Emotional Work

Doing Cambridge has it's own set of special emotions. It challenges our food issues, our sense of self esteem, our learned behaviors, conditioning from our youth, and so many other parts of our personalities. It's a LOT! Plus, eating is enjoyable and social and comforting...usually. Sometimes, for those of us with compulsive eating disorders, it can become a weapon of self destruction and loneliness. I remember my lowest times of my eating disorder, almost feeling like I was beating myself up with food. Probably sounds overly dramatic to those with lessor or different issues then I was dealing with, but it's the best way to describe what I was doing. It was a violent act against myself.

What I realized, as I progressed through this emotional maze of weight loss, was that 99% of my  viewpoint and my internal dialog was negative. I grew up a chubby kid and weight had ALWAYS been the focal point of my life. I visualized it like a wagon wheel, obesity being the hub and all other aspects of life branched off from it. Every choice I made in life had my obesity at it's center. There were no goals or ambitions made from a desire to lead a full and rewarding life. So many lost opportunities.

It was a process that took time, my emotional recovery. It was like building myself a new house to live in, brick by brick. Eventually, momentum kicked in and the bricks started seating themselves.

I consider myself a fully recovered compulsive addictive eater. That person is so far buried in my past, I can not even comprehend that was me. I still struggle with some things. I never did reach my ultimate goal of my high school weight. Not even close! lol!. But I have managed to maintain well enough to have made up for some of all those lost opportunities. The past 17 years have been some of the best, and most heartbreaking, but my miracle is that I have been able to experience these normal life events without turning to food or any other substance to cope. I'm happy about that.

If You're Thinking About Trying Cambridge Diet

Hello to anyone here searching for an answer to their weight issues. I am someone who has spent my entire life either knowing I was overweight, dieting trying to lose weight, giving up and eating like a fool, suffering serious health consequences for said foolishness, and finally...FINALLY  finding my way to a stable healthy weight and life.

I had used Cambridge back in the early 1980's when I was a young 20 something year old. Losing weight was not hard back then. Maintaining was elusive however! I kept it off for several years, but eventually slipped back to old habits and gained back all 80 lbs + more. I went back to trying diet after diet and not getting anywhere but discouraged.

Fast forward through a couple of pregnancies, a divorce, some health problems, and I eventually found myself at the age of 42 well over 300 lbs. It's been over 17 years now since I found Cambridge again and placed my order for 1 case of Original 330 Dutch Chocolate. I honestly didn't know if it was going to work. My body had become so weight loss resistant over the years and nothing seemed to be able to break through that. I was an emotional basket case when it came to food. It had always been a big ridiculous deal in my life and I was very weary of the never ending battle to control myself. My reservoir of hope was pretty much tapped out. But...I ordered and waited...and ate everything in my kitchen. My box came, I opened it and saw the familiar containers of Cambridge, and my hope started to bubble up again. 

I went on to lose over 120 pounds in less then 6 months. It was a total life changer. I've used Cambridge these past 17 years as a maintenance tool. No more losing and gaining it all back. If I notice a few pounds creeping back on, I simply go back to my dependable Cambridge for a day or so to get rid of it ASAP.

Don't talk yourself out of trying this. Cambridge has a money back guarantee for first time customers of a 30 Day Plan. Give it a month and get ready to be thrilled with your results. If you're not happy with it for any reason, return for a refund..no big deal. But just FYI..of the thousands of new customers I start each year, I get MAYBE 2 to 4 returns. People love what Cambridge does for them and I think you will too. Contact me for info or to get started.

Physical Needs vs Emotional Needs

We all have emotional needs and physical needs. Each has importance and neither should take from the other. Ideally we have a balance and they support each other. This is where some of us take a detour. We allow our emotional needs to take over the physical, and often at the expense of our health. When we choose a substance, in our case..food, to pacify emotional needs we are in an unbalanced state, one that is never resolved. It is a vicious cycle and rather then fix anything, it creates an overwhelming situation.

Today I am going to focus on separating emotional needs with physical. When thoughts of food creep in, I am going to stop and take a moment to determine if it is being driven by emotions or genuine hunger. My guess is that 90% of the time it is emotional! I will practice attending to the root of the want. Like a tantruming child in the grocery store that is screaming, crying, and thrashing about, the question is...is he tired? Is he hungry? Is he just wanting attention and soothing? Is he scared or feeling anxious? Is he thirsty? Is he in physical discomfort or pain? If I give him a cookie will he stop?

While a cookie may temporary distract him (us) from whatever the actual problem is, it will not fix it unless the problem is hunger..and even then a cookie is a poor choice, and  usually offered more as a bribe then a solution anyway. We just want the feelings and the resulting behavior to stop! Right?

We are not toddlers, but at some point in our lives we began using food as a band-aid to our feelings. The reward of temporary relief in no way compensates for the cost to our health or our self esteem.

Today I made a chart. It is just a piece of paper with a line in the middle drawn from top to bottom. One side says emotional, the other says physical. Over the next few days I am going to write one word on the side I identify as the catalyst for every time I think about breaking my diet and eating something. Should be interesting...but I already know how one sided this is going to end up being!