Do you have thoughts something like this:
“I should have lost this weight by now.”
“How come I can’t figure this out, what’s wrong with me?”
“I’m not doing a good enough job.”
“I’m a failure.”
I am not sure if you have any of these thoughts, but I sure did for over 20 years. I was doing all the diets and never could lose weight or keep it off. Many times I gained more weight back then I lost.
These thoughts came up frequently every time I failed at yet another diet.
If it wasn’t bad enough at failing with the diets, having those thoughts made it so much worse.
Those thoughts had me feeling frustrated, ashamed, hopeless. Had me beating up on myself even more, which had me running to those brownies, cookies and ice cream!
That vicious cycle continued for over 20+ years. I stayed stuck with being 100 lbs overweight, depressed, overeating, dieting, and miserable.
Once I figured this out (got coaching), my whole life changed!
I learned that these thoughts played in the background in everything I did in my life, especially when it came to losing weight.
The first step I was taught was to become aware of the thoughts playing on autopilot and, most importantly, once I was aware not to try to make them go away.
To not try to ‘delete’ them!
This was something I didn’t understand at first because I thought that if I could make them go away, then I could move forward, I could lose weight and live the life I dreamed of having!
But what I didn’t realize was that I wasn’t moving forward not because of having those thoughts but because I believed having those thoughts was the problem.
What?
Yup, I learned that those thoughts were just habitual thought patterns and NOT the truth! So it’s not a problem having them.
Our brains love to tell us we are doing something wrong- it loves to take the easy way out in life and hit the preprogrammed button on the radio playing in our head on the “doing it wrong” station. It finds that channel quickly even though it’s a crappy station.
So those thoughts you believe to be true only feel true to you because they have been played repeatedly for a very long time.
Your job is not to scrub your brain clean of those thoughts; because you can’t.
It’s not about trying to replace those thoughts with beautiful, wonderful thoughts.
It’s recognizing- oh, this is just a story my brain is good at telling. It’s good at going to the preprogrammed station of “I should have figured this out,” “What’s wrong with me,” “I’m not good enough.” It’s not the truth; it’s just a story!
What you need to know is, you don’t have to believe every story your brain is telling you. You don’t have to believe your thoughts!
Losing 100 lbs was not because of going on another diet. It was because it started with ME changing what stories/thoughts I wanted to believe and then working on what else I was willing to believe.
Guess what? You don’t have to figure all of this out on your own! If I didn’t work with a coach, I know I would still be depressed, miserable and hiding from the world AND still yo-yo dieting.
Join my Facebook group here, where I help women lose weight for the last time by giving the tools and support to get to their dream weight and life!
You are worth it!
Hugs,
Karen
Registered Nurse, Certified Weight and Emotional Eating Coach
