I’d like to talk a little about comfort eating. You have certain needs in life, as all people do. You have an inherent need for companionship, attention intimacy, status, feelings of security, a sense of competence, a need to be stretched and stimulated, the need to feel your life has meaning and purpose. You also have more basic needs such as the need for water and the need to fuel your body with decent nutrition. Most of the time we don’t think about these needs consciously but rather we try to fulfill them instinctively.

This is fine as far as it goes. However, sometimes the signals get crossed. So you may know you need something but you may not know clearly exactly what it is. It might be that you need to sleep, or relax, or phone a friend to give and receive attention but, through force of habit, you may reach for some sweet-filled or carb-filled food. Eating food in order to try and fulfill some other need can feel as if it works in the very short term, but of course it’s no real solution at all, because the real need still hasn’t been met and now you have the extra problem of having added unnecessary extra fat cells to your body.

And sometimes what is really chronic dehydration is registered as hunger – and then, instead of looking for water, you find yourself reaching for food. Sometimes you know that you are low in energy – but consuming too much sugary food leads to a later crash in energy. Eating foods which convert to sugars very slowly – such as turkey or some other lean meat – will stop those desperate cravings.

So the next time you are tempted to comfort eat, stop and think: What is it that would really fulfill you at that time? Would it be rest and relaxation? Would it be company and having the space to chat freely? What is your real need in the situation? Because if the wrong thing is used in a misguided attempt to fill the sense of a gap, then eating just won’t work!

If you had been comfort eating then, of course, you were trying to feel comforted by the food. We need comforting if we feel anxious. Regular deep relaxation is the real nourishment you need, as the more you relax day to day the more you actually feel and are comforted. Because there is nothing truly comforting about getting an expanding waist line and deteriorating health!

Performance Hypnosis offers hypnosis sessions on CD for controlling comfort eating and other weight loss challenges. For more information or to order your hypnosis session on CD visit www.performancehypno.com.