Why Can’t I Keep the Weight Off? A Dieter’s Lament

If you have tried diet after diet, only to gain even more weight than when you started, you are not alone. It took me over 20 years to discover the solution. The good news is that there is nothing wrong with you.

Research, over the last several decades, has shown that you cannot transform your body without considering the role of your mind, body and spirit. In other words, we need to transform emotionally, and spiritually, as well as physically. We have all heard that to lose weight we just need to eat less and move more. If that were true, weight loss would be easy. What those weight loss gurus fail to mention, is that mind and spirit play a big role. We are all creatures of habit who do not respond well to change. This is thanks to our ego, whose sole purpose is to keep us safe. We activate this self-protection, anytime we decide to do something that goes against our limiting beliefs. It is the job of our unconscious mind to store information from our past. This includes information that we absorbed before the age of seven and have never bothered to question. These beliefs may not even be our own, but the beliefs of family, friends, teachers and the media.

When we repeat our positive affirmations, we are not aware that we hold these beliefs. We do not realize that we may be subconsciously supplying a silent, negative response at the end of the affirmation. For example you might state: By May 1st, I choose to weigh 125 pounds. You say it out loud and with feeling. You repeat it regularly. Why isn’t it working? Because you are not taking into account your mind and spirit. You have to take the time to get present and check for any negative thoughts in your head, or negative feeling in your stomach. If you skip this step, you are actually cancelling out your affirmation.
Activity: State your affirmation out loud. Then be still. Is your affirmation bringing up any thoughts or feelings? Do not judge anything that comes up for you, just observe. Your subconscious is speaking to you. If the thought or feeling is negative, it may mean that your goal is too big of a stretch for you. If you can’t visualize it, you can’t achieve it. When you state your affirmation, rate it for believability on a scale of 1 – 10 (with 10 being the highest.) If you rate yourself lower than an 8, rework your affirmation until it rates an 8. Choose affirmations that excite you and make you feel good.