Are you a ‘look-and-lose’ dieter? Have you studied every diet ever created, read a zillion diet books, and yet are still unhappy with your weight? Has your quest for the holy grail of dieting become a substitute for actually making changes required to take the ill health out of your current diet? If so, you may not realise your thoughts are key to your happiness and success.
Do you look at yourself and say, “I’m fat”, or “My hips are too big”? Many of us look in the mirror and immediately compare ourselves to those ‘perfect’ human specimens we see every single day on TV, in magazines and in the newspapers.
Often we talk to ourself and make excuses, “It’s my genes”, “I’m much too busy to get fit”, “I like myself this”, as a way of protecting yourself from the way we see ourselves now and the way we want to be.
If we were to be truly honest with ourselves most people actually want to lose a few pounds – if we only knew how.
The good news is you CAN achieve your desired body shape with the right thinking about yourself, an understanding of how to get optimal nutrition, healthy eating habits and how to incorporate activity into your lifestyle to keep your muscles toned.
But most important of all, you need a regular mental workout to keep your self-image in shape.
Self-image is closely connected to the success or failure of any goal you choose to seek after, but none more so that the goal to get yourself fit and healthy.
So how do you go about strengthening your self-image? Well fortunately your self-image, just like your muscles, will respond well to a regular work out. You can actually strengthen your self-image with a few daily exercises.
Exercise One – Self Examination
Start by compiling a list of all those negative thoughts your have about yourself…I’m undisciplined, I can’t manage my time, I let people down, I can’t succeed, I don’t exercise enough. You will need to decide before you start this process that you won’t get discouraged….these are things that you will admit to yourself but they most certainly don’t have to control your life.
Next, compile a second list including everything you LIKE about yourself. Keep going until this list is LONGER than the first list you compiled. You might include things such as, I am a good cook, I can make people laugh, I contribute to the soccer club, my daughter loves the way I decorate her room.
Then, take your ‘negatives’ list and turn it into your ‘potentials’ list. You do this by creating a positive self-image to every ‘negative’ you listed. Instead of “I can’t succeed”, write a counter belief, “I will succeed”.
Ceremonially throw out the ‘negatives’ list – you are saying goodbye forever! Burn them, trash them, destroy them….they are no longer going to be a part of your thinking about yourself.
Now, keep your list of potentials in a prominent place. On your refrigerator door, in your daily journal, or in a picture frame on your desk. Make sure you have them in front on your every single day so that you are reading them constantly and reprogramming your daily thoughts.
Exercise Two: You Can Be What You Want to Be
Now that you have your list of potentials… run your own visualisation stories so that you can ‘see’ yourself in a new light. For example, if your list of potential includes “I eat just the right portions”, visualise yourself with a moderate portion on your plate, and feeling completely satisfied at the conclusion of your meal.
Read through your list of potentials every day taking a few moments of personal quiet time to reflect strongly on your visualisations. Try starting your day first thing in the morning and finishing as the last thing at night with visualising yourself being the person on your list, and doing the things you want to do.
Exercise Three: Keep a Journal of Your Daily Successes
Keep a record of all the positive changes in thoughts you have about yourself. We all have triumphs and ‘failures’. You must record and remind yourself of the positive changes because our human nature will replay the negatives – sometimes blowing them out of proportion. It’s important to nurture and celebrate the small steps you make every day.
Exercise Four: Go Easy On Yourself – You Are Beautiful Work In Progress
Don’t listen to the criticism…not your own nor that of others! Remember you are the designer of your self-esteem, do not hand this over to other people. You are way too important to give this away. Protect your role as creator of your own self-image and do not, take on board negative criticisms. We all make mistakes, and mistakes can be used to help us learn. Do not criticise yourself for being human and making a mistake. The only last mistake in the one from which we never learn to grow.
Exercise Five: Forget About The Past
The only moment you can live is the current one. You can’t live in the future and you most certainly shouldn’t live in the past….the challenge is to take charge of our thinking so that we think in the same time zone in which we live!
For example we may be tempted to think about yesterday’s failures…”If only I hadn’t eaten second helpings”, “If only I didn’t reach for the chocolate cookies”. If we concentrate on the mistakes of yesterday this will our brains to replay our failures and reinforce them to us.
Yesterday is over, today is where you live….make sure that today you do NOT replay yesterday’s failures and make your resolve to change TODAY.
Exercise Six: Resolve to Change Today
Just as you shouldn’t live in the past, you can’t live in the future. You can only live or change today. The oldest clich
The most important picture you will ever change in your subconscious mind is the picture you now have of yourself right now. You will start with this image. You will start recreating your subconscious imagery by recreating your existing body picture. Before starting your imagery training, it is important that you become totally relaxed in order to focus your mind. Once you have accomplished this, you will find it is quite easy to engage all of your senses, making it possible for you to create a new body image. Once you feel you are completely relaxed, I want you to see a picture of your body in your subconscious mind. When you have your body in focus, I want you to reshape it, to exactly how you want it to look.
See your new body down to the smallest detail; make it become so real that it seems that you have already accomplished your weight goal. Once you have your new body picture completed, place yourself in a physical activity that you know you would enjoy and will be beneficial in helping you attain your new weight goal. This activity can be anything from a brisk walk to an aerobics class, to playing tennis, to completing an unfinished task. Your new body is now capable of performing any activity that you find enjoyable.
The emotional states that drive you to overeat or eat when you are not hungry are fear, guilt and anger. These emotional states are responsible for depression and low self-esteem. When creating your new self-image, you must exchange these negative emotional states for your most powerful emotional state. Love is your most powerful emotional state especially when directed to your new self-image. It is essential that you practice reproducing your new active body change of any behavior.
Lose Your Weight, Not Your Mind System
Monks’ 2-Minute Simple Mind Hack “Accidentally” Melted 42 LBS Of Raw Fat.
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Losing Weight Without Losing Your Mind
Losing weight can be a long, ongoing process and it is too easy to “throw in the towel”, so to speak. This is primarily due to frustrations because of slow results or the seeming lack of results. Keep your sanity in your weight loss goals – learn how to take the little strides to achieve your long term weight loss goals.
1. Make a plan
Do you have a plan? People sometimes get confused by plans and goals. The end result goal in your case is weight loss, the plan is the means you are going to use to get there. While you will undoubtedly have short term goals and a long term goal, they are not your plan. A plan would consist of, for example, eating breakfast; walking a half hour per day; not eating after 8pm; eliminating pop from your daily routine; etc. These are plans that can help you reach your goal of weight loss. If you’ve tried certain things before and they didn’t work because of your lack of commitment then try loosening the plan a little for something that you could easily achieve without pushing yourself too hard. If you have a plan of walking/running 1 hour a day but you think that you might give up too easily on that: shoot for 15 minutes a day & once you’ve made the 15 minutes try and push yourself for 15 minutes more. You’re much better off making a plan for 15 minutes of walking a day and doing it than making a plan of walking 1 hour a day and never leaving the couch.
2. Execute the plan
The greatest weight loss plan in the world will do no good if you don’t use it. That’s where so many people fail is that they want to lose the weight but aren’t willing to take any steps to actually meet their goals. It’s like someone saying “I want to make $5,000 this month” but doesn’t have a job and never leaves the couch to look for one. A job is no more going to show up at your door and give you $5,000 for sitting than you are going to lose weight if you continue to do nothing about it. As was stated above, if your plan is not something you think you can commit to: loosen up your plan to something that is feasible given your lifestyle and situation.
3. See the plan through
Keep on keeping on, stay focused on your weight loss goals, and don’t give up. It is not the easiest thing getting started, but it is a proven fact that it takes 21 days to form a habit. Keep your plan up for a few weeks and you’ll be well on your way to your weight loss goals.
By simply creating a plan, working a plan and staying with it, you’ll soon begin to see results with your weight loss goals. Sometimes it only takes us seeing the start of results to get us really motivated to take the weight off.
Lose Your Weight, Not Your Mind System
Monks’ 2-Minute Simple Mind Hack “Accidentally” Melted 42 LBS Of Raw Fat.
Get The Complete Lose Your Weight, Not Your Mind System For $1,141!
