"My ex mother-in-law told me at 19, and 125 lbs, that I needed to lose ten pounds. For years after, as my weight gradually increased to 135, I was obsessed by the fact that because she said what she said, therefore, I must be really fat."

Words can really hurt, can't they? You can dissolve your emotional attachment to that memory using EFT. This is the type of issue you'd tackle in the 8-week course, so you'd start with "Even though my MIL said I needed to lose 10 pounds, I deeply and completely accept myself."

I won't go into a lengthy explanation but EFT it is a self-administered light tapping technique, based on the principals of the 5000-year old Chinese Meridian therapy. It's easy to learn, and easy to use and can effectively reduce or eliminate many emotional issues that linger. I believe it's those type memories that drive our eating behaviors, so despite some people thinking emotions are not connected to our eating, I think, how could they not be?

I just turned 40 two months ago. I am happily married for the second time, enjoy my job, and have a loving son- I just haven't been able to conquer the beast that is my weight, and yet I know that no diet will work, or has, and if I don't do something, I could end up dead from the myriad of illnesses that accompany obesity.

That's your motivation. If you don't do something then ... That's called "away from" motivation. You may be more inclined to take action to avoid something else. Some people are geared to work harder to avoid consequences, while others are pushed to work for a goal based on a reward (that's called "toward motivation" and you may switch back and forth depending on what it is.

Here's an article about the Motivation Strategy and how to figure which style you prefer, whether "away from" or "toward."

For example, kids will work hard (clean their room) for a reward (pizza, night out, etc.), but the threat of consequences if they don't do homework (you'll be punished for getting bad grades, lose privileges, etc.) isn't enough: they don't want to do homework and don't see that far off negative consequence as worth thinking about in the moment.

Adults tend to think about those far off consequences more because they are more mature and also because they realize many things (wealth for example) are slowly created over time. So, a goal of better health is sometimes hard to hold onto in the moment. That pie of candy looks might good right now. The thought of losing weight disappears in the face of the goodies, and then comes the guilt and frustration over having "blown it again." The endless cycle then self perpetuates: "I eat because I'm depressed, I'm depressed because I eat."

Your site has given me hope- and I am grateful to you for the effort that you put into helping others by your words of wisdom, and lessons learned.

Thank you and now you can do something for me. Get the materials (no cost) and learn to use EFT. Get on the Daily Bites list, if you aren't already where you'll get several lessons every week in how I use EFT in my daily life to conquer stress, frustrations, cravings, and more. Using it in daily life is how it translates into something useful for your weight, body image, self esteem, and so on.

If I could ask you one thing; it would have to be-- What do you advise someone in my condition, who has so far to go, where to even begin? I have come to the end of "I'll start tomorrows," but don't know where to start today.

Begin with one step. Learn EFT and start to practice it. Step 2 is to choose one thing you do now, whether it's food or sweeping the floor, doesn't matter. Choose one thing you do or don't do that you'd like to change.

What is the frequency of the thing you do or don't do? Using food, let's say you like ice cream every night. Lots of people do. It's creamy and delicious and is a nice treat because you work hard and you deserve a little treat, right? Of course you do, we all do, but sometimes our self talk of how we deserve this or that can override our earlier resolve to eat better, so this is what to do:

1. How often do you eat ice cream? If every night, you'd put five times a week as your reply.
   
2. Consider if you could take just one night and skip the ice cream? Think about it for a minute, and really think whether you could accomplish this, or whether you'd just say screw it, I'm having my ice cream. If you think you could accomplish it, then write that down in your handwriting on a slip of paper, and tape it to your monitor or put it somewhere you can see it.
   
   "I am going to eat ice cream four times this week, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday."
   
3. Notice we are skipping Tuesday? You don't make a big deal out of saying, "I'm NOT having ice cream on Tuesday, but instead just decide you won't and then ignore that and focus on what you ARE going to do which is have ice cream on the other nights.
   
4. If when you consider whether you could do this you said, yes I can, then you have already decided what to do next. This week put into action your plan to have ice cream the nights you said you would.
   
5. At the end of the week, look back. Did you do what you said? Did you have ice cream all but Tuesday? If yes, cool deal. How was it? You survived. It wasn't so bad, was it? If you didn't that's okay too. We're human, we slip and fall, and it doesn't matter. Each week you just decide anew whether to do the same as last week or whether to notch it up.

After a few weeks (maybe only one, that's up to you), again decide, what if you had ice cream three nights a week? Hummm. That's possible, really, so then you again do the same basic thing, slowly cutting back the ice cream eating from five nights to four, four to three, then maybe only two, sometimes you can cut in half right away but I think it's smart to go about it really slowly at first.

Eventually you may find you enjoy ice cream once or twice a week instead of nightly. That's a big step toward having a few pounds disappear right there, believe me. And it's these habits that keep us heavier than we want to be.

Use EFT for Easier Weight Loss

Learn EFT and start to use it, and lots of little things will begin to shift. Use it for annoyances old and new. Any memory of something that hurt you is a good thing to do EFT with. I'll be having more tele-classes (telephone & Internet based) and chat sessions (available via The Back Fence so get registered for access) starting in March to help teach EFT, so keep a look out for those.

Choose one eating habit (or exercise or whatever you want) that you'd like to change and begin to whittle away at it. Slow change tends to be permanent change, and you want a permanent change, not a quick fix that only lasts three weeks.

Join the Daily Bites, and learn EFT, the easiest weight loss technique.
Even if you don't want to receive The Daily Bites, that's okay. You can learn it and apply just reading the articles on the One More Bite site. Lots of people have written to say they've lost weight just by visiting and that's so great to hear ;-)