How To Lose Weight With EFT Tapping By Eliminating Cravings?

Lose Weight With EFT Tapping

In this article, you will learn about food craving and weight loss, how it is a conditioning response, and the steps to eliminate food craving and lose weight using Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) Tapping.

My mother always told me, "If you crave something, your body is asking for it and you should eat it." And boy did I follow that advice without any prejudice. Of course, she forgot to add the little 'if's' and 'buts' of eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.

The result is, I found myself standing in front of the mirror one day, asking myself, "Where did all these saddlebags come from?" And then my struggle against weight really started. I tried everything from fad diets to exercise, yoga and whatnot, and even considered getting a surgery.

I didn't really lose significant weight despite all these steps and eventually let go of them. I wondered why didn't all these methods work? What was I doing wrong?

The answer struck me like a lightning bolt, I had indulged in my cravings.

Oh! The love that the dark gooey bar of chocolate, or the tub of ice-cream gave me couldn't be compared to any good feeling. No matter what I tried, it was so difficult to not indulge and let go these yummy cravings.

What if I told you that there is a therapeutic method called Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) that is clinically proven to help people lose weight and eliminate cravings through face-to-face and online group sessions?

This therapeutic method focuses on the emotions, beliefs and memories associated with cravings and weight gain and will help you uncover and clear the root cause, which is the reason you started to crave and put on weight in the first place.

"Successful weight loss takes programming, not will power"

phil mcgraw

American Television Personality

Food Cravings and Body Weight: A Conditioning Response

Food cravings are relatively common, with more than 90% of people experiencing them.

Cravings vary from person to person, but they are usually fleeting and commonly for processed foods high in sugar, salt, and unhealthy fats.

Males are more prone to seek savoury foods, while females are more likely to crave high fat, sweet foods, according to research.

Food cravings can cause a person to eat items that are bad for their health and can make it difficult to stick to a healthy diet or lifestyle.

A food craving is described as a strong want to consume a specific type of food on a regular basis. Until recently, there was a debate over whether energy restriction reduces food desires and whether the conditioning model of cravings is realistic. According to the conditioning model of food cravings, cravings can occur when specific foods are consumed in conjunction with exterior (e.g., watching television) or interior (e.g., feeling sad) stimuli. Food cravings are thought to be responsible for up to 11% of the variation in eating behavior and weight gain. (1)

A food craving is a complex issue that can be very difficult to overcome. When you crave something, you lose your freedom of choice and the biochemistry in your brain starts calling the shots for you. This leads to hogging the food that you love in extra quantity which in turn leads to weight gain.

HOW TO ELIMINATE CRAVINGS

You would be very sure that you wouldn't have gained that extra few pounds recently, or while celebrating your birthday, or during your previous vacation, if you didn't have these food cravings.

Nasty cravings seem to appear when we least expect them and usually when we are unequipped to resist them.

Pizza, chocolate, cake, chips, and ice cream are likely to be the things you crave because they are high in sugar, fats, and carbohydrates. Cravings can derail your weight-loss plans and lead to binge eating, but with these methods, you can learn to handle them and stay on track.

Some methods are:

Drink plenty of water: Hunger and thirst cause very similar sensations, making it possible for people to mistake thirst for hunger.

Some people may find that staying hydrated throughout the day reduces their eating cravings. Even if the craving doesn’t completely go away, the fullness of your stomach will make it less intense.

Drinking a lot of water has a lot of health benefits.
Recognize food craving patterns: According to the research, cravings arise when your urge to eat a specific item is combined with a stimulation such as watching a favorite TV show or feeling sad or lonely.

Sticking to a healthy dietary plan will assist to lower the desire to seek out the enticing items you're trying to avoid, so your cravings will lessen or even go away.

Food cravings are likely to decrease or even disappear when you limit your overall calorie intake—especially when you eliminate sugar and white flour-based products.
Chew gum: Sugarless gum helps to curb hunger and cravings for sweet and salty items.
Get rid of all temptations: Don't tempt yourself if you can't stop at one. Simply avoid bringing these foods into the house—cookies, chips, and crackers.

For example, if you're watching a TV show and you're craving popcorn, he suggests switching to another show. If you can't stand it, walk on the treadmill while watching to interrupt the pattern of chewing while watching.
Sleep: Sleep deprivation can alter your appetite and cause cravings. Unfortunately, when it comes to fitness and weight loss, the value of sleep is frequently overlooked.

The issue is that we quickly become accustomed to sleeping less and fail to realise the true impact on our health. We become irritable, constantly hungry, and dissatisfied, and we begin to blame it on job, stress, or a lack of leisure. However, most of the time, the real reason is a lack of sleep.
Mindful eating: It is linked to the mindfulness practice and development. Mindfulness is defined as “ the process of being aware and present in the present moment without passing judgement. This can be applied to food and eating as well.

They evaluated the effect of mini-meditations prior to eating or when the impulse to overeat occurs in several tests. It entailed focusing one's awareness on food-related behaviors, thoughts, and emotions. The results indicated a favorable effect, as the frequency and severity of hunger pangs decreased in the meditation group.

Despite the fact that binge eating and cravings are not the same, they may appear simultaneously.
Think long term: It would be absurd to believe that rational thought can halt a craving, but taking a step back and imagining the long-term effects can help some people better manage their urges.

The following are some of the possible outcomes:

-decreased levels of energy
-greater negativity and mood swings
-obesity and diabetes pose health hazards (3)
Eat proper meals: Cravings can be triggered by hunger or a lack of essential nutrients.

As a result, it's critical to eat nutritious meals at regular intervals. Your body will get the nutrition it requires this way, and you will not feel famished shortly after eating.

If you find yourself in need of a snack in between meals, make it a nutritious one. Fruits, nuts, veggies, and seeds are examples of entire foods.
Emotion Freedom Technique: This alternative therapy technique helps you to manage your deep rooted emotions that is connected with the cravings, and clear it out. This leads to eliminating of the craving substance and healthy eating.

So you might be wondering how you can let go of food cravings and lose weight?

I learnt how to eliminate cravings during EFT Practitioner Training in Mumbai, India.

Once the technique is learnt, and you start to use it on yourself, you will find your cravings for chocolate and chips will disappear, and you will make healthy food choices. With EFT, it is really easy to eliminate cravings. Every time you crave something just start tapping for only a minute. Eventually, you will realize that you don't crave that substance anymore.

If you are new to EFT, you can simply download the booklet below and get started right away.

New to EFT? Learn how EFT Tapping heals.

Emotional Freedom Techniques (tapping) is clinically proven to lower stress, tension, anxiety, past-trauma to enable health, happiness and vitality.

CLAIM MY FREE E-BOOKLET

HOW EFT TAPPING WORKS FOR CRAVINGS AND WEIGHT LOSS

Working on cravings isn't just about avoiding your favourite food item, and weight loss isn't about just going on a diet or exercising till you have no energy left in your body. It's also about processing your emotions so that you can deal with them in a comprehensive approach.

One of the biggest causes of cravings that leads to weight gain, is negative emotions. These may include stress, confusion, anxiety, etc. These emotions lead to what is called an Amygdala 'hi-jack' where the amygdala, the part of the brain that regulates anxiety and fear, is firing off constantly. This also leads to decreased blood flow in the frontal lobe, resulting in a reduced thinking capacity.

The amygdala is also the addiction centre. So every time you see some food item that you crave, the amygdala starts firing. This is proven to be more intense in people who are obese. Hence depriving yourself of a certain food item may as well be a lost cause.

EFT Tapping focuses on the emotional centre, and not on the 'diet and exercise' part of weight loss. It is more emotionally led. EFT activates the amygdala. Which helps lower cortisol levels and increases blood flow to the frontal lobe. This allows you to feel better, think clearly, and make healthy food choices.

EFT Tapping has been proven to be effective even after the client discontinues to be a part of the therapy. The results are consistent and the weight will continue to decrease even after a year.

The steps to let go of food cravings and Lose weight WITH EFT Tapping

Bring into your awareness one food item that you crave and want to no longer crave, for example, chocolates, cakes, samosa, chips or pizza.

Place the food item or substance on a tissue and smell it. Then touch it and smell it. Do not taste it! Smell and look at the substance without consuming it.

Then ask yourself what does it smell, touch, feel and look like, for example, “It is so crunchy and sweet!”

Then tap on the exact words of how you feel about the substance. For example, "Even though it's so crunchy and sweet, I love and accept myself."

Keep tapping till the intensity of the craving comes down.

You can also ask yourself, what do you feel when you smell the food item and when have you not felt like that before.

For example, I was working with a client who loved to eat bread and she uncovered that eating bread makes her feel comfortable and a time when she did not feel comfortable was when she was in school and was bullied and there was a bakery opposite the school where she would get bread to comfort the feelings she felt after she was bullied.

After tapping on the memories associated with the reason for the craving then smell the substance again. Notice how it starts to smell differently. For example, chocolates can smell like chemicals and chips can smell of oil. Some people even report that there is no smell.

Many times the substance is filling something that is missing – comfort, safety, love, protection

DOES EFT REALLY WORK FOR ELIMINATING CRAVINGS AND WEIGHT LOSS

Emotional Freedom Technique is a tool that is considered to be highly efficient in dealing with various emotional and physical issues and there have been many studies that prove its effectiveness. Furthermore, it does not require much time unlike talk therapy.

Clinical studies have found EFT Tapping to be extremely useful in helping people eliminate their food cravings and lose weight:

EFT Tapping for obese and overweight adults: The study compared Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for food cravings in 83 adults who were overweight or obese in an 8-week intervention. Information was gathered at baseline, post-intervention, at 6-months and a year follow-up.

The result of this study showed that EFT and CBT are both very powerful tools in diminishing food cravings, one's responsiveness to food, and dietary restriction. The study also showed that the techniques are very effective for delivering weight loss results and the impacts were are clinically significant, especially for psychological variables involved. (4)

EFT Tapping for food craving: 451 Participants were randomly assigned to an eight-week online EFT intervention group or waitlist control group. The sample comprised primarily of women (96%) aged between 41 and 60 years. In treatment group, 65% consumed their craved foods daily and were obese. Post-intervention analyses revealed significant reductions on all measures for 314 participants in the EFT condition with moderate to high practical significance for the online intervention. However, there were no significant differences for 137 participants in the waitlist control group. The participants in the EFT group were found to have treatment gains in a 6-month and 12-month follow-up.

In conclusion, the study's results established online EFT as an accessible and effective instrument to help in the control of food craving and management of body weight. (5)

EFT Tapping for long term weight management: Participants in a longitudinal intervention program conducted over a period of 2-years were initially randomly allocated to a treatment or waitlist group. The treatment group was instructed to try to lose weight through a self-paced online EFT program divided into 7 modules spread through 8 weeks, while the participants in the waitlist group were not allotted any treatment plan.

The result found EFT to be effective in decreasing food longings, the perceptional force of food, and improving dietary restriction and keeping up those enhancements over a 2-year time frame. Furthermore, it was also found that the group that was in the EFT treatment plan had reduced carbohydrate and fast food craving, and their body mass index improved significantly as compared to the waitlist group.

These cravings may not necessarily be an eating disorder and may even have underlying deep emotional issues. For example, I realized that I craved a bar of chocolate only when I didn't feel loved.

It is important to get to the root of the issue and eliminate it from there for longer lasting results.

I am still a work in progress, however, I now know how I can live a happier, healthier craving free life. I still enjoy that occasional bar of chocolate, the guilt I had when I ate that is no longer there.

Love,

Rangana & Donita

In summary, one way to lose weight is to eliminate food cravings. Food cravings and weight gain have a direct relationship so it is important to keep in the check the craving intake. As food cravings are rooted in emotional eating and can pile on the pounds. By using EFT Tapping to eliminate the surface cravings and the root cause, it is easy to say goodbye to unhealthy cravings and hello to a slimmer, trimmer and fitter body.

References:

Disclaimer: The information on this website is purely for educational purposes and does not in any way replace the requirement for medical and psychological diagnosis and treatment. Please do seek professional medical and psychological diagnosis and advice for all medical and mental health conditions. It is advised to always book any consultations with qualified professionals.

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