It's Not The Food That Is Making You Fat!

Assuming you are like most of the population, then you probably have a couple of pounds (or more!) you could shed in order to be at your ideal weight. And you have probably thought about dieting yet again to get to your ideal weight. Have you noticed that the thought of being on a diet can be so depressing it seems the dieter often procrastinates for quite a while before getting started? There are literally hundreds of diet plans to help you reduce your weight. Some are good and some are not, and most of these plans, if followed correctly, will result in the scales coming down a notch or two. But what happens afterwards? If you are like most people, inspite of your best efforts, it doesn’t seem to be long before the numbers on the scale start creeping up again or you notice that your pants are getting a wee bit tighter. And what goes along with this phenomena? Invariably, your self-esteem begins to suffer. And then what happens? Well, I have found for most of us, as the numbers on the scale rise, so does our ability to beat ourselves up over it. And then the harder we are on ourselves, the more the desire to eat continues. And this desire can grow and grow and grow until we are basically helpless to control it. This urge to eat can stem from a desire to distract ourselves from whatever may be going on in our lives . Or we may want to eat as a way to nuture ourselves. Or maybe we are angry that we can’t seem to eat “like everyone else” and so a rebellion of sorts begins. A rebellion against our own bodies and our own hopes for remaining at our healthy weight. Any one of these scenarios creates a really nasty cycle, which has the end result being that we get exactly the opposite of what we originally went looking for. Long-term, what do we get instead? A higher, (often much higher) number on the scales, along with a decrease in our self-esteem and self-confidence. Clearly there is something missing from this formula! Self-esteem and self-confidence are two of the biggest allies we have in the “battle of the bulge”. When we feel good about ourselves and we are full of self-confidence we are poised to win, to succeed, to overcome! This is why diets don’t work long-term. Have you ever heard of a diet program that leaves you feeling good about yourself and full of self-confidence? Well, neither have I! Diets for the most part actually leave you feeling bad about yourself, because they focus on what you are doing wrong, such as eating the “bad foods” or not exercising yourself to the bone. After almost 30 years of trying just about every diet out there, and ending up at a whopping 306 pounds, I decided I needed to change my approach. Diets weren’t working for me, atleast not long-term. I could always lose the weight, however keeping it off was a challenge I just couldn’t seem to get over. And then I discovered a life-changing concept: It wasn’t the food that was making me fat! I learned that my stomach was NOT the orga I needed to pay attention to in order to finally reign in my weight. Neither was my mouth (oh tasty food) nor my eyes (oh look at the gorgeous food) nor my hands (oh grab some of that yummy food). I realized it was my BRAIN that I needed to work on! And from the day I had this realization, and began figuring out how to use my brain to get my body cooperating, I have had nothing but success! In fact, it worked so well that my friends and family started asking me what I was doing differently. They had after all, witnessed me fail so many other times that their curiousity was picqued now that I was finally having success. So how does one use their brain to master their weight? That’s something that took me literally 5 years to figure out, so I can’t go into it all here. And that’s one of the reasons I decided to write a book about my experiences, and the idea for Why Are You Weighting? was born! Here are a couple of concepts from the book that you can begin to incorporate right now! Let’s look at the language around weight loss. In fact, let’s start with the word “loss” itself. What happens when you lose something? Your brain immediately starts looking to find the item again. Whether it is your keys, your money, or your grocery list, the minute you realize you have lost something, your brain is programmed to find it again. So, from this point forward, we are not going to use the words “lose”, “loss” or “lost” with regard to weight. Because if you “lose” weight, your brain is going to want to “find” weight again. I know how silly this seems, and for now, you are just going to have to trust me on this one! So find new ways to talk about what you are doing. You can be reducing your weight, or releasing your weight, or shedding your weight, or finding your ideal weight or achieving your ideal weight! This is just one of the many ways you can train your mind to help with your weight. Remember, that everything in the body, everything, is controlled by your brain. And weight is no exception. Another way you can tap into your mental power to change your weight is to pay attention to how you think about your body. Do you find yourself having thoughts such as “Everything I eat goes straight to my hips” or “I gain weight just by walking past the donut store”? If so, begin immediately to train yourself out of thinking this way. A thought repeated often enough actually causes changes in the brain, and if you have these thoughts repeatedly, your brain starts to believe this is true and works toward turning the thoughts into reality. Get in the habit of replacing this type of thinking with something more like “Everything I eat turns into fuel and is burned off by my activities.” This type of statement, repeated often, also causes changes in the brain, and the brain will then work towards making this into reality. And it’s easy to see which thought is the one that is going to help you get to, and then maintain, your new weight. And really, isn’t that what you and your brain really want? Start today to pay more attention to your brain and your thoughts! nnn