| Today we are going to review part of the Process in the book. The reason for this is that so many people have let us know of the success they have had by questioning and understanding why had been eating the way they did. Remember, every time you think about putting food in your mouth you have to understand why you want to eat that food. After all, you weigh 30 pounds more than you want to weigh and you are eating just enough food to guarantee that you continue to stay at that weight. So why are you eating all that food? You really must understand the nature of the problem before you can solve it. People have reported that once they started analyzing their eating and began asking themselves if they were really hungry, why they wanted to eat the food, and what was the food going to do for them they began to understand what it really was that they were doing. They began to understand that they weren’t “hungry” in the sense that they needed food for nourishment. They learned why they really wanted the food in their mouths. They learned that they wanted to put the food in their mouths for emotional reasons. The food in their mouths made them feel better. It calmed them down. They felt a little more secure. Once they really understood those reasons, and felt them, they no longer looked to food for emotional reasons. It just became food. It never was anything else. They just used food for emotional reasons, which made it seem more than food. It became something they had to have at all costs. They had to have the food even though eating all that food made them very unhappy. All that food made them weigh 30 pounds too much. They complained all day, every day, that they weighed too much, but they kept putting all that food in their mouths. Emotionally, they had to. No longer. Those people don’t do that any more. Why? Because they no longer have to. They no longer feel the need to put the food in their mouths. They were able to realize, both intellectually and emotionally, that they didn’t need the food. One person said that when she felt the “need” to put food in her mouth she listened to music instead. It had the same effect. Once she realized that it wasn’t the food she needed, she never went back to food for emotional reasons and she didn’t even need the music. (This experience is continued on the Fortieth Daily Experience) |
