Why You Should NEVER Want To LOSE Weight – Yes I Am Serious
By admin
When I say the following sentences, let me know what emotions are conjured up.
–> Losing keys.
–> Your favorite sports team losing.
–> Losing a job.
–> Losing a loved one.
Let me guess…
These all brought upon feelings of frustration, disappointment and sadness?
To think about losing anything immediately brings up negative emotions.
Except for weight loss.
We want to lose weight… or do we?
Our body is extremely responsive to positivity and negativity. More than we give it credit for.
Do an experiment with me…
Read the following words out loud (seriously):
How do you feel?
I’m not sure about you, but just typing the words put a smile on my face. I was overcome with a feeling of happiness.
Now… what happens when you read these words:
Okay, enough of that, you get the point.
Let’s quickly recover so we can move on: love, smile, outstanding, talented and gorgeous.
If loss is such a negative word and conjures up such strong feelings, then why would we want to lose anything at all?
We don’t.
Here’s what I think…
The more you tell yourself that you want to lose weight, your brain takes that “lose” as negative self-talk and makes it harder. Your internal stress increases and you find yourself becoming obsessed with the desire to lose weight, yet not actually losing it (of course there are exceptions).
Negative self talk is limiting and may be the difference between getting to a healthy weight and being stuck where you are or losing the weight only to gain it back again.
Then there is this…
When you lose something, there is a chance you can find it, right? With the exception of losing a loved one… loss can be temporary.
You don’t want to just lose weight and then find it again in the future… which is what happens to over 90% of weight loss stories.
You want to drop it like a bad habit and never see it again. Right? RIGHT?!
Bottomline…
Your brain takes things literally. Even though you know that losing weight is good, it’s harder to convince the subconscious.
If You Don’t Lose Weight, How To You Hit Your Goal?
Good question.
You hit your goal but gaining…
Instead of focusing on the scale, which I know is really hard, focus on this…
- Gaining health (thanks Lindsay)
- Gaining nutrition
- Gaining fitness
- Gaining life
- Gaining strength! (what I’m focused on right now)
Pull-up and push-up workout with a weighted bag. It’s official, my husband is trying to kill me.
I can promise you, if you focus on the benefits you gain from watching what you eat and exercising, you will see and feel your body getting to that goal zone you crave.
For many, this is done by setting performance goals… signing up for a race or fitness event that requires training of some sort.
For others, it can mean following not just a low calorie diet, but a nutritional program that educates on long term eating. Anyone can cut calories for a few weeks, few people can transition into eating long term to keep success locked in.
How To Think Positive On A Normal Basis
It’s one thing to tell you to be positive. It’s tough, and not something that just happens over night. It takes practice and study.
And it takes continuous effort. As soon as you think you’re a “gainer” and you give up on practicing to become one, those loser words will creep back in. I know, I’ve been working on positive mind set for years!
The process is never over. But to get started here are a few tips…
- Each time you feel a negative “loser” work creeping up, stop and rephrase your sentence to have a positive word instead.
- Start the day off reinforcing what it is you want to gain that day… what do you want to accomplish!
- End the day going over all the positive things that happened. We all have good things happen every day, even on days when it doesn’t seem like it! Getting out of bed is a gain!
- Study. Yes, seriously read some mind set books, listen to some podcasts, and even take notes! I know, I know, some can be hokey but there are some great resources out there. Here are two books that I recommend getting started with:
Let’s chat. Complete the following…