To Lose Weight, You Must First Lose Your MIND (PT 2)

In part 2 of our series, we are starting with the N in our Mind acronym, which stands for Nemesis or inner critic. You have probably noticed that you have this non-stop voice in your head that is constantly rambling; often it is saying things that are not supportive of you.

Many of us don’t realize we have been programmed by society, parents, educators etc. to see ourselves a certain way. That is where this voice inside our head comes from, what others have said, what we have interpreted about ourselves from society and so forth. It is not based in fact, often it is things we have held onto since childhood that maybe at one point in our lives had been useful, but no longer serves us.

Most people believe it is more comfortable to stay the same than to change. Even though we are consciously not happy with how we look, the way we feel, the way our clothes fit. A part of us identifies with who we are. We have ideas about ourselves and how we think we should be. For instance, we often hear our clients say things like once you have children you can’t ever get your figure back. Everyone in my family is overweight, that is just how we are built, once you are over 40 it is very difficult to lose weight and so on.

Many clients that we work with start to have success, they start losing weight and then we notice that they seem to be sabotaging their weight loss.

You start on a diet and immediately your nemesis or inner critic starts in, this is too hard, you can’t have any of the food enjoy, you hate to exercise, exercise is painful, it is too time consuming. As soon as you give into this voice, you hear, I told you that you didn’t have any willpower; I can’t believe you didn’t exercise today, you are so lazy. You can’t win.

No matter what you do, that inner critic, nemesis is there to tear you apart. Therefore, you go the road of least resistance and reach for that box of cookies for comfort or sleep in instead of exercising because you have not committed to creating your new self.

The last part of our unsupportive MIND acronym is D for Doubt. We doubt that we can successfully lose weight and keep it off and we have a lot of proof that we should doubt our ability. Most people have tried and failed to lose weight many times.

This doubt and lack of confidence leads to frustration. It seems no matter what we do we can’t lose weight. Maybe it is our genes, our age, too many pregnancies, we are too stressed, too busy, and too unlucky. We doubt we can ever be thin. With all these negative thoughts, feelings and emotions, there is no way we can possibly bring in what we want into our lives.

If you are familiar with the Law of Attraction, you will attract what you focus on. If you are focusing on all your doubts, then that will be your reality. If you focus on not wanting to be fat, exercise is too hard, you don’t have any time for exercise, and life is too busy. This will be your reality.

The good news is there is the flipside to the MIND. The part of your mind that can create anything you want in life.

We will now look at the resourceful side of our MIND acronym starting with N, which is NOW. Living in the present moment is all we have. Living in the now, is the number one secret to bringing fun and joy back into your life and eliminating overwhelm.

Everything that has ever happened in your life happened in the present moment. We cannot relive the past. What happened is the past is done. The future is not guaranteed. All we really have is this present moment, but most of us don’t live in the present.

The only thing we ever have is the present moment. Now our un-resourceful MIND will lead us to believe that the past is still controlling us or the future looks grim, but that is just not the case. Everything you have ever created in life happened in the present moment.

You can start today to create the body of your dreams by focusing in on the present moment and not giving any energy to the past. Looking forward towards the future by focusing only on what you want will help to guide you in the present moment to make decisions, which support you in achieving your weight loss goals.

There are many books and CDs that talk about how to live in the present and this is something we work with our clients on mastering.

The final key to the light side of the MIND acronym is D for decision or decisiveness. You must decide that you want to be at your ideal weight, have an abundance of energy, look and feel youthful energetic and sexy. If you are wishy- washy in what in you want in life, then you will never get what you want.

It takes making that decision that today you are going to start doing whatever it takes to create what you want in life. If you don’t want to have this in your life than also decide. This is not for me, I am happy with the way I look, the way I feel.

If this is true, great than accept it, love yourself and devote yourself to doing what fulfills you, but I suspect because you are reading this article that you are not happy with the way you look and feel, with your energy levels. Know that you can do something about it. You have the power to change your mind.

Now you probably noticed, we didn’t really focus on diet and exercise. Although these are important factors in losing weight, they are only a small part of what it takes to be successful. We have found that 80% of weight loss success occurs by making these changes in the MIND; the other 20% come from incorporating healthy diet habits and physical activity. This is why we say in order to lose weight you must first lose your “un-resourceful” mind.

What most people do is the opposite. They put all their effort into trying to force themselves to eat “rabbit food” and exercise, while hating it the whole time and counting the days until they can quit instead of making the necessary mindset shifts to make the process fun and focus on what they truly want. Therefore, the key to successful weight loss is to lose your un-resourceful mind and replace it with a resourceful mind that will allow you to transform into the slender, toned, energetic and youthful woman you have always wanted to be.

1. Prev:Obesity Surgery Becomes Option for More People
2. Next:To Lose Weight You First Must Lose Your MIND (Pt 1)