If you currently live in an unhealthy, overweight, unhappy body and want it change, then you must make some changes to your “inner mind” programming first because weight loss happens from the inside out. You may have already tried multiple approaches to losing weight. The problem with this is it doesn’t work because nothing has changed inside you.
Your thoughts are the reason you have become and stay stuck in an overweight body. The way you think and feel about yourself - about your body, towards your weight and how you think about food, exercise and an overall healthy lifestyle - are all the root cause of your weight/food issues.
Weight loss, like everything else, really does begin in the mind, so programming your mind is the single most important thing you can do to shed that excess weight and keep it off. All resistance deep at the subconscious level must be eliminated or it will continue to sabotage any weight-loss efforts time and time again.
Creating a healthy weight-loss mindset is key - one focused on restoring health rather than losing weight. Once this is in place, you will have taken care of 90 per cent of the problem of weight-loss resistance, and it will be super easy to do the 10 per cent - healthy eating and exercise.
Once you find, identify and eliminate any ideas, feelings, self-beliefs and patterns that currently dictate and cause your destructive habits, weight drops easily and naturally. These mind-roadblocks currently keep you stuck.
Replacing them with positive, focused thoughts and feelings makes it so much easier to choose healthier food choices, eat less and get proper exercise into your life on a regular basis.
So how do we go about changing our mindset? If there is no metabolic or medical issue preventing weight loss, then becoming aware of your personal story is the best place to start.
Here are some powerful practices that help to re-programme your subconscious mind so you can easily achieve your weight-loss goals:
Pay attention to your inner voice. What are you telling yourself? Are you body-shaming with your words and behaviour? Do you focus on how much you hate your body? Are there negative memories that contribute to this feeling? Did someone tease you at one time about your body? Self-acceptance matters.
Change all this by looking in the mirror. Find something you love about your body and begin talking positively to yourself, much the same way you would a child. This helps to re-programme your subconscious brain.
Make this exercise even more powerful by writing down exactly what your weight-loss goals are and why you want to achieve them. Does being overweight prevent you from enjoying physical activities with your friends such as tennis, bike riding or dancing? Write down your emotions. Imagine in your mind what it will be like when you do lose the weight and can participate in the things you want to.
Repeat this new story many times daily, as often as you remember so it saturates every cell in your body and your subconscious absorbs it.
Use affirmations. They are powerful ways to reinforce your new story. Don’t project into the future by prefacing it with “I will”. Your subconscious won’t buy into that. Affirmations must be present tense. Rather than “I will” say “I am manifesting the slim person that lives inside me”. Or say something to the effect of “I am making healthy decisions about my food and exercise choices that support healthy weight and body fitness. Repeat often, especially first thing when waking and last thing before sleep when your mind is much more receptive to suggestion.
Focus on your breath – Mindfulness breathing or breathing with intention is a powerful way to reduce stress. It places your attention in the moment, helping you to become more aware of your body. There are multiple breathing techniques you can tap into on the internet such as yogic breathing or block breathing.
Block breathing destresses by creating a parasympathetic, a type of rest and restore, biochemistry in the body while digesting stress hormones. Breathe in through your nose to a count of 5, hold for a count to 5, and breathe out for a count of 5. Repeat several times.
Ditch the scale and stop weighing yourself. Once you stop focusing on the numbers on the scale, you’ll begin to pay attention to what makes your body feel good and what makes it feel bad. Don’t use the scale to define your health or your self-worth.
Practice mindfulness each moment. Concentrate and pay attention to your thoughts, words and actions. Practice mindfulness as you buy, prepare and enjoy your food choices. Notice textures, tastes and how your body feels after eating certain foods. Once you make the connection between the foods you eat and how you feel, dieting to lose weight won’t be necessary.
A fresh new attitude and perception about food as nourishment and self-care goes a long way towards changing your body composition and body image. Coming from a place of compassion and self-respect turns on your metabolic motor, creating an optimal fat-burning situation.
The journey to being slim is an inside job. Once your mind is properly programmed to becoming a slim, fit person living in a healthy, feel-good body, you begin making decisions that lead you to it without even having to think about it.
Once you get to know you on a much deeper level, transforming your body from one you detest to one you love becomes much easier.
Carolyn Hansen is co-owner Anytime Fitness
