Why You WILL gain weight this Holiday Season and how you can STOP IT

THISHASTOBEUPDATED

Every year millions of women everywhere dread the infamous “holiday weight gain” that inevitably happens during Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah and New Years.

And while it is a fact there will be TONS of delicious food around, you don’t have to fall victim to the food battle we all know so well: “Cookies! More cookies! Cake, candy...  crap, what about my diet? This isn’t going well, so I might as well have just a little more... okay, I don’t feel so good...  I’m so bad, I totally blew it, I guess I’ll just eat MORE! I’ll start my diet in January...”  Yeah, you know what I’m talking about... *wink*.  

I struggled with my weight for more than 15 years before I discovered the real reason that makes people unable to control themselves around food. It’s something called Weight Loss Blockers™.

5 years ago, I cured myself of emotional eating, lost 20 pounds, and built a thriving business that helps other women do the exact same thing.

If you’re struggling with emotional eating, this article can help you get off that dieting hamster wheel and start your journey to true and lasting weight loss.

I discovered seven Subconscious Weight Loss Blockers™ that cause overeating and weight gain. In this article, I'm going to talk about the MOST common one that people experience, especially during holidays.

It’s called the “Your Feelings are Stuck in the Food” Weight Loss Blocker™. But before I divulge my secrets, let’s talk about exactly what a Weight Loss Blocker™ is.

A Weight Loss Blocker™ is a subconscious connection - which means we’re not aware of it - that many people create during childhood, specifically when they eat certain foods with someone they love or during a positive time.

You see, by measuring our brain waves, scientists have found that up until we’re about seven years old, we’re basically in a trance state, taking in everything that’s going on around us without questioning it.

Just like sponges, we absorb everything:

- The things our parents and teachers say

- Messages from books and TV

- Everything we hear and see

- Feelings that we sense but might not understand

During these first years of life, we don’t have any filters in place for screening all of this information... it all just goes right in!

And when we hear them again and again, the messages we receive about

our family, food, relationships, body image - good or bad - get stuck in our subconscious mind.

Most Western family parties or celebrations revolve around meals; we are constantly creating positive memories that involve food.

Just for a moment, think about the foods your parents used to give you as a “reward” for being good. What about the special foods that Mom only makes during the holidays?

Or think back to an experience that made food feel like a prize, such as Mom making freshly baked cookies to reward you for a good report card.

Or even a regular routine or ritual, like going out for ice cream with Dad every Sunday, or stopping at the candy store with your siblings after school.

Through experiences like these, your childhood mind very likely formed a belief that love and comfort are connected to these foods, rather than to the people you shared those experiences with.

This positive association between the food (let’s say chocolate chip cookies) and an emotion (Mom’s love) was then “hard-wired" into your brain.

So now, back to the holidays...

Imagine you’re at a holiday gathering and ALL the yummy foods from your childhood are served...

The delicious smells fill the house and suddenly your brain is flooded with a ton of positive memories. You feel so excited and happy and you can’t wait to eat...

You take that first bite and your body feels instant comfort and joy. Understand this response is NOT from the food, rather from the memories that the food is triggering, subconsciously.   

For most people, the holidays were a really positive time, and you start feeling like you are a kid again. You think, “Wasn’t everything just easier when I was younger, being taken care of by the people that love me?”

Who could ever get sick of that?

So you eat the food, and you feel more good feelings... you continue to eat until you’re so stuffed and bloated that you literally CAN’T take another bite.

What you’re really feeling is the power of those old memories - the love and connection you felt with the people you shared these foods with earlier in life. You think the food is triggering your brain to feel that way, but the problem is... it’s not actually the food! 

That’s why when you start eating, you’ll inevitably find yourself going back for seconds - or even thirds - because it’s pretty much impossible to get enough love and comfort, right?

You continue to pick at the food as you help clear the table, and you revisit the cookie and candy tray just a few more times... you end up eating until you’re so stuffed your stomach tells you, “Stop! No more!”

This is also why, when you decide you want to lose weight and tell yourself, “No, you can’t have those cookies,” it’s only a matter of time before you give in again.

And who could blame you? To your subconscious mind, it’s not just the cookies you denied yourself... it’s Mom’s love!

So doesn’t it make sense that if you tell yourself that you’re not going to have the cookies or cake during holiday gatherings that you’d feel deprived, depressed and even more stressed? Because you’re denying yourself the happy memories and feelings behind those favorite foods.

Despite any strong will power, your subconscious mind has 80% of the vote in anything you do. So while you might consciously decide to diet, 80% of you is secretly saying in the background, “NO WAY! I’m not giving that up!”

You may be REALLY motivated to lose the weight, but a few days later, in some really stressful moment, you’ll find yourself right back at the bottom of the cookie box.

Chances are, all of this will be totally subconscious. You won’t even realize you are doing it - you’ll just wonder why on earth you can’t seem to lose weight or stick to your diet.

That’s probably where you’re at right now, wondering why you can’t drop those pounds... why you always sabotage yourself before you can make any real progress.

It’s because “your feelings are stuck in the food.” It’s a subconscious connection between foods you love and good feelings... and hey, we all want to feel good!

But when you have this Weight Loss Blocker™, you won’t be able to lose the weight, no matter how hard you try.

So the question now becomes, how do we clear this block so that you can buy cookies and not be tempted to eat the whole box?

What I’m going to teach you, the weight loss industry doesn’t want you to know.

Here are some tips for stopping this Weight Loss Blocker™ in its tracks:

1. When you get to the holiday party, before eating anything, make sure to walk around and connect to everyone, give them a hug, ask them how they are doing, and take in how happy you are to be with them. This connection is the REAL thing you are looking for when you’re in the midst of overeating.

1. Tap your face. Haha... no, I'm serious. In my Think and Thin programs, I teach students how to turn their craving button OFF with a simple mind-body exercise that combines visualization and acupressure stimulation. That literally makes them FORGET about the temptation of their favorite food. You can try my “Stop Sugar Cravings” technique for free here on my YouTube channel - and make sure to subscribe for more videos :-)

If you want to learn more about overcoming emotional eating and food cravings and actually make peace with food, click around here on my website and you'll find lots of tools to do so.  I teach women how to identify which of the seven Weight Loss Blockers™ they have, and how to reprogram their subconscious mind so they literally don't want to overeat anymore - without using any willpower whatsoever.

Happy Holidays!

Brittany Watkins is a weight loss coach, author, and is widely known as one of the foremost experts in Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT/tapping) for emotional eating and weight loss.

Her wildly popular online programs, based on 15 years of research on weight loss, self-sabotage and leading-edge science, teach people how to apply specific techniques to quickly and effortlessly eliminate binging, food cravings, and all other forms of emotional eating.

Her approach to weight loss clears the underlying emotional drivers that cause disordered eating, pinpointing the root of the problem—even if you don’t know what it is—and reprogramming negative thought patterns by upgrading the “software” of the mind.

You can apply to work 1-1 with her and her team of coaches in her program Think and Thin - STOP Emotional Eating Forever with the Most Powerful Tools in Modern Psychology.