health2u.co.za

Thoughts are extremely powerful. Not only is it true that you are what you eat, but you are also what you think.

We are all conditioned to act in various ways. Previous experiences, other people’s opinions, circumstances, and some other factors all influence the way we are conditioned. Even your mom’s recipes could have conditioned your current thought patterns and habits.

Most of us are quite familiar with what we call our ‘comfort zone’. If you started to exercise during last week, you’ll feel that it doesn’t always feel great. That is mostly because you’ve stretched yourself outside of your comfort zone.

When people want to lose or manage their weight, they way they think could either empower them or leave them ‘helpless’. Normally their current thought patterns are the reason why their weight got out of hand.

Here are some examples on how your thoughts might sabotage your weight and your wellbeing.
I’m too busy to follow a health program.
Every one in my family is overweight.
My family and friends are comfortable with me, there’s no need to change.
I’ve always been a size x, I’ll never fit into smaller clothes.
Losing weight would be too expensive.
Maintaining my weight would ask too much effort.

Changing all this doesn’t normally happen overnight. People want to change, and in the end, they get discouraged, falling back into their previous comfort zone. When they don’t find the tools, new habits and support needed to make the changes, they give up.

Now let’s start to turn these things around. Here are some tips on how to change the disempowering thoughts around, into something empowering.

Identify the negative thoughts (believes). It could be something like the examples above.

Argue with yourself on a logical level. Emotional arguments like self-pity or self-judgement won’t work. Rather look at it on a logical level. Take the fat-family as an example. Look around at other families. There are some families that have fat members and in shape members. Some people come from fat-families and turned things around in their personal life. That way you’ll see that there are other options to your current thought pattern.

Share this info with someone you trust and who support you in the weight loss process. Ask him/her to help you with the logical arguments.

Let this person also help and encourage you to form new habits.

Realising that your thoughts do influence your weight loss efforts is a good start. Now it’s up to you to take control of your thought patterns. In my opinion, this is the place that people regularly overlook when they want to lose weight. Now you know, now you can take control.

[Note: Early in November I’ll start with a weight loss challenge in Centurion and the east of Pretoria. Phone me on 076 958 2764 to get more details and to register.  Or you could just follow this link above.]