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Do You Believe You Can Lose Weight?

By Shondelle Solomon-Miles

In your heart of hearts, do you believe you can lose weight? If not, why bother trying?

Your inner world creates your outer world. In other words, your thoughts, beliefs, and feelings create your results. The problem that so many people have when attempting to lose weight is that they attempt to change their “external” world without addressing their “internal” world. For example, you may join a gym, buy some “fat-burning” pills or go on a diet. The problem is that none of these methods examines the beliefs and the subconscious programming that allowed you to become overweight, or “out of balance” in the first place.

In order to correct a “problem,” you must acknowledge and “treat” the source of the problem, rather than the symptoms of that problem. Dr. Joseph Murphy, author of The Power of Your Subconscious Mind could not have said it better: “If you want to change external conditions, you must change the cause.

Most people try to change conditions and circumstances by working on those conditions and circumstances. This is a terrible waste of time and effort. To remove discord, confusion, lack and limitation from your life, you must remove the cause.”

Here’s a very simple analogy to prove this point. A diabetic who “at the moment” has normal blood sugar levels due to medication is still a diabetic right?, After all if this person doesn’t take their medication, the symptoms return. The medication does not eliminate diabetes; it temporarily treats it. Most often, weight gain is the result of a “problem,” and not the problem itself.

So how do you find the source of a problem? You start by examining your feelings, thoughts, and beliefs. If in the core of your being you do not believe you can lose weight, you will not lose weight. If you successfully and permanently want to achieve your weight loss goals, you must eliminate the self-defeating beliefs that you have, that do not support your mission. Otherwise, you will sabotage your efforts every single time.

Here is an example. I recently had a young woman come to my studio to inquire about my weight loss services. After rattling off her long list of goals and deadlines, she asked, “Do you think I can do this? Is it possible for me to look better in three months?” I immediately responded, “I think you can do anything you set your mind to within reason. A more important question is do you think you can do it? ”

She did not verbally respond, but I could tell by her body language, and the expression of doubt on her face that she did not believe it was possible. I knew then that her skepticism, and her lack of belief in her ability to lose weight successfully, would defeat her soon after beginning her journey. As expected, within a couple of weeks she abandoned her exercise and nutrition program. Not because she wasn’t capable of completing her workouts and following a supportive eating plan, but because she did not truly believe it was possible.

Why?

Because she had “failed” in the past.

Positive change is dependent upon the interlocking of belief and “know-how.”

Weight loss programs that rely solely on external behaviors such as counting calories, skipping dessert, and doing cardio in your fat-burning zone, rarely lead to permanent weight loss if they do not simultaneously address the internal or “intangible” components of change, some of which include self-image and personal beliefs.

Change begins with a shift in these “intangibles.” As adults, we hold many beliefs that are self-limiting and that retard our progress towards achieving physical transformation. Some of these include,

“I don’t have time,” ”This is too hard,” “I hate exercising,” “I’m just not disciplined,” “Eating healthy is boring,” or “I have no self-control.”

These unsupportive thoughts and beliefs, disguised as excuses, are nothing more than self-sabotaging belief systems that you have chosen to accept as your truth. The good new is that you can also choose to accept beliefs that are supportive of the goal you are striving to achieve.

Mark Victor Hanson, co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul says it best: “Your belief determines your action and your action determines your results, but first you have to believe.”

About the Author:

Shondelle Solomon-Miles is the owner of Synergize Training Studios in Hollywood, FL. She is also the author of The Ultimate Fat Loss Guide. Her website is www.Synergizeweightloss.com