| Remember how everybody treated you when were gaining weight? Maybe you always weighed too much. Everyone was on your case to “lose weight.” They kept telling you that you were eating too much and that you were going to be, or were, fat. Remember how they made you feel? They kept saying that they were trying to help you. Actually, they felt embarrassed just to be with you. They just kept after you. They never seemed to let up. You could hardly stand it. You felt terrible. You felt humiliated and out of place. You didn’t even want to be out in public. You were sure that people were laughing at you and whispering about you. Putting on a bathing suit wasn’t even a thought. You didn’t know what to do. You just wanted to hide. Everyone told you that weighing too much was all your fault and that you could weigh less if you wanted to. You told them you couldn’t help it. No matter what you said, they didn’t believe you. Did they think that weighed too much because you wanted to? Or that you kept eating too much food because you enjoyed being overweight? The fact is that they didn’t understand the problem. They didn’t know that you didn’t have a choice. You simply had to keep putting all that food in your mouth no matter what the consequences. When you tried to “go on a diet” you could only do it for a short period of time. No one understood your problem. No one could appreciate why you couldn’t stop putting all that food in your mouth. They didn’t understand that it wasn’t your fault. The fact is that you had virtually no control over the amount of food you had to put in your mouth. It was not a question of will power. Emotionally, it was something you had to do. You really didn’t have a choice. That’s really your problem, isn’t it? You didn’t have a choice. If you could weigh 30 or 50 pounds less you would have. Here you are weighing way too much and you would give anything to weigh less and people were, and are, making fun of you because you can’t control your weight. As painful as it was, and is, you can put an end to all that. All you have to do is eliminate the connection between your emotional needs and putting food in your mouth. It’s actually a lot easier than anything else you have been doing. You don’t have to worry about will power or dieting. Those kinds of things will never overcome the necessity of satisfying your emotional needs. |
