Are Your Beliefs Sabotaging Your Weight Loss Goals?
You or your even your body itself seemingly sabotages you every time. Why?
So you’ve tried all the diets, cleanses, supplements and exercises. You know a ton of information about inflammation, why sugar is bad for you, the benefits of clean eating. You tell yourself that you really want to lose weight and live a healthy lifestyle but there’s always something in your way that derails you. Or maybe even when you do everything “right”, your body continues to hold onto excess weight.
The culprit: Limiting Beliefs
Limiting beliefs are the repetitive patterns of thinking that live in our subconscious mind. They are the negative thoughts, attitudes and perceptions we have about food, our body, health and ultimately ourselves and the world we live. They are part of our mental programming that came from early childhood impressions. So if we were told that we were not good enough, not lovable, not smart enough, not deserving, all of that got recorded as programming in our subconscious mind and becomes the mental stumbling blocks for having what we desire.
For example, if you feel unworthy and undeserving it can be difficult to allow yourself to have good things in your life whether it’s a fulfilling relationship or a fit, healthy body. Or maybe you had negative experiences that left you feeling angry or ashamed and those feelings continue to affect your self worth today. Maybe you’re operating from the all too common belief that if you just lose enough weight, you’ll finally be worthy of love and happiness, but there’s a part of you that identifies as someone who’s not worthy or deserving and that part of you unknowingly holds you back every time.
Limiting beliefs are also created when we repeat disempowering thoughts over and over again. For instance, you keep thinking,
“I’ll never lose the weight, it’s just too hard, It’s too late, I’m doomed to stay this way….”
Unknowingly, we live our day to day lives most of the time from faulty mental programming. It’s not the external reality that hinders you, it’s our internal map of a false reality. The negative self talk we have about ourselves, our body, our ability to lose weight all lie at the root of our self sabotaging behaviors.
Here are the most common limiting beliefs / mindset obstacles that hear from my clients:
- “It’s my genes, there’s something wrong with me”
- “Weight Loss is hard”
- “I’ve always been the fat one”
- “I’m doomed to stay this way – Nothing’s changing.”
So our conscious mind may desire weight loss and a healthy lifestyle but our limiting beliefs will block us from having what we want every time. The subconscious mind locks in our old habits and keeps us retreating back to the familiar patterns no matter how dysfunctional they appear to be. Your subconscious mind has memorized all your comfort zones and it works to keep you in them every time you attempt to do something different. It’s why you feel uneasy, awkward or tense when you try to change your behaviors. It’s why you hear that voice in your head saying: have another cookie, skip the gym, you’re too busy now, why bother trying you’re going to fail anyway etc.…
Moreover, because your mind and emotions are not disconnected aspects of you, the body is directly influenced by what we think and feel. Our negative thoughts, self defeating attitudes and perceptions can automatically signal some degree of fight or flight stress response in the body creating the opposite biochemistry we need for natural weight loss. Study after study proves that we have more power than we have been led to believe to influence our physical and cognitive realities through the power of thought alone. What we know from the research of neuroscience and epigenetics is that our limiting beliefs wreak havoc on our hormones, neurocircuitry and even our genetic expression. Our psychology and our biology are deeply intertwined and it’s imperative to approach our weight loss goals with this ancient wisdom. Make no mistake, limiting beliefs can be just as toxic as the junk we are trying so hard to keep off our plates. So when it comes to changing both our behaviors and our bodies, our mindset is critical.
What if you knew that it wasn’t the calories that’s at the root of your struggle with weight, but rather the faulty programming in your Mind and how your body’s been responding to it.
When it comes to changing our bodies, results will almost always prove futile or temporal, unless they are accompanied by a change in what we think and believe. If getting your body in shape hasn’t worked so well it’s time to explore the deeper reasons your body is holding on to excess weight. All breakthroughs come from a change in belief.
Here’s what I’ve have learned in my own personal journey as well as in coaching hundreds of weight loss clients: The most important step in sustainable weight loss is training your Mind to accept the changes you want to make. Your body recognizes your mindset right down to the cellular level so the more you improve the quality of your mental habits, the more beneficial response you will get from the body.
The first step toward dismantling those limiting beliefs is to bring awareness to them. Take some time to write down the answers to the following questions. Be clear, descriptive and detailed in your answers. Remember to be curious, gentle and compassionate with yourself during this deeply personal inquiry.
- What is the story I am telling myself about my weight, my body, my health?
- Is this story 100% true?
- How has this story served me? What has been its purpose?
- How would you feel in your body if you didn’t believe this story?
- What would you do differently in your day to day life if you didn’t believe this story?
- What will your life look like, what will you think, feel and do differently when you achieve your health or weight loss goal?
When you begin the process of identifying and reprogramming limiting beliefs, you have the opportunity to chart a new life changing path. Achieving what you desire comes with much less effort and hardship when you come from a place where your mind and body are acting coherently as one force. Because when you get clear on your desired outcome you rewire your brain and it naturally begins to organize itself towards whatever images you have created in your mind. You stop the body’s resistance when you discover that internally you always have a choice what you believe in. Through the power of self discovery you can begin to shift your focus to some new resourceful beliefs, attitudes and perceptions that are aligned with getting you the results that you want. You can change your body but you must first change your mind. The great news is that reality is flexible and so are you.
