How to Stop Overeating, Overcoming Overeating

A Shrink Yourself Success Story

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2009 | POSTED BY MICHELLE

Are you wondering if Shrink Yourself can help you? When it comes to weight loss, we can be so afraid of trying a new approach because we don't want another failure under our belts. See how one Shrink Yourself member used the program to get past her weight loss plateau.
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What Can a Year of Shrink Yourself Do For You?

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 05, 2009 | POSTED BY MICHELLE

In my posts I often talk about emotional eating from various angles and how it affects various aspects of our lives. I try to explain how the Shrink Yourself program impacts emotional eating as both a professional and as a fellow recovering emotional eater. However, the best way for you to understand some of these things is to listen to the words of one of our members who has been using the principles of our program for a year. Her post gave me great hope that emotional eaters can recover their power, lose weight and live more fulfilling lives. I hope her words will give you the same sense of inspiration I experienced.

I started SY in early August of 2008�so I've now had about a year.

Am I an emotional eater? Or am I a healthy eater? Sometimes I can be either, but I do want to recount the progress I've made in recovery after about a year of Shrink Yourself:
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Become the Master of Your Emotions in Three Easy Steps

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2009 | POSTED BY MICHELLE

One of the reasons that feelings can be so uncomfortable is because you don't know how long they're going to last for. This element of the unknown can make them unbearable. But there are ways to become the master of your feelings rather than your feelings' slave:
>>Read more.

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Oprah Interview

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2007 | POSTED BY MICHELLE

In an interview Oprah once said that when they say, "God only gives you what you can handle, they're not just talking about suffering, they're talking about the good stuff, too."

Are you ready to be a success? Do you think you're worth it? Are you ready to be thin? To reveal your whole self to the world without the safety that extra weight provides?

This may sound like an easy question but you'd be surprised how many people tell us just how terrified of success they are.

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The Sum of What Our Program Does

FRIDAY, AUGUST 03, 2007 | POSTED BY MICHELLE

One of our online members gave me permission to post this message she put up on our boards.

I love this on line program and the book. I have really begun to listen to myself and deal with issues. My husband works night shift sometimes and was off last night. He loves baseball (okay TV) and I felt ignored. Get this! Instead of running to the fridge I recognized what was going on, acknowledged my feelings and didn't say something dumb like "all you do is watch TV". I said something smart, I miss you! Which was really what I was feeling. Wow, he was ready to turn the TV off. That worked so much better than eating everything in the house and then hating myself afterwards, not to mention the problem would have still been there and the feelings unresolved.

The thing that this program helps you do is to realize that getting full on food, never gets you fulfilled by life.
This program teaches you that overeating not only gives you a body you're unhappy with, but it interrupts your best thinking. By choosing a quick fix instead of something that gets to the root of a problem, your life doesn't move forward.

As you can see from the member's post above she got clear about what she was feeling (she missed her husband). She didn't eat to manage feeling ignored. She didn't nag or criticize him. She simply expressed her true feeling. That's something that her husband was able to respond to.

This program is not just about recovering your power over food, it's about having a life you love.

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Is It Too Late to Lose the Weight?

MONDAY, JUNE 25, 2007 | POSTED BY MICHELLE

I get asked this question by people that have struggled with their weight all the time. People worry that their overeating pattern is so engrained that it can never be changed. People worry that if they do lose the weight that their skin will hang and the world will know that they were once fat. People worry that they just won't be able to bear another failure.

It is NEVER too late.

The part of a movie or television show that is always the most moving is when someone the main character believed to be unsupportive finally comes around. The wife in Evan Almighty. The father in Billy Elliot. Dr. Bailey on Grey's Anatomy.

In the best stories, in the eleventh hour someone shows up and no matter how many times they failed before, we cheer. It's just that the person you're waiting to show up for you, is you.

It's NEVER too late to show up for yourself. You can lose the weight.

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Are You An Emotional Eater? (An Excerpt from Shrink Yourself)

MONDAY, JUNE 11, 2007 | POSTED BY MICHELLE

To find out if you're an emotional eater, answer the following seven questions:
The last time you ate too much:

1. Did you notice your hunger coming on fast, or did it grow gradually?
2. When you got hungry, did you feel an almost desperate need to eat something right away?
3. When you ate, did you pay attention to what went in your mouth, or did you just stuff it in?
4. When you got hungry, would any nutritious food have sufficed, or did you need a certain type of food or treat to satisfy yourself?
5. Did you feel guilty after you ate?
6. Did you eat when you were emotionally upset or experiencing feelings of "emptiness"?
7. Did you stuff in the food very quickly?

Let's see how you did.
1. Emotional hunger comes on suddenly while physical hunger develops slowly. Physical hunger begins with a tummy rumble, then it becomes a stronger grumble, and finally it evolves into hunger pangs, but it's a slow process, very different from emotional hunger, which has a sudden, dramatic onset.
2. Unlike physical hunger, emotional hunger demands food immediately, and it wants immediate satisfaction. Physical hunger, on the other hand, will wait for food.
3. A difference between physical and emotional hunger involves mindfulness. To satisfy physical hunger, you normally make a deliberate choice about what you consume, and you maintain awareness of what you eat. You notice how much you put in your mouth so that you can stop when you're full. Emotional hunger, in contrast, rarely notices what's being eaten. If you have emotional hunger, you'll want more food even after you're stuffed.
4. Emotional hunger often demands particular foods in order to be fulfilled. If you're physically hungry, even carrots will look delicious. If you're emotionally hungry, however, only cake or ice cream or your particular preferred indulgence will seem appealing.
5. Emotional hunger often results in guilt or promises to do better next time. Physical hunger has no guilt attached to it, because you know you ate in order to maintain health and energy.
6. Emotional hunger results from some emotional trigger. Physical hunger results from a physiological need.
7. When you are feeding physical hunger, you can eat your food and savor each bite, but when you eat to fulfill emotional hunger you stuff the food in. All of a sudden you look down and the whole pint of ice cream is gone.

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HOSTED BY...

As a psychiatrist who has worked with thousands of overweight people over four decades, I can understand how much you suffer when you are overweight or think of yourself as fat. Not only do you suffer from the physical and medical consequences of extra weight, but I know that you also suffer from painful feelings, such as disappointment, hopelessness, and guilt.

This program will help you learn the mental skills you need to stop overeating. Because, most of the time, you are really not hungry for food but for something else.

As you uncover and demystify your hidden triggers to eat, you will diminish their power over you, until one day you wake and the cravings will be gone! The new thinner, healthier, happier YOU will emerge.

Find out if you're an emotional eater and what your triggers are. Take my Emotional Eating Diagnostic.

JOIN NOW!