Oprah Winfrey admits she has tried everything in her quest to lose her weight and keep it off, but I think I know what she might be missing in her quest for total weight control. Okay, okay. I haven’t worked with Oprah yet, but –I haven’t heard her mention this. Drum roll please…………………… Oprah needs to make peace with food and peace with her body.
She has already said that she needs to put herself back on her own priority list, so I won’t add that. But peace with food? Now that’s a concept Oprah and a lot of others may not have explored. It seems that most people who struggle with their weight seem to think that food is the enemy, because it looks like that’s what made them fat.
I think it’s more their thoughts surrounding food and their bodies that makes them fat. Have you ever noticed that naturally thin people seem to eat all kinds of food, not just healthy foods? I mean you see them with ice cream and even fries and brownies! What is their secret? I think they’ve made peace with what they eat. Actually I don’t think they think about it!
So how do you make peace with food? And even more important how do you make peace with your body? When I was at my heaviest I was always doing something wrong in my mind, I never measured up to my own expectations, and let me tell you they were pretty darn high. Probably unattainable as well. You know, I told myself I would work out 7 days a week for hours, eat only the foods in my good foods category or whatever diet I might be on at the time, and eventually I would look a certain way. I thought that my inner drill sergeant could make me look like someone I would never be, or at least be the size I was when I got married (even though I was totally bulimic then, but so what.) I was one heck of a taskmaster on myself, with a lot of strict rules! I start feeling bad in my body just remembering those days! Oh boy that primitive part of my brain (Martha Beck calls it the “reptilian brain”) starts working overtime when it hears limits imposed on it.
It starts thinking, “oh no we’re going to starve! Must get food! And before I knew it I was binging on ding dongs (usually a box at a time) and only then would my brain would calm down because after that 10th ding-dong or so it
realized we probably weren’t going to starve. It didn’t end there. Even as I was peering into the empty box and surveying the empty wrappers the left side of my brain (the drill sergeant), would start yelling at me for binging and going against my own rules. My life was a sugary, chocolaty, culinary nightmare, and on top of the guilt and shame the drill instructor hammered away at, I had the weight and bulimia as well.
How does your reptilian brain work? It works at a very primitive level, which is called survival mode. As soon as you think “I can’t have apples cookies, water whatever you chose to deny yourself, your reptilian brain will step into overdrive to protect you from starvation. It will make sure that whatever you think you can’t have is necessary for your very survival and must be eaten. Hence you feel out of control (which you actually are, your brain is running the show). When your computer self is at war with your creature self or your reptilian brain, you are at war with yourself and food. This is not peaceful. So guess which part of your brain always wins in the end? You guessed it. The part that has been keeping humans alive since the dawn of time – that part of you that wants you to survive, the reptilian brain, is the victor every time. So how do you make peace with your reptilian brain? You take hold of it and help it attain “Thinner Peace.”
Baby step #1: From here on out tell yourself (reptilian brain) “ I can have whatever I want to eat.” This will chill your reptilian brain a bit. Don’t panic at the thought of eating “not good for you food.” Number one, you’re going to eat it anyway, and number two, naturally thin people eat what they want and stay thin, so it is possible to do this. (I have tools for this which I will introduce in a future blog.) But here’s what I would do with that thought.
Whatever food you eat that you “think” is bad for you, from now on call it “joy food.” Because you do get joy from it and that’s about it. Now when you eat this joy food stop eating it as soon as you stop enjoying it. That might be just two bites, or maybe it might be two ding dongs instead of twelve, especially in the beginning. This is just an experiment so don’t get nervous, but see if this feels more peaceful. I think you’ll begin to realize it’s a concept your reptilian brain can appreciate and r-e-l-a-x with. And be sure and come back for baby step #2 to Thinner Peace - “Are you listening to the whispers of your body?”