Goodbye Guilt

We know that being overweight or obese affects us or will affect us in the future, not only in terms of appearance, but also our internal physiological and emotional wellbeing (low self-esteem, lack of confidence, frustration, feelings of guilt, cholesterol, diabetes, hypertension etc…). We also know that the right way of losing weight is through healthy eating, exercise, drinking water and acquiring healthy habits. However it doesn’t come as easy as it seems; why is it so hard to reach our goal weight?

First we need to be conscious that gaining weight does not happen overnight and in the same way we cannot expect to lose weight quickly and without effort. It will take time to accomplish, but nothing is impossible.

You will be presented with “obstacles” that challenge you to carry on and achieve your objective of changing your habits:

• believing that eating healthy is harder and boring
• following a diet plan means being hungry all the time
• not wanting to see the future health issues that bad eating habits lead to
• placing external excuses (work, family, children, partner, a social life etc…)
• “missing” your usual or favourite foods
• feeling anxious and an uncontrollable urge to eat

If you analyze each one, you will realise that they are only obstacles created in our mind, thoughts that we generate. This is why one of the most important things to do is to change our way of thinking, because the motivation to lose weight may be present for a few days, but the moment comes when we lose it and we fall back to the beginning.

We must not forget that the creation and modification of habits for a healthy life will require time and great mental effort, because the behaviours we have adopted since our childhood lie in our subconscious and make us act in an automatic way. Those habits have most likely led us to the point at which we find ourselves today. Therein lies the importance of not changing everything in one go, and above all to do it in a conscious way in order to achieve long term results.

By accepting the above, we have to set realistic goals, small goals that we can achieve short term, because if we create a huge package of objectives, it will become complicated and the drive to accomplish these will last 1 or 2 weeks. With simple goals and their achievements we will add more and more motivation to our efforts.

Start with practical things, like drinking an extra one or two glasses of water, or choosing the stairs rather than the elevator whenever you have the option. Allow yourself to eat and enjoy a small portion of your favourite foods every now and then. This will help you feel in control of your life as you incorporate new, healthy habits and stop you falling back to the usual set of “automatic” behaviours that only momentarily appease your state of anxiety.

A tip to help you keep your will power is to practice meditation daily. You can incorporate it in your daily habits very easily. We recommend a simple and free application I Meditate, and if you have taken the Neural Stimulation courses you can use these treatments to reinforce your will and help yourself to fight stress and reduce the anxiety to eat. If you are interested in taking these Neural Stimulation courses, contact us.

Remember your goal every day when you wake up so that it is an objective to achieve, and over all be patient, keep your willpower strong. If you keep fighting to get your goal, you will reach it and think about the great satisfaction it will bring to your life.