Find out how emotional eating can sabotage your weight-loss efforts and get tips to regain control of your eating habits.

By Mayo Clinic staff

Sometimes the strongest cravings for food happen when you're at your weakest point emotionally. You may turn to food for comfort — consciously or unconsciously — when you're facing a difficult problem, stress or just looking to keep yourself occupied.

But emotional eating can sabotage your weight-loss efforts. Emotional eating often leads to eating too much, especially too much of high-calorie, sweet, fatty foods. But the good news is that if you're prone to emotional eating, you can take steps to regain control of your eating habits and get back on track with your weight-loss goals.

The connection between mood, food and weight loss

Emotional eating is eating as a way to suppress or soothe negative emotions, such as stress, anger, fear, boredom, sadness and loneliness. Both major life events and the hassles of daily life can trigger negative emotions that lead to emotional eating and disrupt your weight-loss efforts. These triggers may include:

§  Unemployment

§  Financial pressure

§  Health problems

§  Relationship conflicts

§  Work stress

§  Bad weather

§  Fatigue

Although some people actually eat less in the face of strong emotions, if you're in emotional distress you may turn to impulsive or binge eating — you may rapidly eat whatever's convenient, without even enjoying it. In fact, your emotions may become so tied to your eating habits that you automatically reach for a sweet treat whenever you're angry or stressed without stopping to think about what you're doing.

Food also serves as a distraction. If you're worried about an upcoming event or stewing over a conflict, for instance, you may focus on eating comfort food instead of dealing with the painful situation.

Whatever emotions drive you to overeat, the end result is often the same. The emotions return, and you may also now bear the additional burden of guilt about setting back your weight-loss goal. This can also lead to an unhealthy cycle — your emotions trigger you to overeat, you beat yourself up for getting off your weight-loss track, you feel badly, and you overeat again.

Welcome and make everyday a day to remember!

Our expectations are about growth and prosperity through great health and a forward thinking positive attitude!  We are set to deliver that way of thinking to you!   Before we begin our professional relationship, please familiarize yourself with the following guidelines.

Terms of Coaching:

Coaching is a process, and most can create change quickly, but our goal is to create a lifestyle change and that takes time and patience. 

Fees:

Your  Lifestyle  Coaching fee is payable to:  TopCat Per4mance. There is no commitment beyond the first (90) days and each session is   1 hour.  Please allow for  2 weeks' notice, should you wish to terminate our professional Coaching relationship.

Your minimum agreement will be for (90) days and it comes with monthly:  4 scheduled calls per month (or other call frequency per special arrangement), each for 30 to 45 minutes,(generally, sessions will be held the first of each  week of each month, with the interim weeks used for special implementations of lifestyle changes, unlimited e-mails and short phone calls for all reasons.

Mentoring clients are welcome but limited to (4)calls per month. Please email: life_coach@topcatper4mance.biz and let me know the best times to contact you. You can also call me: 757.277.9391, remember this is the business line so leave a message if we do not answer the first time, you will be called.

Procedure:

You will be called at the agreed upon time, unless something comes up so allow 5 minutes of leeway.  If you wish to connect with me in between sessions with a challenge, a success or an inquiry, I will make every attempt to respond to your e-mail at life_coach@topcatper4mance.biz within 4 hours,

Changes:

Please allow 24 hours for all changes however if  you have an emergency or illness, you can reschedule with less than 24 hours notice.  If you do not show up for a scheduled call, for any reason, and provide no notice (latest notice can be five minutes past scheduled session start time), we will not make up that time.  So to, I too will give 24 hour notice should I have to reschedule as well barring emergency or illness. 

Problems:

If I ever say or do anything that upsets you or doesn't feel right, please bring it to my attention so that we can resolve it as soon as possible.  My objective is to have a coaching relationship that is fully open, honest, real and trusting in our communication styles.  We should both realize that communication via telephone or email entails extra challenges since we can not see body language, facial expressions, etc.  Therefore we give each other plenty of latitude, and promptly ask for clarification if there is a mis-connection, agreed?

Power of Focus.
There is another principle that says, “Whatever you focus on expands”. Focus is a choice, you are either orienting your focus on the positive or the negative. So ask yourself, are you focused on who you are or who you're not. Are you focused on what you have or what you don't have. Are you focused on what's right or what's wrong? Do you go to the perfection or the imperfection. It's simply a choice.

As we move forward on our transformational journey we need to examine what we are focused on. How much focus is on your victories and gains versus what you haven’t become yet or what you haven’t accomplished. When focusing on victories you make amazing discoveries about yourself and wonderfully you experience even more victories because that is what is now expanding. We help you make sense out of it all! For more, please email us now.   (Information taken from article: Laws of Attraction by Seminars that inspire!  2007)

"Coach Clement or TopCat is the man!  You make working out and training much more interesting and sensible!  You are a great motivator and yes you will push to you to do your VERY best.  You are the best and I wish I had half your energy."  Thanks!!!!!  Nicole, Mother of 2 ,2009 Chesapeake, Va

We all must learn how to act by choice and assume a position of "Response" Ability.

Know yourself

What are your perceived and real core values? We all have unique gifts, special talents and different strengths.

How are you sharing those gifts with the people in your life? When you become aware of who you really are, all of the doing in life becomes second nature and very easy.

Once you have identified who you really are, you can choose right action, test new behaviors and while learning response ability.

This is the real source of empowerment over the old, less productive habits, default modes or inner critic voices.