Truth #4 Our Mind Impacts Our Metabolism
“Every cell in your body is eavesdropping on your thoughts” – Deepak Chopra
“Eat this, don’t eat that”; “ Do this exercise”, “Track your calories”, “Take these supplements”, ….you know the drill if you are one of the 60% of Americans who wants to lose weight. And you also know that when it comes to most diets, most fail miserably to deliver real lasting weight loss.
Why? Because the key to real weight loss is positive lifestyle change. And lifestyle changes involve not just changing “what you do” but also “what you believe”. Many of my clients come to me and say, “I know what I am supposed to do – but for some reason, I just don’t have the discipline or focus to do it.”
Most of the time, it’s because we have some inner resistance to change, rooted in our subconscious mind. It turns out that 95% of what we do is on autopilot, while our conscious (logic and decision making) mind is running only 5% of the time.
This means that most of what we do is below conscious choice– so if you have an unwanted pattern that you keep repeating like giving into cravings for foods that sabotage your health or skipping exercise, the place to start is not nutrition alone, but with your subconscious mind.
In other words, by bringing more of what you do into your conscious awareness, you get the opportunity to understand on a deeper level why you do it. You gain new insight into the conditioning and programming that’s driving your unwanted habits and self-sabotaging behaviors.
This self-knowledge shifts your perception of your reality and opens up new choices – which lay the foundation for the positive actions you take toward weight loss or frankly, any goal you want to achieve.
In this way, lifestyle change is not as fast or sexy as the latest fad diet or detox, and there are no fancy gadgets, but that’s why the weight loss industry isn’t going to spend much time on it. But if you’re ready to get off the hamster wheel, working with strategies that understand how your mind impacts your metabolism, is the key.
So while many weight loss experts will tell you it’s all about what you DO, I believe that real change starts first with the thoughts, emotions and perceptions that you have. If you fail to address any internal resistance going on, then real lasting change will always seem frustrating, overwhelming and hard.
Moreover, when the foundation of your beliefs is flawed, the real detriment is on your actual physiology. What we think and what we believe (consciously and unconsciously) directly impacts our physical health.
So when it comes to food and weight loss specifically, I’m talking about toxic beliefs about personal lack, unworthiness, victimhood, not being good enough, not doing enough for someone or something…..and that’s where negative emotions like guilt, jealousy and resentment come in to re-enforce such beliefs.
This ongoing cycle of self harming beliefs triggers the stress response (aka “Fight or Flight” mechanism) flooding your body with excess cortisol and insulin, decreasing growth and thyroid hormone, increasing inflammation, all of which puts the breaks on your metabolism and compromises well-being.
Consider that every moment of every day you are programming your biology at the cellular level – literally telling your cells how to feel. Imagine how that affects your health.
How your cells function in healthy or unhealthy ways is fundamentally affected by their environment of sensory information. That information comes from your choices about how you feel and how you think. Every cell in your body is literally listening to your thoughts.
Everything that happens in the body is a response to the way you feel. So Everything is indeed Mind Over Matter.
So how can we begin to break through and create lasting weight loss?
Above all, the first step to making any change starts with Self Acceptance. Accepting and loving yourself just as you are NOW. So if you are 10,20, 50lbs, etc. overweight, love and accept yourself right NOW. I mean 100% – unconditionally. This is not giving up – this is consciously choosing to feel good about yourself NOW, feel happier NOW feel more confident NOW.
This is extremely powerful – because science (the fields of epigenetics, neuropsychophysiology, metaphysics, etc..) has proven that the Body Achieves What the Mind Believes – not the other way around.
If you really take that in, it can be extremely empowering – you are so much more powerful than you have been led to believe because it means you already have all that you need WITHIN YOU to create the health you desire.
What would you like your body to hear from you today?
