Thinking about weight loss

All weekend this question kept bombarding my cranium – how important are our thoughts and attitude in regards to weight loss? A positive attitude obviously never hurt anyone, but does negative thinking really hinder us that much?

Negative thinking undermines every positive thing you set out to do, if you let it. We all suffer at times from doubts and fears, but we can not let those feelings and attitudes lord over our efforts to do something good for ourselves. The Little Engine That Could is a great children’s story that we all should take a lesson from. If we continually say we can’t, then we won’t. Why? Because we already feel defeated and will not give it our best effort. If we convince ourselves to do our best, regardless of the outcome, we are rarely disappointed. Not everyone loses 10 lbs on induction ( I sure didn’t!). Not everyone looks like a supermodel at their goal weight (again… not happening here). Not everyone even keeps the weight off the first time they lose it (ahem… again me), because there is a learning process involved. But with each day, we learn a little more about what does and does not work for us. With each positive step we gain momentum to keep going. Yes we have set backs. I’ve had more than my fair share, let me tell you. But despite that, I know I can’t give up. This is too important to throw in the towel and let negative thinking overtake my actions. If I do, I head straight for the pizza and feel even worse afterwards. So what if I’m in a stall? So what if I’m struggling with eating right for a day or two? What matters is that I keep going and remind myself of a few positive things. I’ve come a long way weight and health wise. While I’m not where I want to be, I’m sure as heck not where I used to be. Is it because it was easy when I first started? No. It was because I kept pushing on, even when the going got tough.

I may just be talking to myself here, but I have struggled the last several days with negative thinking. I’ve struggled with physical responses to that negative thinking. Once I let the doubt creep in, I found myself craving foods that normally don’t tempt me. I found myself slightly depressed about the effort I have to put into losing this excess weight, which in turn causes me to want to respond with comfort food. It’s a vicious cycle that we have to break and keep a harness on.  The more you indulge in negative thinking, the more damage it can do.

As an experiment, today I woke up determined NOT to crave unhealthy foods. I’ve spend the day thinking positive thoughts about my choices and my weight loss efforts. The results: so far so good. No cravings and I’ve stuck to plan perfectly. Tomorrow may be tough, but for now I’m only dealing with one day at a time – and today is gonna be great because I choose to make it so.

So remind yourself that despite how tough it seems, you are worth fighting this battle. And like the Little Engine, keep chanting that mantra to yourself, only change the word “think” to “know”. I KNOW I CAN… I KNOW I CAN… I KNOW I CAN…