Photo by Laura Ockel on Unsplash
Is your love for sugar sabotaging your healthy lifestyle?
Does this sound familiar? You fill your shopping basket with vegetables, a little fruit, free range eggs, natural yogurt, grass fed beef. You read the labels on food to avoid added sugars and processed food in general. You go to yoga, pilates or the gym, take long walks, enjoy outside activities and start feeling really good about your lifestyle choices; then the lure of processed sugar gets the better of you.

Whether it’s in the form of chocolate, lollies, desserts or sweets, we all have our own weaknesses. You’ve made healthy choices all day and then late in the afternoon when you’re starving on the way home from work or in the evening when the children have finally gone to bed, all your resolutions go out the window or rather straight in the rubbish bin with the wrappers.
Why do we do this?

​There’s no shortage of information about the inherent dangers associated with eating too much sugar. It can cause inflammation in the body, a burden on our liver, and increased insulin in our blood which in turn, triggers hunger. Sugar can be addictive and eating sugar activates the opiate receptors in the brain. Every time we reach for something sweet and experience that chemical reaction we are strengthening those neural pathways in the brain. We often reach for sugar in an attempt to feel better but did you know that sugar addiction is linked with anxiety and depression?

So back to that question, why do we do it?

For some people it’s primarily driven by habit that’s been reinforced through repetition, the same environmental triggers, thought processes and chemical reactions. For other people, there’s deeper subconscious programming at play that keeps drawing them back to the behaviour. At a subconscious level they may be linking the feelings that they get when eating sugar to being loved or it may be helping them to form a protective ‘layer’ to keep them safe from unwanted attention or occasionally it may even be a form of punishment or rebellion.

If it’s a habit we want to change, what can we do?

Now, I’m not a fan of dieting and often when we’re deliberately restricting ourselves, we only want the desired food more because of the restriction. I much prefer the approach of listening to our bodies, intuitive eating and enjoying all things in moderation. Recognising food as just “food” without a good or bad label. I believe in loving and respecting our bodies as the vessels that house our souls and being kind to them. That means speaking kindly to ourselves and loving our bodies just as they are, right now. Even though we may desire to become stronger, slimmer or fitter, it’s important to love ourselves in the present moment. Just in the same way we can love a puppy right now and also want to nurture them as they grow and change.
However, in the case of a habit like buying a chocolate every day on your way home from work, I believe a full restriction is actually easier to implement. If you draw a line in the sand and make a decision to stop, it means that every day driving home you don’t need to make a choice. The word decision is Latin for “to cut off from” and when you make this decision, you’re cutting off the other options. Your willpower will only last for so long. Willpower is like a battery that gets charged every night and when we get up in the morning the battery is fully charged and ready to go. During the day we make thousands of decisions and as we become fatigued our ‘will power’ wanes. If you decide to buy a chocolate occasionally on your way home from work, then each day you’ll need to make a decision. Is today the day? However, if you decide to stop buying chocolate on the way home from work completely, then the decision has already been made. It’s in the past, it’s something you used to do.

If you try this and still find that you’re struggling, then going deeper and exploring the subconscious programming and creating change at this level, could be just what you need. I still remember the email I received from one client who’d struggled with sugar addiction and she couldn’t believe that she been out for coffee, ordered a dessert to go with it and then didn’t even want it. She had a couple of mouthfuls and it just tasted too sweet and unappealing. Another client told me that she took her children to a birthday party and normally snuck a few sweets from her children’s take- home party bags, however, now she had no interest in eating them at all. Utilising your powerful subconscious mind can make change easier.

​Photo by Food Photographer | Jennifer Pallian on Unsplash

​7 Signs of self-sabotage that show your inner critic is way too powerful!
 
Self –reflection that leads to self-awareness is an essential tool for personal growth. It’s through this process that we can learn, improve and create happier relationships and success in all areas of life. We all need to have access to our inner critic for self-evaluation so if we’re striving to be the best possible versions of ourselves a healthy, well-balanced inner critic is a wonderful thing. However, it’s easy to become too self-critical. A high level of self-criticism is detrimental to success and good mental health. In fact, excessive self-criticism is a form of self-sabotage and damages your self-esteem and conf
 
 

Consider these 7 signs that show you might be too critical of yourself:

1. No matter what you achieve, you feel that it’s not enough. It doesn’t matter to you that you scored 95% in an exam, you’re bothered by the remaining 5%. Or you decided to improve your fitness and went to the gym twice last week, but you’re feeling inadequate because your friend went four times. 
2. You consistently say negative things to yourself. A constant barrage of self-criticism is highly damaging. Imagine telling a young child that they can’t do anything right and should give up trying. It sounds crazy when viewed from that perspective. Your subconscious mind listens to every word you say and constant negative self-talk programs your mind for failure.
3. You’re suffering from analysis paralysis! One sign is that you’ve been stuck in the same situation for an extended period of time, because you’re overly critical towards yourself. You make mental lists of all your short-comings with no balancing awareness of your strengths and then you’re too scared to take action, in case it leads to failure.
   
4. You find it really difficult to speak up and share your opinion. You have to be comfortable with yourself to feel comfortable with asserting yourself. Assertiveness also brings the risk of rejection. Being too self-critical can increase the fear of rejection from others and on a subconscious level acceptance from the “tribe” is paramount to survival. Researchers have discovered that pain and social rejection are registered in the same part of the brain.  
5. You struggle to ask for help. It shouldn’t be extremely difficult to ask for help, whether it’s from team mates at work or family members at home. In fact, the more help the better! Are you afraid of being judged as incapable or less than others? If so, you’re too critical of yourself.
   
6. You spend too much time dwelling on your mistakes and you generalise. Can you move on quickly after a short period of self-reflection or do you dwell on your mistakes for an extended period of time? Do you criticize yourself in general terms, rather than just for a specific event? There’s a difference between telling yourself that you’ve made a mistake on a budget and telling yourself that you’re completely hopeless at math. General criticism is false and highly damaging. If you tried baked a cake and it flopped, it doesn’t mean there’s no hope for you in the kitchen. A lack of success at a particular activity doesn’t make you flawed at everything. It’s illogical.
   
7. You can’t accept a compliment graciously. If someone compliments you, you disagree with them or downplay what they’ve said. Everyone is good at something. Or maybe you know you’re good at a few things but don’t think you deserve a compliment. Either way, you’re being too hard on yourself.  

 
If these seven signs of self-sabotage resonate with you, it may be time to take steps to do the subconscious work and quieten your inner critic, so that you can create the success you desire.

Photo credit: Photo by Molnár Bálint on Unsplash

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