By the time I finally lost my weight, I’d been overweight for more than 20 years. For more than two decades, I’d been living in a body that was uncomfortable to me, that felt out of my control, that I didn’t enjoy living in. I’d lived for all of my adult life believing that this was the body I inherited and that there wasn’t much I could do about it.
Did you notice I said, “believe”?
What’s she thinking?
That’s the biggest difficulty we face when we try to lose weight – what we believe. I had so many reasons I couldn’t lose weight and I’d thought them for so long that I believed them. Fortunately, I was wrong. This is the number one reason why I teach that your diet isn’t the solution and that exercise isn’t the answer, because your biggest obstacle is what you believe about your weight. If you’ve decided that weight loss isn’t possible for you for whatever reason, then you will prove yourself right again and again. And if you have some temporary success at weight loss, you’ll sabotage yourself and gain the weight back. True long-term weight loss is actually in your mind.
It’s so interesting how our brains work. When we have a situation we want to change (like weight), we think that the weight happened to us. That’s what we say. “I started gaining all this weight after college” or “When I stopped being able to go to the gym the weight just came on”. We tell ourselves all kinds of reasons why the situation is what it is and we repeat them to ourselves until they become thoughts we agree with. That’s called a belief. Once you’ve created a belief in your mind, it’s much easier for the brain to keep believing it than to change it. Even if a new belief would be much more helpful than the current one.
For example, we often think that we inherited being overweight from our family. I thought this because most of the folks in my family were overweight. When my aunt lost weight and kept it off, I wondered what kind of magic she was doing so I could learn to do it too. I have patients tell me they can’t lose weight because they’re in menopause or because they can’t exercise due to their knee/hip/back injury or because of the pandemic or because the pool is closed. My thoughts about my aunt’s weight loss and my patient’s beliefs about their weight are just that – thoughts. As long as they think those thoughts are true, their mind will keep finding evidence to confirm their thought. We love to be right, and our brain is no exception!
Someone thinks they’re in charge…
But the truth is that you will create what you believe. You see people who’ve decided to lose weight in menopause or from a wheelchair or drop weight in a pandemic instead of gain. It’s not that these people are some magical unicorn beings. It’s that they’ve decided to believe differently and that causes them to act differently. That difference in thinking is the source of their success.
So don’t let your brain convince you that what you want is impossible. Just because you have been overweight for years, or because you haven’t ever been successful at losing weight and keeping it off in the past doesn’t mean that you can’t do it this time. The only difference between now and then is that you get to choose different thoughts than you did in the past. And when you turn those new thoughts into a belief, you’ll live in a way that confirms your belief and you will lose that weight!
I make it sound easy: Change your thoughts and you’ll change your results! It’s not easy. It’s simple, but it requires focus and practice. You can do it! If you’re finding that you’re having trouble finding the thoughts that serve you, or that you keep getting caught in your old thoughts, then you’re normal. Nothing has gone wrong – you’re human! Keep working at it and with practice, you will see change. But if the process is too slow, if you’re having trouble changing your thinking, or you want help to get your brain on track to lose weight, that’s where weight loss coaching can help. I’m here if you need me. Email me at drandreachristianparks@gmail.com and we can explore how working together can get you to your goal faster. You don’t have to figure it out alone!
Here’s your video help for the week!