Certified nutrition consultant and certified EFT practitioner Sandy Zeldes shared tips to end emotional eating, heal subconscious blocks to weight loss and love yourself skinny on a live call as part of the Living an Elevated Existence Mind, Body & Soul Summit!
On the call, she shared three invisible barriers people face when trying to lose weight. They include:
1 .Emotional Stress – There is a genuine need to have a way of handling stress that works for you, especially when dealing with food and weight loss, she explained to listeners.
2. Negative Beliefs about Food our Bodies and Weight – Many are subconscious, and stem from childhood. We carry them around with us, and they operate on our choices today, according to Zeldes.
3. Nutritional Deficits – “These develop after many, many years of struggling with food,” she said. “It has to do with all this dieting that people do or food restricting that creates blood sugar imbalances and hormone imbalances. It’s invisible to people because we have been doing it for so long.”
These three aspects are pillars that need to be dealt with in order to overcome emotional eating and end the struggle with food and weight, and Zeldes uses a variety of tools in her practice to help clients, including EFT or Emotional Freedom Technique.
“EFT is very accessible, and it really works,” she said, explaining we can use it to clear stress, emotional trauma and negative beliefs interfering with weight loss — and even calm cravings. “It works to bring up whatever needs to come up. It works with our inner beliefs. It’s an emotional version of acupuncture. We tap on traditional meridian points to release energy and emotions.”
Additionally, many people struggle with blood sugar imbalance, hormone imbalance, thyroid or adrenal issues, and Zeldes believes stress and an unbalanced diet is often the culprit.
“Stress is often a beginning point for all these symptoms we have. When we released trapped emotion around a very stressful incident, the changes that happen to the physical body and our symptoms is direct – whether physical pain, I’ve seen hormones balance over time, and I’ve seen people correct blood sugar imbalances,” she said.
The energy of love – especially self-love – is important when it comes to healing our bodies, and this can have a direct effect on our weight issues as well.
“Once you get to a place of peace, self-love and self-worth, the food is not the pull,” she said, sharing the story of a client who was 52 years old and realized she had been dieting and hating herself and her body since she was 14 years old. Once she broke through to that realization and released the energy around it, her life and her weight began to change.
“She is the perfect example of loving yourself skinny. She lost 8 pounds over the holidays just from letting go of hating her body. It was a direct link,” Zeldes said. “Also, what I’m talking about when I say ‘love yourself skinny’ is have some compassion for yourself. As women we do not have that.”
A New Approach
Rather then focus on the diet, the calories or the food, Zeldes teaches clients to address the underlying issues – the three invisible barriers – in order to have a weight loss breakthrough.
When the triggers are removed – including emotional stress and deeply rooted negative beliefs – people can begin eating in a balanced way, which alone can eliminate cravings, she said.
“The antidote to dieting is eating in a balanced way. When you do, you can feel what it feels like to have your blood sugar balanced, and that is the key to knowing the difference between a physiological or emotional craving,” Zeldes shared.
Working with the underlying issues is what makes any other eating plan or diet work – without addressing these factors people will often continue to fail.
“I have many friends in the nutrition world and if clients don’t follow through with the plan, they can’t get the results. This is what helps you follow through with any plan you want to do and make it work,” she noted. “This is the preplan to any plan.”
She offered listeners access to her program “How to End Emotional Eating & Heal Subconscious Blocks to Weight Loss,” at an 87% discount, where she leads people through the steps to set them up for weight loss success.
Click here to View Her Special Offer
Zeldes also offered a tip for people to become more aware of their inner self-talk and begin to interrupt the negative cycle. When we recognize that voice, we can picture a hand up to stop the thought.
“Do this any time you have a negative thought about food, about your body, about your weight,” she said. ”It’s about awareness and having the willingness to be with it.”
She also left listeners with one question they can use when they feel the stress taking over and are about to self-sabotage. Ask: “What do I need right now.”
“It’s a good question to ask is when you are in that moment. Give yourself that 10 second window to breath and really ask, ‘What do I need right now?” If you can ask that question, you’re going to discover it’s not the food. It’s not the French fries, or the fast food, or that candy. It’s, ‘I need to lie down, I need someone to help me, I need my husband to help me, I need to just go scream, I need to get a good night’s sleep.’ We blame the food for everything, and it’s not the food. The food is just the symptom.”
To listen to the interview and download Zeldes’ FREE Gift, sign up to the Summit here!