When it comes to losing weight the healthy way, your mindset often plays a big part in whether you are or are not as successful as you envision. Approaching weight loss from the wrong perspective is one of the biggest reasons why so many people fail with diets and strict eating plans. Getting your mindset right can be a game changer for successfully managing a healthy weight.
Here are some mindset shifts that may help you to supercharge your weight loss journey and finding Your Healthy Journey!
Think About Why You’re Doing It
You have heard it said over and over…what’s your WHY? Why you want to lose weight can make a lot of difference. Basing your reasons on being happier or looking good often are a lot more likely to fail and how do you judge that losing weight will actually make you feel good about yourself or bring you happiness.
Instead of choosing these kind of reasons as the reasons for your journey, try looking at things differently. Think of your weight loss as part of a journey…Your Healthy Journey… to becoming healthier and not just a means to the the end. It’s the opportunity to introduce healthy habits into your life that set the scene for both improving your health and balancing your weight loss journey. When your ultimate goal is to live a longer and healthier life, weight loss will probably happen as an extra bonus as a result of these new habits.
Don’t Go For Broke
Trying to do too much too soon and too quickly can work against you and this is one of the reasons why fad diets and drastically reducing your calorie intake aren’t successful in the long term. You might lose some weight to begin with but chances are, this will quickly plateau and depending on your mindset and eating habits, you might even gain some extra.
When it comes to weight loss, slow and steady tends to do a lot better than trying to lose weight as quickly as possible. I am sure you have heard “Slow and Steady Wins the Race”?
You’re a lot more likely to succeed if you go for smaller shifts that add up to bigger lifestyle changes. Add in good choices and crowd out old choices. If you do this every day, they’ll soon become solid habits. This is more of a long game and you probably won’t see results immediately but there’s a better chance of actually achieving your goals compared to focusing on one big goal that could fail.
You want your healthy choices to feel natural and not like a chore or as though you’re depriving yourself and this is where healthy habits can really come into their own.
Breaking the Food-Emotions Cycle
One of the factors that can make it hard to lose weight involves emotional eating. We often eat when we’re not really hungry and often because we’re feeling certain emotions. Breaking the link between your food and your emotions is a key mindset shift to master if you want to lose and maintain.
Moving away fom emotional eating helps you to react to genuine hunger cues so you’ll eat to fuel your body and not with how you feel. Mindful eating is a great way to get back in touch with your body’s hunger signals but it can be a big challenge to master, especially if you often feel you emotional eat. Although I must say that in my 5 years of coaching, I have found very few are true amothional eaters. Finding ways to address your feelings that don’t involve food can make a huge difference in being able to lose weight naturally.
Visualizing Weight Loss Success
Visualization can be a powerful technique for weight loss, especially if it’s combined with positive self talk. Have you ever done a Vision Board? So how does visualization work? The theory is that it helps to rewire pathways in the brain. It creates a positive mindset, so it can be a great tool for breaking habits and learning new ones.
To get the most from it, visualize yourself at your ideal weight, with your body transforming into a much more positive form of energy. Keep this mental image in mind as much and as often as possible.
You can use positive affirmations and self-talk to highlight to yourself how you’ll feel when you get to this point. Don’t forget to focus on how you’ll feel with your health, fitness and wellbeing and not just how much better you’ll feel about being thinner. Think about how it will make a difference in your life and family and friends.
Even though this is going to happen in the future, keep your self-talk in the present tense and not the future to make visualization a more effective mindset shift. Start you positive affitmations eith “I am”! Tell yourself that you, only you, have the power to change your body through the power of your mind.
Doing this every day can be a lot more effective than you might think. Start making a plan for your life long goals for your health, not just the short-term ones. And join us in Your Healthy Journey by visiting Imagine Fit today.
Remember to remain body-positive. I am always here to talk if you need to. You can take advantage of the 30-minute Eat Cake Without Guilt free chat if you feel you need some 1:1 guidance. It’s my way of giving back – I’ve been on the emotional eating path and having someone to lean on is the only way to move forward.
References used.
https://www.medicinenet.com/binge_eating_disorder_pictures_slideshow/article.htm
https://www.medainc.org/binge-eating-vs-emotional-eating-whats-the-difference/
https://www.medicinenet.com/emotional_eating/article.htm#what_is_the_prognosis_of_emotional_eating
