How Long Does it Take to Conquer Emotional Eating?

A dear client was complaining that she believed she would never have her emotional eating under control. When she had first come to Totell she was bingeing daily, not only hating her body, but hating herself. She has come a long way; her binges are down to a couple per month, with the duration of each binge being minimized significantly. But still, she wants to be completely free from emotional eating, and she gets discouraged when she dips. She asks, "How long does it take to really overcome something, to really change a behavior, to really make lasting change?"

What a great question! Don't we really give up because we think it is taking too long, or progress is too slow? Research has shown that in order to master a skill or a talent, it takes 10,000 hours of practice. This seems like a lot of hours, but when they calculate the practice hours of concert pianists, professional baseball players, computer wizards, or anyone who is an expert at a talent or skill, the numbers all matched up: 10,000 hours. So how does this concept apply to you and emotional eating?

You have probably put in your 10,000 hours creating bad habits, bad thought processes, bad eating patterns, bad self-talk, bad everything about your body and how you treat it. What will it take to make all of those patterns positive? A lot of hours. Your mind is not going to reverse without the 10,000 hours. Those detrimental thoughts and patterns create grooves in your brain with your neural pathways, and you have got to take your thoughts literally out of the ruts, and, through practice, make new pathways. Well, this re-training is easy unless you give up. The time will pass. Just conquer your mind daily, knowing that each moment you put in is one more moment towards your 10,000 hours. Fortunately, you do have some good thoughts of yourself already banked – it is rare that someone has never thought good thoughts about herself. Build on the good. Don't berate yourself because you think your progress is too slow. It's not. It's normal. It just takes time.

You can do this. Conquer your mind! Conquer your weight!