Successful Weight Loss Starts in Your Mind
Successful Weight Loss Starts in Your Mind
– by Wendy Merron
“Eating diet food is about as satisfying as watching an action film of a snail race.”
- Wendy Merron
My personal opinion is that packaged diet foods are usually both tasteless and unsatisfying. When low fat foods first appeared on grocery shelves, I remember purchasing a box of low-fat chocolate cookies. Like many others, I was enthralled that they were low in fat. No fat – No guilt!. The idea of munching down as many as I wanted was so appealing! So I ate one. And another. And another. And another. Why did I eat so many? The cookies were bland and dull. They were not appealing at all. The truth is I kept eating them because I was hoping that eventually they would taste satisfying and I would enjoy them.
If you are thinking about going on a diet, you are doomed to fail. Why? Because diet foods taste like twice-baked sweat socks? No. You are doomed to fail because most diets require deprivation, and depriving ourselves NEVER WORKS to lose weight.
“No”, you are thinking, “This can’t be true. I have a friend who went on a diet and lost weight.” We all have friends who have lost weight. And some have kept it off. Perhaps you have lost weight too. But have you kept it off for more than a year? Or did you find yourself slowing adding those extra pounds right back on over the next few months?
If you’ve lost weight only to find yourself regaining those pounds (and sometimes more), then why do it all over again? There’s only one reason: You learned from the past, and you plan to do things differently. You know that eating less and moving more is simply NOT ENOUGH to ensure success, or you wouldn’t be reading this.
Why don’t diets work? Because most diets consist of a way to eat in which you are depriving yourself of specific foods. Weight Watchers, by-the-way, is not considered a diet in my opinion. It is well defined food related program designed to help you learn to make lifelong healthy food choices. Unfortunately, like other food related programs, Weight Watchers does not teach you how to THINK about yourself and food.
The way we think, imagine, and feel about ourselves and food is directly related to how easy it is to lose weight and maintain our weight.
Have you ever gone on a diet and eliminated specific foods that you enjoy? It’s no fun. And it’s really hard to stick to it. After a week or so, of dieting I found myself feeling really deprived. Even worse, I found myself thinking about cookies, ice cream and cake every day. The more I deprived myself, the more I thought about these foods. (Just for the record, these are the foods that contributed in a big way to the 173 pounds I was carrying on my 5 foot 1 inch frame.)
A few weeks later, after using more will-power than I knew I had, I came to the conclusion that my mind was acting like a spoiled two year old. The more I said “NO!” to sweets – the more my mind WANTED sweets. I was struggling with wanting every day! To say I was miserable was an understatement.
One day I decided to end the struggle. At that time I knew that I was finally in total control of everything I ate. I knew that I could have a dish of ice cream and still stick to my diet. My confidence and will-power were strong. I had lost 8 pounds and was on my way to a new me. So I sat down and had a small dish of chocolate marshmallow ice cream. It was wonderful. Cold, smooth, sweet and creamy, I loved that delightful feeling as it melted on my tongue. After I finished the ice cream, I put my dish in the dishwasher and left the kitchen.
As I continued throughout the evening I couldn’t stop thinking about how good that ice cream tasted. Should I have just a little bit more? I’ve lost 8 pounds, so I can afford to have a little bit more. Maybe I’ll take just another small serving. I took the ice cream container out of the freezer and put another serving in a new bowl and sat down to watch TV. Let’s fast forward to the end of the evening. It may not be a surprise to many of you that I single-handedly finished that entire container of chocolate marshmallow ice cream.
Was I in total control? Heck no. I couldn’t seem to stop myself. Did I enjoy it? It tasted wonderful at the time. But when I was finished I felt awful. Hugely upset with myself that I had consumed a whole gallon of ice cream in one evening. I felt as if I had just undone 2 weeks of dieting in one sitting. I was mad at myself for allowing myself to eat so much ice cream. Did I gain weight? I wish I could say “No, I didn’t gain any weight,” but this wasn’t a fantasy. It was real life. And it was a real big gallon of high fat, high calorie chocolate marshmallow ice cream.
The next day I decided that dieting and eliminating foods I enjoyed was the wrong way to approach eating. It just didn’t work. To be honest, I was never successful with this approach. It was then that I decided that the only way for me to let go of excess pounds was to create a new way of eating that works for ME. Following someone else’s version of what’s right and wrong, or good and bad wasn’t working.
That day I came up with these personal rules:
Rule # 1. Depriving myself feels bad and doesn’t work.
Rule # 2. Eliminating my favorite foods causes me to eat too much and gain weight.
Rule #3. I need to find a new way to enjoy new habits.
By this time you are probably wondering what hypnosis has to do with any of these suggestions for losing weight. There are three key components to successful Weight Loss:
1. Eat less. (You already knew this)
2. Move more. (Not a surprise) and
3. Take the Struggle out of Weight Loss with Hypnosis and the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)
If you consistently find that you lose weight just to gain it back later on, then you know that eating less and moving more just isn’t enough. If you keep on doing what you are doing, you’ll continue to get the same results. I promise.
If this sounds like you, it’s time for you to add the all important Third Component (#3 above) to your life. One of the major concepts that I teach my clients is that our imagination is MUCH MORE POWERFUL than our personal will power.
Think about this. Which of the following would you rather experience every day?
1. Thinking about your body, heavy with excess weight, and imagining yourself struggling every day with your diet?
Or
2. Imagining yourself as you want to be…trim, healthy, smiling, happy and in total control of everything you eat?
Take a moment and think about a time you’ve achieved success in your life. Maybe you learned something new, did something great at work, or successfully accomplished a task. Think back to this time of success. When you were in the process of achieving this success, what did you focus on? What did you think about? What kinds of images and thoughts went through your mind? Did you think about failing miserably, or did you imagine your success?
If you imagined your success, you know instinctively that focusing on what you DESIRED was one of the key components to your success. I personally take time to do this every day. I imagine myself the way I want to be. Some days it’s only for a minute, right before I go to sleep. Some days I think about it a few times a day.
When I create my hypnosis CD’s, help clients, and hold workshops for Weight Loss, Public Speaking and Eliminate Stress While Job Hunting, I emphasize this concept frequently.
I can assure you that focusing on what you DESIRE will ALWAYS get you where you want to be. In my case, I’ve kept those 35 pounds off for over a year now. And for the first time in my life the journey has been without struggle.
Hypnosis and EFT have changed my life. They can change your life too.
~~~
About Wendy Merron
Wendy Merron is a Certified NGH Hypnotist and Hypnosis & EFT Trainer. She is the President of the National Guild of Hypnotists (NGH) Greater Philadelphia Chapter. Wendy Merron l has been featured in numerous periodicals including Better Homes and Gardens, Main Line Today Magazine, the Suburban & Wayne Times, and Main Line Life. In addition she has presented at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, Bryn Mawr Hospital, and the National Guild of Hypnotists Annual Conference.
To learn more about how you can lose weight permanently with Hypnosis and EFT, please contact Wendy at wgoldenthal@gmail.com or visit her site http://www.WendyMerron.com .
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