Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Why stress makes you put on weight – and how to prevent it

A MAJOR cause of over-eating and weight gain is stress, because when we’re anxious our brain releases a hormone called cortisol which takes control of us and make us do things we wouldn’t normally do – like dive on the cakes and chocolate.

I think we’d all agree that the last eight or nine weeks have been some of the most stressful times of our lives.

During lockdown, most people have been feeling very anxious about the whole situation.

It was something we’d never experienced before and the fear had hijacked our minds. 

A lot of people in our Slimpod community found they were doing a lot of mindless snacking and comfort eating – something they had stopped doing before the crisis had started.

This made things worse and they were panicking.  Then about a month ago, a psychotherapist within our community posted a very helpful description of how stress drives you to eat and stops you being in control.

While there are videos in phase two of the Slimpod programme about stress and its effects on the body, it was great having a fellow professional offer advice to our lovely Slimpodders.

Now, I know not all the people on our programme are in the group so I asked Lynsey to record a video with me with the aim of helping anyone who didn’t see the Facebook post.

Here it is…

Lynsey had been a yo-yo dieter for 45 years until she found Slimpod just over a year ago.

Like most people who join us, she had “done every diet under the sun” and always put the weight back on.

A year later she doesn’t worry about her weight any more. 

During the chat, Lynsey and I talk about how stress hormones prevent us from losing weight and we go into detail about the effects of stress and it’s full of tips on how to deal with it.

Not a Slimpodder yet? Here’s an offer that’s too good to miss…

Please leave a comment below to let me know how stress has been affecting you and how your Slimpod (and your Chillpod) are helping ease the anxiety for you.

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Monday, May 18, 2020

Kindness to yourself is the key to conquering emotional eating

KINDNESS is the theme of this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week, and rightly so. In a new poll, two-thirds of people said that when others are kind to them it has a positive impact on their mental health.

However, did you know that kindness to yourself is one of the best things you can do to conquer emotional eating?

My studies have proved this many times over the past 10 years or so and it was reinforced by research I read recently from the University of Texas and the University of Exeter.

Being kind to yourself helps people stick to their weight-loss goal, the research showed. That’s because so many unhealthy eating habits are driven by difficulties in managing our emotions.

If people are self-compassionate, they tend to stop eating when they’re full. But people who are not in such a good place tend to keep overeating as a way to draw out negative emotions.


         Watch me live on social media tonight

I’ll be live on our main Thinking Slimmer Facebook page doing a deeper dive on all this tonight (May 18) at 7.30 to help you like (or even love) yourself more. I’ll also be going live on Instagram at 8pm. Hope to see you tonight!


It’s SO important to stop being negative about yourself. Stop criticising everything you do. You must look for the positives and the kindness in your life.

Easier said than done? Well, to gain control over your inner critic you have to first be aware of it.

Neuroscientists believe we have between 20,000 and 60,000 thoughts a day, but only about five per cent of them are about what we’re actually doing at any given moment.

The rest of them are totally random and often negative self-talk – basically, the things we tell ourselves we can’t do.

During every conscious moment we have an inner dialogue with ourselves. Much of our thinking is so automatic and happening so rapidly that we hardly notice it’s going on.

Making an effort to slow down and pay more  to your thoughts will help you notice when the critic is at work!

Your emotions will also cue you to the presence of the critic. Negative emotions such as self-doubt, guilt, shame and the feeling of worthlessness are almost always signs of the critic at work.

kindness

Kindness starts with an “inner critic log”

Try this for one week – it’s very simple:  keep an “inner critic” log on your phone or in a journal.

Every time you notice yourself being self-critical, just note two or three words about the situation – for example “I’m standing in front of the mirror.”

This all helps because when you’re aware of the critical voice, you’ll be able to stand up to it!

Next big step is to disassociate yourself from it.  This voice isn’t you.  It’s something that’s muscled in on you.

The inner critic doesn’t want you to notice it. It thrives best when you mistake it for being part of your authentic self.

Here’s the thing: you weren’t born with an inner critic.

The critic is a voice that you’ve created based on outside influences and learning, such as other people’s criticism, expectations, or standards.

One way to separate from the critic is to give it a name.

Any name will work – but to add some power, give it a name of someone or something you don’t like.

The important thing is that by separating it from your own identity, you are on your way to freeing yourself from the influence it’s had over you.

Next step – talk back to it!

kindness

Kindness needs tough action

Talking back to your inner critic is an important part of taking away its power. Simply telling the critic you don’t want to hear what it has to say begins to give you a sense of choice in the matter.

When you hear the inner critic start to speak, tell it to go away.

Tell it you refuse to listen.

Tell it off for telling you lies!

Tell it you are choosing instead to be kind to yourself.

The best way to defeat the critic is to replace it, grow an inner voice that acts as your own best friend.

But to do this, you need to start noticing the GOOD things about yourself. It may take you some effort to retrain yourself to see them but I can assure you they are there!!

Kindness means not saying this

Because of the way our brain works, we all have an automatic selective filtering system that will look for evidence in our environment that matches up with whatever we believe to be true about ourselves.

We will then shut out other evidence to the contrary. If you are always saying to yourself  “I am useless” – you’ll then focus on those things because they match up with what you say to yourself.

To break this automatic process, you have to first make the deliberate effort to say something different to yourself and then your brain will begin to search for evidence that it’s true.  This is when REAL change happens!

Hope to see you tonight !  If you’re not on Facebook – it would be worth joining just for this!  And remember, I’ll also be going live on Instagram this evening at 8pm because kindness is such an important subject.

If you miss the live you can catch up tomorrow by visiting our main Facebook page. A recording will be there!

Take care and be kind to yourself. 😊  

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Thursday, May 7, 2020

See how Slimpod has put a magic sparkle back into Pip’s life

KNOW why I’ve got the best job in the world? Because I’m constantly meeting people with happy smiles on their faces whose Slimpod stories fill my heart with joy. One such lady is Pip, who’s from Wales.

She emailed me because in just four months, her Slimpod has made an amazing transformation to her relationship with food and exercise.

So I just had to video a chat with her which I’m sharing here today.

“Slimpod has changed everything,” she told me. “For 35 years I’ve been abusing my body with bad food…but now I’m really liberated.

“I exercise because I want to, not to burn off calories because I’ve eaten something I shouldn’t.

“There’s no shame attached to eating anything I fancy now.”

Isn’t that so very uplifting and inspiring!

Click below to watch the video…

Slimpod review

Pip said she has changed her mindset and her habits. “I’m feeling so much healthier,” she said with a smile. “Without Slimpod I’d be really miserable and a lot bigger.”

One of the best moments for Pip was when a good friend told her how noticeable her weight loss is – and added: “You’ve got some kind of sparkle that I haven’t seen in you before.”

That’s the magic of the Slimpod programme!

How has it changed your way of thinking and eating? Please let me know by leaving a comment below.

I love reading them all and I know others find them super-helpful.

If you’re not a Slimpodder yet, you can try it free for 10 days by clicking here

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