Lose Weight Using Affirmations

Before I begin talking about affirmations and how to use them to assist you in your weight loss journey, I want to briefly discuss mindset. It is important that you think about this journey as a lifestyle change, not self deprivation. If you view the effort to lose weight as a “diet” or as temporary, you’re risking ending right back where you started. You won’t always need to lose weight obviously, however feeding your body healthy foods and exercising consistently is a lifestyle – something that you will want to continue for many years to come. No, that doesn’t mean you can’t hit the bakery once in a blue moon if you must, however if the people behind the counter call you by name, that's a problem (unless you're wearing a name tag). Much like a car, our bodies must be treated right in order to run right, or they will eventually break down. You are not on a diet. You’re changing the way you view and treat yourself and your body. You’re making a lifetime commitment to a healthy mind and body and believe me; you’ll be very glad you did.

Now, can we really use affirmations to help us lose weight and do they really work? The answer is yes, and yes. As most of us know, an affirmation is a statement that you make to yourself repeatedly, affirming its validity. So why does this work? It’s very simple. Your mind believes everything you tell it and our minds and our bodies are directly inked (believe it or not). If you are consistently affirming to yourself that you’re fat and no one finds you attractive, then that is exactly the circumstances you will experience. Your mind is like a computer and it looks for and does what it’s told. If you have convinced it that you're fat and no one will like you, you have now tuned into a station called “I’m fat and no one likes me” and everyone else who listens to the same music has tuned in with you. Oh boy, a pity party.

Change the self-talk. Positive affirmations work in exactly the same way as negative self-talk only you get much more desirable results. There is a lot of debate surrounding whether an affirmation should be repeated in present tense if it hasn’t happened yet or re-worded to be more future friendly. The reason it is believed that present tense should not be used is the mind may think you’re lying to it and won’t respond.

I say false! If that's true, then negative self-talk would have no effect on us either. It obviously does, or we wouldn't be here trying to reverse anything.

Again, the mind believes everything you tell it if you tell it often enough. Begin your affirmation with “I am…” and then fill in the rest. "I am" is an extremely powerful and effective declaration. I will give you a few affirmation phrase examples at the end of this article that I’ve used and that worked incredibly well for me.

Repeat the positive affirmations to yourself all day, every day. You want these new beliefs to eventually flow through your mind without effort. Do not just make it a short 10 min. session before bed or when you arise, but make affirmations a part of your consistent self-talk. Think about it. If you’re telling yourself that you’re a hottie for a mere 10 minutes a day and the rest of the day you’re complaining about your looks, well it’s no wonder the mind becomes confused. You’ve left it no choice but to investigate. “Wait, which is it? Are we a fattie or a hottie?” and now it takes inventory and deems one of the statements as false. Do you see how this works?

Always repeat the positive affirmations to yourself and steer clear of negative self-talk. If you catch yourself having a moment (and we all do), stop, breathe deep and change the chatter. Your mind will soon believe what you’re telling it and find every possible resource to confirm what you’ve said. Now you’ll be tuned into a station that delivers everything you need to make this new reality just that – a reality.

Here are a few affirmation examples to get you started.

1. I am losing body fat at a consistent rate.
2. I am gaining muscle tone at a consistent rate.
3. I am committed to great health and fitness.
4. I am beautiful, inside and out.
5. I am full of energy and excited about my new, healthy lifestyle!
6. I am capable of anything I set my mind too.
7. I am unstoppable!

You are a broken record. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Don’t worry, you don’t have to carry a list with you and read each one in sequence. Simply begin repeating these phrases to yourself throughout your day (silently or aloud) and it will become natural and automatic in a very short period of time. When they become automatic and effortless – you have successfully re-trained the brain and better body--here you come! Yes, you are unstoppable!

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