A Different Approach To Weight Loss
The quality of your thoughts determines the quality of your health.
Most nutritionists will focus on changing your diet and lifestyle habits to achieve your health goals. For example, encourage you to drink more water, eat more vegetables and reduce the amount of sugar or alcohol in the diet. My opinion is that most people know what they should be doing. The question is, why don't they do it? I like to take a different approach in my practice.
The most common thing I hear when clients come to see me is I know what I need to do, I just need to be accountable to somebody in order to lose weight. This is essentially saying I need to be forced to change my diet otherwise I won’t do it. Here’s the thing, the only person you are fully accountable to is yourself. Nothing kills motivation more than feeling like you HAVE to do something. You need to WANT and CHOOSE to and the only way to change your habits long term is to change the way you think about them.
Of course habit change is important however habits are a product of repeated behaviour. You are driven towards these behaviours based on what your mind tells it to do. Just like lighting precedes thunder, thought precedes action. Therefore your thoughts control your actions. So, if you want to have more control over your behaviours, you first need to have control over your thoughts.
There is no point forcing yourself to ‘go on a diet’ when you associate it with depriving yourself of everything that brings you pleasure eg wine, chocolate, pasta (yum). This only creates resistance. Naturally when we feel resistance towards something, it’s extremely difficult. FYI, a healthy diet is about balance.
All decisions we make are driven by 2 things; gaining pleasure or avoiding pain. That's why many people don't change their habits until they develop a chronic disease like heart disease or someone close to them gets sick. Suddenly the pain of being healthy is trumped by the pain of putting your life more at risk. If you have struggled to lose weight or change a bad habit, it's likely because you associate being healthy with pain and the bad habit with pleasure.
eg.
Wine relaxes me (pleasure)
Food makes me happy (pleasure)
Healthy food is boring (pain)
Weight loss is hard (pain)
I’m a social person and being healthy means I can’t be social (pain)
Your mind is your most powerful tool or powerful obstacle in achieving your health goals, depending on how YOU CHOOSE to use it. This is why I work closely with my clients on creating a healthy mindset in order to live a healthy and balanced lifestyle.
If you are interested in working together on Mastering your Mindset, book in here or get in touch.