In a previous article, I talked about emotional eating. A lot of people have this concept of comfort food. They would eat, usually very fatty or very sweet/sugar-rich food, so they can feel better about themselves. There’s nothing wrong with trying to feel better. What is wrong is that you’re using a very calorie-dense food to do that. There are other kinds of foods that you can eat in larger amounts and up weighing less.

In fact, you might even live a healthier lifestyle because you’re eating more of these foods. I am, of course, talking about plant-based foods, foods that are rich in dietary fiber, nutrients and vitamins. With all that said, there is a second part of all this. As I’ve mentioned earlier, if you want to lose weight, you only need to do two things.

First, you have to eat less and that is precisely what we’re talking about earlier regarding comfort foods and emotional eating. The second part is just as important. To lose weight, you have to move around more often. In other words, you have to increase the level at which your body burns calories. The problem with this is: just as people eat emotionally, people also loaf emotionally. That’s right! People are being lazy as an emotional payoff. Keep reading below to learn how to break these patterns.

Emotional Loafins Is As Bad As Emotional Eating

When you choose to just sit on the couch and play video games all day, or sit on your bed and wake up really late, there is an emotional payoff. There are certain chemicals in your brain that give you a sense of well-being. It feels like your living in a world that is patted with blankets; it’s nice, comfortable and warm. You feel welcome, at ease, and at peace. This is all well and good, but the problem is the kind of physical action to get that feeling.

Remember, without earlier discussion regarding emotional eating, you’re actually chasing after an emotional feeling. That is what you are doing. When you are doing emotional loafing, you are chasing after a set of emotions. The problem with this is when you eat the same amount of calories, but burn less calories because you have a low metabolism, you’re going to get fat. Obesity leads to certain forms of cancer, cardio-vascular disease, and diabetes.

Worst of all, it leads you to feeling bad because you feel bloated, out-of-shape, and fat. When you do emotional loafing, you do a lot of damage or cost. The emotional payoff may be immediate. It may feel good right now; however, you feel crappy and guilty at the end. It’s a never ending cycle.

Going Beyond the Pleasure Principle

When it comes to emotional loafing, just being lazy, or avoiding physical exercise, it’s all about the pleasure principle. We tend to do things that feel good right now; we don’t want to wait. We’d rather have our dessert and eat it today. Emotional loafing starts from here, but it grows from there; it becomes a habit. As a result, it’s hard to break because the emotional payoffs are just so strong. These people have weak willpower and tough time making the right decisions.

Why? They always again and again, choose for the immediate payoff; they choose convenience. The problem with emotional loafing is that it translates to other aspects of your life. Chances are, if you are the type of person that will always shoot for immediate relaxation, comfort and rewards, your career, relationships, education and everything will suffer. Why? The world rewards disciple. The world rewards people do the work now and collect the payoff later.

The Key to Breaking Emotional Loafing Is To Realize the Link

You have to realize the link between the emotions that you are chasing and the physical activity, or in this case, the loaf physical activty. You have to understand that there is a linkage between your low physical activity and physical pleasure and emotional well-being. It feels good when things are the same, there is stability, and so on, and so forth. Everybody can relate to that.

The problem is: stability at what price? Good feelings at what price? You’re paying as the price for that feeling that you’re chasing. You’re not burning as much calories and you’re eating higher amounts of calories, so you get bigger and bigger. You’re never going to achieve your weight loss goals doing things this way. But, if you give in to this habit, you wouldn’t care. You become addicted to that feeling that you get.

Resolve To Make the Difference

With emotional loafing, the solution is to make a desicion. Resolve to break the chain between the emotional payoff you’re getting and the physical action. Realize that you need to move around to get thinner. Focus on the emotional payoff, but redirect it to moving around. Redirect it to the feeling that you get when you’re sweating, you’re putting several hours of a workout and you feel excited. Redirect it towards the feeling that you get when you look down in the scale then you realize that you lost 75 pounds.

Redirect that emotional payoff to the feeling that you see that members of the opposite sex are looking at you at a very positive light. Regardless of what mental image you use, you have to redirect the emotional payoff; otherwise, you would stay where you are. You have to break that link between not doing something and feeling good. Train your mind to think that you will be able to get that emotional payoff if you link it to a physical activity.

Change the Emotional Payoff

The other approach would be to just change the emotional payoff. In other words, when you engage in loafing behavior and you don’t run, exercise, hit the treadmill or gym, change the emotional payoff to shame, guilt, and embarrassment. Make it hurt. Feel it. Feel the emotional urgency, the sense of shame that you get when you look in the mirror and you feel fat. Keep at this until you establish a strong linkage between just loafing around the house and feeling like a bum.