Emotional Eaters: 5 Top Tips for Surviving Easter!

Ditch the past - ok so you ate your own body weight in chocolate on Sunday. You meant to go for a walk in the spring sunshine but were so weighted down with chocolate you couldn't.

And now you feel guilt ridden, despairing and fatter.

Now inside you there is a really bossy person who pretends to be an adult and is telling you what to do the whole time. Let's call her Miss Bossy Boots (obviously if you have a Y chromosome he's Mr Bossy Boots). So Bossy Boots is telling you off for having been so weak willed. She/he was, of course, there when you ate the children's Easter eggs and had to dash out to the local convenience store for last minute replacements. Bossy Boots was not impressed.

And Bossy Boots, in your better interests, has been finger-wagging and tut-tutting ever since, hoping to make you a better person in the future.

The problem is, it doesn't work. Bossy Boots wants the best for you and she/he thinks the best way to get you to behave is to tell you off. But you a) feel very guilty when this happens, b) resent being told off and c) want to eat more chocolate because by now you are guilty, fed up (but not with chocolate) and angry with yourself for being so weak willed.

The solution? Forget about it.

Now before Bossy Boots faints and has to be revived with smelling salts, let me explain...

The past is the past, you can't change it. Single-handedly eating the EU chocolate mountain (there's a thought) may not have been your finest moment. But hey, Einstein, you can't travel back in time and un-eat it. And beating yourself up about it is going to make you feel worse and then you'll want to eat more.

So here is a step-by-step strategy for getting past the chocolate glums:

1. Thank Bossy Boots for her kind concern, she loves you really and wants the best for you.

2. Tell her to buzz off, go take a rest for some time. She can put her feet up, read a magazine, go watch a puppy sleep.

3. Go into your inner place where you know the real you resides.

4. Recognise the real, valuable you and tell her* that you value and love her*.

5. Now refreshed and renewed, step into the rest of your life with joy!

*If appropriate, the real you can be 'him'.

Now notice I didn't mention food in that sequence of events. The past is the past and you can't undo the eating. Nor do you need to - but what you do from now on affects your future and the more positive about yourself you are, the kinder you will be to yourself. And real kindness will help you find the right foods for you.

This technique works, though you may need to spend some time with the individual steps. Helping you love, value and cherish the real you (who, I tell you, is truly wonderful) is a major part of my coaching work. Inner and outer change go together, so if you are now ready to take this process further the Food & Joy Coaching Process will be right for you.

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