The Tapping Solution for Weight Loss & Body Confidence by Jessica Ortner Page B

Giving Up Emotional Eating?
    Imagine that you couldn’t overindulge in your favorite treat for a full week. Does that scenario create a sense of panic? What is the downside in ending this habit of emotional eating? Does a particular emotion or level of resistance come up? Write down your thoughts on a piece of paper, if you like, and use them as your tapping target. Remember to measure the intensity of your emotions before you begin tapping.
    Karate Chop: Even though I’m unwilling to end this habit, I love and accept myself. ( Repeat three times. ) Eyebrow: I don’t want to stop craving this food.
    Side of Eye: I don’t want to deprive myself.
    Under Eye: It’s a way for me to avoid uncomfortable feelings.
    Under Nose: It’s a way to praise myself.
    Chin: It’s a way to experience pleasure.
    Collarbone: I don’t want to give it up.
    Under Arm: I’m sick of this pressure.
    Top of Head: I want to rebel and do what I want.
    Keep tapping on all the reasons you don’t want to let go of this habit. When the intensity is 5 or lower, begin incorporating these positive tapping phrases.
    Eyebrow: I can do what I want.
    Side of Eye: I can choose to eat whatever I want.
    Under Eye: The calmer I feel …
    Under Nose: The more control I have to choose what I really want.
    Chin: I don’t need the food in order to feel validated; I choose to feel validated now.
    Collarbone: I don’t need the food in order to feel calm; I choose to feel calm now.
    Under Arm: It’s safe for me to acknowledge what I really want.
    Top of Head: I choose what I want from this calm and centered space.
    The point of this exercise isn’t to prevent you from ever indulging in your favorite treat but simply to pinpoint the emotions that may be causing you to overindulge.
    Over time you may find these triggers reappearing or discover new emotional eating triggers. Don’t let this discourage you. Simply take note of the triggers and then tap through them until they’re fully cleared.
    What Are You Really Eating?
    When emotional eating becomes a habit ingrained over many years, it can be hard to see all the ways in which our relationship with food is working against us. That became clear to me one evening while I was out with my friend and mentor Ariane de Bonvoisin, best-selling author of The First 30 Days . She had been raving about a gelato place in New York, claiming they had the best chocolate gelato in the entire city, so finally one night we went there to enjoy a treat.
    After getting a serving each, we crossed the street to sit in a little plaza and enjoy our gelato. It was a beautiful summer evening, and for a moment we ate in silence, taking in the beauty of a nearby fountain.
    Suddenly Ariane broke the silence. “You know we’re eating two different things, don’t you?”
    I looked down at her cup. “No, I ordered the same thing as you.”
    “We are still eating two different things,” she said. “I’m eating gelato—you’re eating guilt. My body will enjoy and process this gelato perfectly and it will go right through me. That guilt will stick to you and you’ll gain weight.”
    I was stunned into silence, shocked both by what she had said and how true it felt. I had been eating a healthy diet for some time but couldn’t seem to lose weight. I suddenly realized that evening that the food group I had forgotten to cut out was guilt and shame.
    Living in a culture that’s obsessed with food and fitness, we’re taught from a young age that carrying extra weight means that we’re “less than,” that we’re overweight because we have no self-control. Deep down we know that’s not true. We know we’re amazing, inspiring, beautiful, and talented. And yet, through all of our years of struggling to lose the weight, we come to doubt ourselves. We come to downgrade our worth. Slowly but surely, we let our culture’s fixation on thinness eat away at our self-confidence. Little by little, we put our own value into question. We feel