Emotions are a part of life and if we turn to food when we feel uncomfortable emotions, where will we end up? Most likely overweight and unhappier than we were when we started emotionally eating, right?

Well here’s something that I learned in week four of my emotional eating experiment: I don’t emotionally eat when I’m not bored. Doesn’t sound like much of a revelation? Well, that could be since I already knew that I would eat when I’m bored, but it’s one thing to simply think about something and another to experience it.

UPDATE 2015: Hi, as you can see by the date on this article, I wrote this a LONG time ago, May 2008 which was over 7 years ago. At that time in 2008 I was not a professional, certified coach and professional certified Master NLP Pracitioner. I had not yet founded The Inner Self Dietâ„¢ which is my proven, proprietary, step-by-step personal coaching program for permanent weight loss. That’s right! I personally coach my clients to the end of their emotional eating, binge eating, self-sabotage, food obsessions, food addictions, low self-esteem and much more. Click here to read coaching client testimonials from my coaching client, click here to listen to audio testimonials, and watch videos of graduates of The Inner Self Dietâ„¢ in the sidebar of this page you’re on now.

Back in 2008 I did this Shrink Yourself Program and it was nice and all, but it didn’t heal the root of the problem like the binge eating coaching and emotional eating coaching I do with my clients does. I wish  you your Best Life…IN Your Ideal Body! ~ JoLynn Braley, Permanent Weight Loss Coach, Founder of The Inner Self Dietâ„¢

Remember on Wednesday, I let you know that I’d be giving you my update on my emotional eating experiment with the online Shrink Yourself program today. Let me tell ya, there was a good reason for this – I needed to be able to write this post after I completed week four of the Shrink Yourself program, and I didn’t have time to do that writing because I was out of town on holiday, yeah!

That’s right, I took off on a week’s jaunt to Switzerland. Yeah, I know, that isn’t really a “jaunt” considering the fact that I’m in the States and it was a bit of a flight, however this was the perfect opportunity to ski the Alps. 😉 I might write a post about it next week while keeping it on topic, however my trip is a perfect example of my lack of emotional eating when I’m having fun and am not bored.

While I didn’t eat perfectly on my plan last week (the 6-Week Body Makeover plan), I didn’t emotionally eat. I ate when I was hungry, stopped when I was full, and did a lot of walking (and climbing!). I had a wonderful time and I feel great about this because I know how easy it is to gain weight while on vacation. Actually, I must have gained some muscle because of all of the climbing I did – hey, we’re talking the land of the Alps here! 🙂

No matter what you do in life though, weight maintenance continues. This was the main thing I was thinking about in regards to my emotional eating experiment while I was away: if you want to keep off the weight that you lose, staying aware of your emotional eating triggers (your hunger switch) doesn’t stop while you’re on vacation, celebrating your birthday, or the holiday season.

Reviewing weeks 1 – 3 of the Shrink Yourself Program:

Since each week of the 12-week Shrink Yourself program builds on the previous ones, here’s a review of what I’ve already covered by in guided sessions 1 – 3:

1. Week one focused on identifying the specific feelings and situations that cause me to want to emotionally eat; these feelings and situations activate my “hunger switch”.
2. The second week was about becoming more aware that there are constructive ways of dealing with these feelings and situations instead of taking the destructive action of emotionally eating.
3. Week three was about learning to cope with those feelings instead of emotionally eating rather than only being in the observation mode like the first 2 weeks. This week also included beginning to take positive, alternate actions instead of eating over emotions.

Highlights of the Shrink Yourself Guided Session – Week Four:

The first part of week four’s Shrink Yourself guided session was about looking at the reasons my emotions drive me to eat while the second part focused on ensuring that my self-doubts resulting from those emotions don’t lead to emotional eating. This includes learning how to do a reality check on your emotions to avoid emotional eating so that self-doubts don’t occur in the first place!

What really stood out to me in this session was that you’ll never learn the lesson your emotions are trying to tell you if you repress them out of fear. When you emotionally eat, you do so to get away from your emotions, however even uncomfortable emotions are very valuable – you can learn from them when you listen and they can help you move forward and grow.

The Shrink Yourself program is really all about learning how to cope with your emotions, how to listen to yourself and not be afraid, and how to deal with those icky, uncomfortable feelings. The program does exactly what I’ve been writing about here at Fearless Fat Loss – it solves the cause of your overweight instead of offering a band aid (another diet) for the symptom of your problem, that symptom being your overweight.

Now that I’ve completed 4 weeks of the Shrink Yourself program and have a good feel for it, I heartily recommend the full 12-week program to you. I am looking forward to the next 8 weeks and I’m feeling confident that I will finally be solving my overeating and emotional eating issues. How exciting is that! 🙂

If you haven’t read the introduction and previous updates of my emotional eating experiment with the Shrink Yourself program please start here. Very briefly, this is an online guided program to heal your emotional eating issues so that you can lose weight and keep it off for life, however my introductory post will give you more information as well as links to each of my weekly updates in this 12 week process.

2015: Please read my update near the top of this post since I wrote this post over 7 years ago. The fact is that Shrink Yourself did not give me the emotional eating results that my clients receive in The Inner Self Dietâ„¢ which is my proven, proprietary, step-by-step personal coaching system to permanent weight loss. All the best! ~ JoLynn Braley permanent weight loss coach and founder of The Inner Self Dietâ„¢.