Is Silence Smiting Your Weight Loss Goals?

November 4, 2018 Ashley 0 Comments

“The best diet is a closed mouth.”

You’ve probably heard this quote more than once before.

It’s snarky. It’s funny. And it’s often not wrong. If you cut the portions you’re eating, you’ll likely lose weight. But are there some cases where this is opposite of true? Are there some cases where a closed mouth collects more calories? Indeed, when it comes to talking about trauma, there’s a definite exception to this rule. According to one study done on bariatric patients, 75% had undergone trauma of some sort in their early years. And a significant amount hadn’t bothered to process them – professionally or otherwise. The result? For them, it meant the swallowing of feelings in cheese pizza and fried food form – while also swallowing back the words about the hurt they’d gone through. Not talking about trauma is unaddressed stress. This is when we often act reckless or self abuse in some form or another. It’s a way of (temporarily) alleviating that aggression when we can’t express it. It’s a way of regaining a sense of control. If we’re the ones sucking up the drugs or swallowing subway hoagies whole like an adult entertainment actress missing a gag reflex, then we feel we’ve got power over something. The problem? By having control over these things that bring us fleeting glee, we still haven’t fixed the central issue. The real thing that’s bothering us. It’s still there, encased in a pain that’s elevated the second that endorphins from morphine and meatloaf alike wear off. We still have no control over that. It’s hurts. So we reach for our drug of choice again – be it too much food, pharmaceuticals, or some similarly unhealthy tendency – so we can feel good again. However briefly.

All because we can’t get out power back from where we really want to.

But that’s the lie.

The truth is, we can take our power back. We just have to snatch it back from the lie we told ourselves when we agreed that the trauma of our past made us somehow less human. The lie that we should feel ashamed. The lie that we don’t deserve to walk with confidence. The lie that it was our fault. The lie that an event or even phase of our lives has to define us. And, while half of this is something internal we do on our own, I can’t stress enough the importance of sharing stress with others who can relate. If you can afford a counselor, awesome. But, if not, there are innumerable support groups everywhere just waiting for you to walk in the door and put your pain on the table so they can tell you how you’re both gonna get through this together.

Caveat? Habits are very hard to break. And the addicted mind is very tricky. Two addicts (of any kind) together can either pull each other up or be eachother’s twin anvils in a sea of temptation. The trick is to always see the hope for a better way. In sharing the pain of the past, never get seduced by the allure of a victim mentality. It becomes an excuse to use food or anything else to stay where you are instead of growing. You were victimized. But you are not a victim. Not now. Not anymore. You have survived. And now you’re going to thrive. Find the guidance in your life – be it religion or principled support group – to remind you of that every effing day. In sum, if you’ve got trauma, talk it out. Don’t swallow it. Because you’ll swallow the whole pantry with it. Instead, talk it out, with the specific aim of exiting the victim status, transforming, and healing yourself inside out.

Get it off your chest, and you can get that extra flesh off you, too.