There are so many emotions you could experience in just one day, and if you’re an emotional eater like I am, many of these emotions (if not all) can lead you down that slippery slope towards emotional eating. And what does emotional eating get you? Well, at first you feel a little better, but what about afterwards? It doesn’t help you lose weight, and you just might end up feeling a little down about it.

On Monday I let you in on my decision to combine my weekly “weigh-in” progress post with my emotional eating experiment. I decided to do this because right now I want to focus on healing the underlying cause of my overeating and deviations from the 6-Week Body Makeover, my healthy eating and exercise lifestyle program.

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„¢

I just completed week 2 of my emotional eating experiment with the Shrink Yourself online program and I’m happy to report that I am still holding strong at 150.5. “What is this”, you say? “You aren’t losing weight”?! That’s right, I’m maintaining the 12.5 pounds I’ve dropped since the beginning of January, but you know what else I’m not doing? I’m not stuffing myself to the gills like I used to (hey, that’s not a part of the 6-Week Body Makeover!), I’m not binging, and I am mainly eating my clean, whole foods. I’m also continuing to do a minimum of 5 cardio sessions per week of 30 minutes each (at least) and 2 body sculpting sessions.

Yes, I have been getting into those Mrs. May’s Naturals (nope, they aren’t a part of the 6WBMO either ), and I honestly do feel so much better when I stick only to my clean eating program, however I’m not going to get into any self-criticism here. I’m looking at everything that I’m doing right, and at this point in the Shrink Yourself 12-week program it’s all about self-observation and awareness.

Here’s what I did in week 2 of my emotional eating experiment with the Shrink Yourself program:

• I completed my online, guided Shrink Yourself session for week two.
• I continued observing my urges to emotionally eat without criticizing myself for it.
• I learned a little bit more about why I emotionally eat by completing the questionnaires in week two’s guided session.
• I learned about my “sore spots”, those circumstances or even people that “trigger” me to want to go for the food to solve an emotional issue, which food cannot do.
• I did my homework on such things like remaining aware when those times come up that I do want to emotionally eat, and learning more about why these times pop up – yep, this is still about observation and awareness. After all, if you aren’t aware of the problem, how can you change it?

I had a couple “aha” moments during my guided session, moments when I thought, “hey, why didn’t I see that before?” What I mean is that I saw more of a connection between my bottom-line motivations to emotionally eat. It’s really neat and this course really resonates with so much of what I’ve already been sharing here at Fearless Fat Loss for the past year, however I cannot claim that I’m a psychiatrist in practice for the past 35 years like Dr. Gould is, the creator of the Shrink Yourself program.

I’ll be back next Wednesday with another update for you, and in case this is the first time you’ve happened upon my 12-week series in healing my emotional eating, please head on over and read my introductory post for a fuller description of what this program is all about. I will also update that post each week with a link to my latest update so that you can find the complete series in one spot.

2015: Please read the update near the beginning of this post. I wrote this post over seven years ago and the truth is that Shrink Yourself did not give me the results that my coaching clients receive from my proven, step-by-step personal coaching system The Inner Self Dietâ„¢. In the end, the root of your emotional eating must be healed, otherwise the behavior will resume. All the best! ~ JoLynn Braley Permanent Weight Loss Coach and founder of The Inner Self Dietâ„¢.