How Your Thoughts Can Help You Lose Weight
We often say that weight loss and weight loss maintenance isn’t about food. It’s not even about exercise.
It’s about YOUR MIND.
Have I lost my mind?
I’m not trying to talk some voodoo psychic messaging on you … it’s just that your mind is more powerful than anything else when it comes to successful weight management.
In other words, you need a mindset shift.
Think about it … what aspects of our lives are controlled by our mind?
The answer: EVERYTHING! If you tell yourself you will always “struggle” with weight loss, you will. You’re right. If you believe you are “too busy” to exercise and things aren’t going to change. You won’t make the time – you WILL be too busy.
“Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re probably right.” Zig Ziglar
How can we make that adjustment – what we call “the mindset shift?”
We need this to be successful on all levels: personal, financial, physical, mental, etc.
In our boot camps, we reframe the words “I hope,” “I can’t,” “I wish I could.” There is nothing positive about these statements.
Think about your own life. A UCLA study showed that kids heard the word “no” over FOUR HUNDRED times each day.
Think that influences their thoughts? Of course.
For instance, when things go wrong, instead of criticizing yourself, work on focusing on the positive, your strengths, and talents.
Try reframing your thoughts: Instead of: “I can’t be successful at weight loss, I have tried so many times in the past—I just wish I looked like my friends.” Try: “I am in complete control of my body and fueling it with the most nutritious foods that will allow me to feel even better and lose fat.” Imagine thinking THAT each morning vs. the first statement! We simply need a mindset shift.
Our minds play funny games and it’s often because of the continual negative messages we hear and the blame we put on others. But in reality, no one can “fix” you, but you.
Here’s another way to think about it. In the winter, if it’s 55 degrees, we’re all running around in shorts celebrating the "heat wave." In the summer, that same 55 degrees is like a glacier is making its way through your back yard
See? Mindset Shift. That’s all it takes for permanent success!
Our mind plays tricks on us. But just like you are in control of the foods you put into your body, to fuel your muscles, cells, etc, think of the messages you read and hear as fuel for your brain. Your brain needs the right fuel too. Feed it junk, and you’ll have junky thoughts. This is one of the best books out there for helping with that mindset shift.
July 26th, 2009 at 11:24 am
“I am in complete control of my body and fueling it with the most nutritious foods that will allow me to feel even better and lose fat.”
Making that my new mantra, except I’m replacing “lose” which is negative
with “burn” 
Pasting a sentence like this on a goal-board/ motivation-board is also a good idea. If someone struggling with food issues can remember this one thing whenever they are faced with a cookie-isle or shelves of chocolate or chips or whatever else … they would probably have less trouble walking away.
Some say that we are what we eat, and that’s true to a large degree, but I think we are also what we THINK!
Both what we eat and what we think are things we can control. It takes conscious effort in the beginning, but becomes more of an automatism as we practice the discipline of schooling our thoughts.
Any trick is good. You can imagine your favourite on-line trainer scowling at you for even looking at a bad choice “food”, that’s worked for me. Or you carry an image of the body you want to have and look at it whenever you’re tempted. Reading a goal card can help too. There is no one correct trick, we all have to find our own which will work for us.
I even had a T-shirt printed once with Jack LaLanne’s quote: “Nothing tastes as good as being lean feels” on the front
a quote which has kept me out of trouble more than once!
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July 26th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
It cannot be emphasized enough that positive thoughts give positive results in manifesting what you want in life. I have found an alternative to the “goal board,” “dream board,” or “motivation board.” I am a visual artist, a movie freak, and music is also a huge part of my life. I discovered Mind Movies that are a daily motivational product created down under, that’s right in Australia. There is a site where you can download six FREE Mind Movies and in 6 minutes a day start to manifest everything you want in your life.
http://www.mindmovies.com/DownloadPreMades.html
And if you are like me, you might be interested in making your own Mind Movie(s) which are more personal and specific, there’s a site for that too. http://www.mindmovies.com/?14139
This visualization and daily affirmations have made a big difference in my life and I’m happy to share it with anyone looking for a better life.
Every day is a new opportunity for happiness.
Lark
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July 29th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Positive thinking has been highly influential when navigating my health/fitness goals. I find that when I am honoring both my mind and body, both my well-being and life are much easier to navigate. It is so easy get bogged down with external negativity in our environment. However, honoring the body with healthy thoughts, foods, exercise, relationships, etc. can result in a rich journey to a healthy lifestyle. Life is a gift.
Thanks to Mohr Results for this article. I have forwarded it to several of my friends that are struggling with their health goals.
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July 25th, 2011 at 8:03 am
Wow,
Chris and Kara, This is the most important and powerful post that you have ever posted on your website to date! The quote at the top of my HomePage tightandfit.com, states exactly what you’re talking about…, “Your body will do what your Mind tells it too. Speak Positively, you body is Listening”.
I learned this early on in my own healing process. Coming back from the brink of death and later on with healing in every aspect of my life including recovery from open heart surgery from a genetic disorder. As part of my personal training packages I take all my personal clients through a personal visualization process and ALL my clients have had incredible and lasting results towards their weight loss or lean muscle mass gain and overall healthy lifestyle changes. Another thing that I noticed early on was that people were speaking negatively when they would eat something that they thought was undesirable they would say, “Oh an, I shouldn’t have eaten that, It’s gonna make me fat”. Well you just told your body to get fat from what you ate. It’s a “no brainer”.
So if you’re going to eat something that is outside of your healthy eating zone, enjoy it and don’t over do it. You body will do what your mind tells it too! Speak positively, your body is listening!
Chris and Kara thanks again for sharing the positiveness of life! Love and Light, Jesse
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July 25th, 2011 at 8:59 am
Visualization and positive reaffirmations are valuable; however if fail to act hten those words are like “empty” calories that pack on the fat -:)
Thanks for provoking many thoughts!
Cheers!
Mike
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July 25th, 2011 at 11:37 am
> Think about your own life. A UCLA study showed that kids heard the word “no” over FOUR
> HUNDRED times each day.
NO-NO to this study. Maybe over a week but daily is just not likely (p <.001). As this article and commentor(s) have indicated a positive attitude and re-enforcement is a lot better than
the negative.
As the good Doctors are probably well aware there is growing interest in "epigenomics" which is about the expression and inhibiting genes without changes in our DNA sequence. So, we can add "you are what you think" to "you are what you eat".
Any skeptics of epigenetics that would like to defend thier position should be well versed in molecular biology and transmethylation (among a few other things). Strangely (and somewhat confounding to me) is that Nutrition (and metbolic) studies are somewhat entangled with Cancer research studies.
I'm pointing that out just to demonstrate that science can take us to some very counter-intuitive places these days.
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July 26th, 2011 at 6:28 am
“I am in complete control of my body and fueling it with the most nutritious foods that will allow me to feel even better and lose fat.”
I would add:
…”And moving my body in a way that allows me to burn stress and give me power.”
The mind is a powerful thing. Thanks for your post!
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