Overeating Happens for Many Reasons
Some children are fed too much by their parents, but many more use food to cope with emotional distress. Food may be used as a substitute for love, to relieve tension, or to ease loneliness. Sometimes food is used simply as a distraction from painful thoughts or feelings. And some people overindulge because they have not been taught to set limits for themselves.
Why is it So Hard for People to Stop Overeating?
For the same reason it is hard to end any entrenched habit. A habit, such as overeating, usually begins in childhood. For instance, a young child whose mother was distracted by her own problems and couldn't attend well to her daughter, felt neglected and unloved. What could this child do? As an adult, she could empathize with her mother's distress and look to others to meet her need for love; that would be a true solution. But as a child, she was didn't yet have that capability. What she could do was to turn to something that provided a partial solution. Eating was associatively related to love, so she ate. And as she grew and developed, she turned to food whenever she felt unhappy.
Why Do Habits Become So Entrenched?
When the mind first chooses a solution for a problem, the solution gets locked-in as the go-to choice because that path has been established. If a better solution becomes available later, the mind will continue to choose the original one...unless a complex stimulus occurs.
What are Complex Stimuli?
A complex stimulus is one with two contradictory meanings, and it causes the mind to become momentarily immobilized as it registers them. This pause allows the mind to choose a true solution, if one is available, rather than automatically choosing the previously established one. Complex stimuli are the keys that enable change. What if the woman for whom overeating has become a locked-in partial solution sets the table to eat but forgets to put down a fork? When she sees the partial place setting, her mind will simultaneously register "I can eat" and "I can't yet eat." This complex stimulus, this pause, will enable her mind to choose a better solution, if one is available.
A Second Step is Necessary
Because changing a habit such as overeating would make such a huge difference in one's life, it requires time to become actualized. One forgotten fork will not instantly enable a change in behavior. But using my complimentary Tool will enable this change to gradually occur, because mental processes that occur out of awareness will activate the action.
GET THE COMPLIMENTARY Tool
