Manage your Thoughts & Manage your Weight

They say you are what you think. In that context, one can safely say that changing one’s thinking leads to changing in one’s weight. For successful weight management, we have to first get our thinking right. In this article, I will examine the power of some of our thought patterns and how to overcome negative ones.

I just presented at a kick-off of a local weight management program. One of the first things we tend to do in these programs is to examine our relationship with ourselves.

I always ask the participants, “Who are you to your friends and family?”  Are you a friend, a confidante, a pillar of support, generous, loyal, forgiving, gentle, etc?

Now let’s turn around as ask this question to yourself.  Who are you to yourself? Are you all of those qualities to yourself?  If you are not, then I urge you to examine why not!  This is the single most important relationship in your life. You have got to be your own best friend, accept and love yourself from within before you can conspire for your own success.  This is the stuff of happiness that gives your life purpose and passion.

This leads me to the next important question. How do you feel about yourself when you stand in front of the mirror? How about while you’re naked?  What do you say to yourself?  The “whispers” in your head constitute your self-image.  And your self image forms a large part of your self-concept which has a direct impact on your self-esteem. Are you sending any toxic messages about yourself to yourself?  Guard against that.

Try the following exercise:  Turn around and look behind you for five seconds, and spot all the things that are blue.

Done?

Now, without looking behind you again, list all the yellow things you saw.

Difficult, isn’t it? In fact, most of us can’t list a single one.

This is the same when we are looking out for all the things that are wrong with us. We render ourselves unable to see the positive! So let’s turn this around – let us look for all the good things about ourselves. Soon some of the bad aspects will start to disappear. When you love and appreciate yourself and your body, you will naturally take better care of yourself. That way doing the right things like making better food choices and taking time out to exercise will be a lot easier.

One last thing; if you feel that there simply aren’t any aspects of you or your body that are positive – are you focusing on blue by any chance?

Tags: Obesity, Video