What Do You Weigh Inside?

Since weight loss, or weight gain for that matter, happens from the inside out, the first thing you need to become aware of, is how much you weigh inside. Yes, that's right, not your outer-physical weight but your inner-emotional weight!

Let me explain what I mean. We all carry around within us positive and negative life ex- periences from our childhood to the present moment, and the nature of these experiences determines our emotional weight.

Positive, healthy experiences create in us a sense of lightness and joyfulness, while negative, hurtful experiences create a sense of heaviness and depression.

Now, because our negative experiences usually involve inner conflict or struggle, we don't often deal openly and honestly with the emotions they produce, such as sadness, fear, loneliness, anger, guilt, etc. Rather than accepting, expressing, and resolving these difficult feelings, we bury them inside our bodies, where they grow strong and take their revenge unexpectedly through all sorts of impulsive and "out of control" behaviors, including overeating.

In this case, when we stuff ourselves with negative emo- tions, our emotional weight balloons, and the trouble is that when our emotional weight soars, our body weight usually does the same.

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"How many heavy thoughts and feelings have you swallowed down
and stored inside your body?"

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My experience of working with overweight people, both in my private practice and at Kaiser Permanente, has proven to me that the heavier you feel emotionally or psychologically, the heavier you are likely to be physically.

How much do you weigh emotionally? How many heavy thoughts and feelings have you swallowed down and stored inside your body? Begin to find some answers by taking the "Ocean Emotional Weight Quiz" at www.keep-it-off.com.

© 2004 Dr. Brian Alman