to start getting your psychology inline with your physiology for a lasting change.
John
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