Self Worth And Weight Loss

When you think of losing weight, you probably equate it to moving from a “bad” state (fat) to a “good” state (thin). You may view your extra pounds as evil, disgusting creatures that have no right occupying space on your body, and you may even feel a bit disgusted with yourself for gaining the pounds in the first place. This is a common feeling, but it can be incredibly damaging and continue to perpetuate the cycle of “bad and good” – even once you have lost weight.

In order to achieve truly lasting, healthy weight loss, you need to be thinking and acting from a core of worth. Your core of worth is the foundation of belief that you truly deserve to be healthy, strong and happy. Do you currently have such a foundation? Or do you think about yourself and your weight along the lines of good or bad? You may think that punishing yourself into losing weight by thinking of your fat (and yourself) as being gross and out of control will be effective, but it actually creates more resistance within you.

As a result, you continue to feel bad about yourself, treat your body poorly and eat more than you should. If you then try to use that same mind-set to lose the excess weight, you will only make yourself feel worse and find it harder and harder to lose weight.

To achieve a healthy body and mind, you need to begin loving and believing in yourself as you are now. You need to believe that you deserve to be healthy and happy, and let your actions flow naturally from that belief. You need to act from a core of worth that says, “I deserve better than what I’ve been givng myself up to now.” When you approach weight loss with this type of attitude, treating yourself kindly becomes much easier. Keep saying to yourself every day, “I deserve to be treated kindly. I deserve to eat foods I love and that make my body feel good”. When you do this, your whole life becomes much more balanced and you don’t have to fight those inner and outer “demons” that kept you tied to unhealthy habits for so long.

Weight Loss Support

If you want your weight loss program to be successful, you must focus on the positive.

This means thinking about what you CAN eat and drink, not what you can’t.

Thinking about what you can do is important too. As you lose weight, there will be more and more things that you can do, that you could not do before.

One of the best things that you can do right now is to find a weight loss support buddy or group. This has the double benefit of making your weight loss program more likely to be successful as well as making it more enjoyable.

When we talk about support, we don’t mean boring your slim friends with all of the details of your diet. We mean getting together with people who are also losing weight on the same kind of plan, or people who want to buddy up with you on an exercise program.

Sometimes these people may be in the family. Often it happens that where one family member is overweight, others will be too. If you have a partner, parent, child or sibling who wants to lose weight, why not involve them in your plan?

But don’t be tempted to make it a competition. Remember that different people lose weight in different ways and at different rates. If you can both lose some weight, you are both winners.

It is always easier to be successful with a diet if other people around you are eating healthy too. If you are in the habit of indulging in overeating with friends who don’t want to lose their excess weight, you may need to stay away from those people for a while. Instead, choose to spend time with slim friends who eat healthy, or those who are also trying to lose.

If you don’t have another family member or close friend to share your program, consider joining a weight loss support group. This may be an exercise class, an online forum or something like Overeaters Anonymous where you will meet other people who are losing weight.

Be a little cautious when joining these groups because some of them can be rather negative. Some people are so eager to have everybody follow their plan, that they will criticize any other plan. It’s better to stay away from people like that.

So make sure there is a positive atmosphere to any weight loss support group or forum that you choose to join.

Programming The Mind For Weight Loss

Sometimes it seems that however hard we try, we cannot lose weight. Or we lost a lot, but now we are stuck and there is no getting past this point.

When this kind of thing happens, it is often because we have unconsciously programmed our mind to believe that we cannot be slim.

Recent research has shown that thought is much more powerful than we think. Our thoughts actually influence our reality. Anything we think about a lot, or believe strongly, is likely to prove true, if it is in our control.

So if we believe that we will always have money troubles, then we probably always will. And if we believe that we will never be slim, then we will find it almost impossible to lose weight beyond a certain point.

When this happens, we need to reprogram our minds to reflect a new reality. This means constantly focusing on being slim: not as a dream or a fantasy, but right now. Think, ‘I am slim’. Start to do the things you would do if you were slim. Pretty soon, you will start to lose more weight.

It is very easy for us to set ourselves up to fail. For example, we might buy a large candy bar telling ourselves that we will eat half today and half tomorrow, but at the back of our minds we know that we will eat the whole thing within 5 minutes of arriving home.

The way to change this habit is to understand that what actually controls our behavior is the underlying belief (the belief that we will eat the whole thing).

In the beginning, the solution to this is to accept that the belief will be the reality and buy a smaller candy bar that it’s OK to finish right away. That way, we don’t keep setting ourselves up to fail.

Then, as we develop better eating habits, we can slowly change the belief. We can start by buying a large pack of something that we actually can save half of. Making realistic choices that inch us toward success gradually, is the way to reprogram the mind for successful weight loss.

Facing Emotions While Losing Weight

It’s true that people are overweight because they eat more than their bodies need … not just once but day after day.However, the reason that we do this, is often emotional.

As we have said before, eating has a sedative effect. The blood sugar is raised, serotonin production goes up and we feel happier and more peaceful after a meal or after a carbohydrate snack.

In many cases, we learned to deal with difficult feelings by eating, and we began so long ago that the process has now become unconscious. We are not even aware of the feelings, because we automatically reach for the cookie jar before the feelings have a chance to come to the surface.

This means that when we begin a diet, cutting out all or some of those quick release high carb foods, we are often unprepared for the difficult feelings that may arise.

So next time that you feel an ‘uncontrollable’ urge to grab something sweet or starchy, take a moment to look at what is really going on. Probably something just happened that set up an emotional reaction for you. Did someone say something that might have made you angry (even if you are not aware of feeling angry)? Did something you heard or saw remind you of a sad event in your life?

It may feel very uncomfortable to let your feelings come to the surface in this way. You may have been stuffing them down with food since childhood. Keep trying, and eventually you will be able to handle them.

Working with a therapist or in a group can be a huge help with the emotional issues that often lie under our weight problem. So do ask for help if you need it.

If we learn to live with the natural emotions that arise in our lives, we can stop using food as a sedative and lose our excess weight.

Curb your cravings

So how do you stop craving junk food? That’s a question a lot of people struggle with.

One thing to understand is that cravings and hunger are two different things. Cravings can come even when you aren’t hungry. They are specific to one kind of food or another and usually have an emotional attachment. It’s also important to note that cravings are far more common when you are hungry.

So how do you eliminate cravings?

Here are three simple tips to follow:

#1) Don’t give yourself opportunity to give in.
In other words, try to keep whatever you are craving out of your home and work environment. What if you can’t do this? For instance, you might work someplace with vending machines, where that dreaded candy bar is just 75 cents away. In this case just eat a healthy food you enjoy in its place.

One of the reasons for binging is being too restrictive, which often times leads to intense cravings. So the key to overcoming that is to enjoy what you eat.
As an example, if you want a candy bar, try eating dates or honey instead. These are natural sweet alternatives and will usually alleviate your desire for junk food.

#2) Stay full.
While it’s true that cravings aren’t necessarily the result of hunger, as mentioned earlier they do get worse when you are on an empty stomach. So the key is to be full. This is especially true when you are going somewhere where junk food will be available. If nothing else, this will at least reduce the amount you eat overall.

#3) Find another way to alleviate stress.
For many people, cravings only come when they are stressed out. As a result of a lifetime of conditioning, they instantly want junk food for “comfort”. Try something different. Instead of eating, just exercise. This is hands down one of the top methods for eliminating worry. And do it early in the day.
The later you wait, the less likely you are to do it.

#4) Limit your junk food consumption.
Many have found that restricting this to one day a week tends to satisfy the cravings for the rest of the week. You may want to experiment with this.
And assuming you do binge from time to time, it also limits the damage done. This is because your body gets it all out of its’ system in one day.

The bottom line is that when you incorporate one or all of these tips, you will dramatically reduce the amount of junk food you eat. Your health will also improve as a result.

Baby Steps to Weight Loss

Most people start on a weight loss program by making big changes. This can give a fast pay off with a lot of weight lost in the first couple weeks.

On the other hand, this can be a very stressful way to start losing weight. The diet becomes the center of our lives and almost every moment seems to be spent buying, preparing or planning our food. If we eat something that was not on the plan, we panic. Sometimes we make this an excuse for dropping out completely.

If this has often happened to you in the past, why not try a different method? Instead of starting with a two-week crash diet or induction period, try changing one thing at a time. This will slowly ease you into your new way of eating.

If you choose this method, you could start the first 3-4 days by simply drinking enough water. Aim for at least two liters (approx 64 oz, or 8 x 8 oz glasses). That’s not including other drinks – just pure water.

Then plan your breakfast in line with your eating plan. So at the end of two weeks, you are having enough water plus a healthy breakfast each day.

After that, look at your snacks. It’s good to eat little and often when losing weight, so plan 2 or 3 snacks in a day and make sure that you have healthy food available for those snacks.

Then you can move on to lunch, and finally dinner.

This way, you don’t make a big deal out of the fact that you are trying to lose weight. Your friends and family will probably not even notice. The weight loss could creep up on you without you hardly noticing yourself!

Are You Ready To Change Your Weight?

Most of us have been struggling with our weight for years or even decades before we learn to eat in the best way for our bodies. Over eating, or just eating the wrong foods, is a habit that is hard to break.

Some foods, like sugar and refined carbohydrates (white bread and pasta), can even be addicting in a similar way to drugs, alcohol or cigarettes. We may start to need the feeling of calm and satisfaction that come with a blood sugar ‘high’.

Probably all of us have been eating sugar and refined carbohydrate foods since we were little kids. So it is not surprising if we go from one weight loss program to another, looking for the ‘magic’ diet that will solve all of our problems.

If you have successfully given up smoking, you may have tried many times and gone back to it before finally quitting for good. The same thing can happen with diets.

So what makes the difference between all the failed attempts and the one time that we actually quit? The answer is in the mind.

Having the right attitude is vital. We have to be sure in our minds that we really want to change our eating habits.

It’s no good thinking that you want to lose weight, if you don’t want to change your eating. This is how most people approach diets. Even if they are not aware of it, what they really want is to carry on eating and living exactly as they do now, and magically become thin.

We have to see that this is not possible. Either the food habits or the exercise habits have to change, and both is best.

So before you start another diet, sit down and write all of the reasons why you want to *change your eating and exercise habits* – not the reasons why you want to lose weight.

These might include dealing with specific health problems that you have or generally feeling healthier, being able to play with kids, being free of the addiction to certain foods, being able to eat without guilt, etc.

Then focus on these benefits as you begin your new program. You will find that focusing on eating and fitness is much more effective than focusing on weight, appearance and the scale – because eating and fitness are the things that you actually need to change. The rest will follow automatically.

Expect Success With Your Weight Loss Program

With almost every weight loss attempt, there is an underlying sense of “walking on eggshells”. Have you ever felt like you must do everything exactly right or be doomed to failure? Have you ever worried that “this time” would end up being like all the rest of the times you’ve tried to lose weight and couldn’t stick to it?

This line of thought stems from fear and it is more destructive than you can imagine. Why? Because the more you fear or worry about something, you are more likely to act in ways that perpetuate it. For example, if you fear that one wrong move will ruin your diet completely, what do you think will happen if you do slip up and eat a food that is not on your plan? Most likely you’ll conclude that you have failed and throw in the towel. Underlying this fear of failure is the belief that you will fail no matter how hard you try to succeed.

Don’t allow fear-based thinking to destroy your attempts to create a better life. Begin today by expecting success with your healthy habits and everything else you want in life. Learn to see minor slip-ups as learning experiences. Analyze them and understand why they happened, and come up with ways to prevent them from happening again. Develop a better awareness of your own strengths and weaknesses, and strive to improve in all areas – not from an unrealistic expectation of perfection, but from a desire to do the very best you can in everything you do.

Start each day with a positive expectation of success. Believe you are already successful, and you are becoming more successful every day. Just like fearing failure makes it more likely to happen, expecting success make it much more likely to happen. You just have to choose which one you will give most of your focus to.

Boosting Your Confidence

Increased confidence is undoubtedly a great benefit of losing weight. When you’re fit and healthy you just feel better about yourself, and that confidence gets carried into every aspect of your life. You’re better at your work, your relationships tend to deepen and become richer, and even your day to day activities seem to take on a more positive hue. The problem is that most of us tend to equate this increased confidence with the finality of that last excess pound dropping off, when it really doesn’t have anything to do with the weight loss itself.

Rather than looking forward to the day when you finish losing weight because you think it will make you feel more confident, why not begin working on boosting your confidence now?

Here are two easy ways to do it:

- Feel good about yourself now.

You may think that having a slim body is what makes you feel good about yourself, but it’s actually your own thoughts! As the weight drops off, you inevitably begin thinking more positively about yourself; thoughts like, “I’m really proud of myself; I’m doing so well; I feel really good; I know I’m going to reach my goals; I’m looking great…” and so on. Start thinking those thoughts now, and you’ll find yourself feeling more confident even before you’ve lost your first pound.

- Take pride in your appearance.

Most people dream of wearing beautiful clothes after they are thin, but settle for looking frumpy and disheveled while they are still losing weight. While you may not want to invest in a new wardrobe for every size along the way to your goal, you can still make an effort to wear clothing that makes you feel good now. Get rid of clothes that are much too big or old and faded. Take care to be well-groomed in other ways too, like your hair, and do what you can to be presentable in every way you can. Take pride in your appearance and you won’t be able to help feeling more confident.

Knowing Better

Losing weight and getting healthy is about much more than following guidelines.  True, you can follow directions and usually achieve the expected results, but rarely is this a long-term solution.  Instead, sticking rigidly to a set plan often becomes monotonous and restrictive, and many of us can’t imagine living the rest of our lives like that.  Beyond boredom, it takes a lot of time and energy to measure portions, count calories, fat grams and carbohydrate content.  While these activities can be helpful in fostering awareness and forming better habits, there is an easier way to adjust our relationship to food, and that is by “knowing better”.

If we want to be perfectly honest with ourselves, most of us have to admit that we already know how to achieve a healthy body weight.  We know that eating more than our body needs and moving less than we should results in excess fat being stored in our cells.  We know that we need to drink plenty of water to keep our body’s organs and systems operating efficiently.  We know the benefits of proper nutrition and getting enough sleep.  But knowing and doing are two very different things.

That’s where knowing BETTER comes into play.  When you think about it, “knowing” something means simply that you believe it to be true.  But have you ever believed something that didn’t serve you well?  Have you ever believed that losing weight was hard?  Have you ever believed that your eating was out of control?  Have you ever believed that exercise was unpleasant?  Do you still believe these things now?

What you know and believe is what you will create in your life experiences.  If you want to be sure that your weight loss will be easy and permanent, begin “knowing” that it will.  Know that you have the ability to make better choices for yourself – beyond any written or spoken guidelines you may follow initially.  Know that you are strong enough, committed enough and wise enough to transform your unhealthy habits into lifelong, life-affirming habits.  Whatever you know, you make it true.

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