Often, in talking about weight control, we talk only about the food we feed our bodies. We give little attention to the thoughts we feed our minds. We have become a diet-conscious, calorie-counting society. Why? Because we realize that the body does reflect the food it is fed. Our strength, stamina, resistance to disease, body size, and mental health are all related to what we feed our bodies. By the same token, the mind reflects the thoughts it is fed. Clearly, then, equal attention must be given to developing a healthy mind and body.
Your thoughts are very powerful. They play a large role in the outcome of whatever it is you want to achieve. You develop a subjective probability or personal estimate of the likelihood that your effort, such as eating well or exercising, will lead to your desired outcome. Have you ever said, "I can't even walk by a bakery without gaining ten pounds," or "I just can't lose weight and keep it off"? All the thoughts you think produce changes in your feelings, leading to actions and finally to reactions in yourself and others. You need to become more aware that the negative thoughts you feed your mind are just as self-destructive as eating the wrong kinds of food.
If you eat foods high in fat, sugars, and salt, you usually show visible signs: indigestion, gas, diarrhea, high blood pressure, diabetes, weight gain, etc. These signals help you, telling you that eating like this is not good for you. The negative thoughts you continue to feed your mind have much more subtle signals and are not always as observable. Of course, there is still a consequence to your negative thinking. You may begin to have feelings of hopelessness or a sort of down-in-the-dumps feeling, not quite knowing why you feel unhappy. Negative thinking doesn't make you feel good about life, and life is what you make it. Life is seen by the positive thinker as challenging and full of hope. In contrast, the negative thinker looks at life as boring, nothing but a struggle.
Positive Thinking
Learning to think positively requires organization, time, and discipline, as well as cognitive restructuring. In other words, you need to clean up your thoughts-just as you clean your house once a week. A house seems to collect a lot of items, some of which will be useful, others that only cause more confusion.
So you clean it up, getting rid of the useless items, while saving the more important ones. Similar clutter occurs in your mind. You collect years of good and bad experiences, which can cause either negative or positive feelings about yourself. Get rid of the negative thoughts that cause more confusion, only fostering self-defeating pessimistic attitudes and low self-esteem. Decide, "This is my life and I'm going to clean it up!"
One possible way to achieve a positive attitude is to think of your mind as if it were a computer. A computer must be programmed with the correct information in order for it to work; so, too, must your mind be programmed with the correct thoughts. You need to develop attitude goals as well as weight control goals, bringing the mind and body together. Perhaps the reason why ninety-five percent of the people who lose physical weight gain it back within one year is that they haven't made mind and body changes. Physical weight was lost, but emotional weight remained. If emotional weight is left untreated, sooner or later turning to or away from food for comfort and control recurs. This can be seen in a person who loses physical weight yet still feels heavy. This person may be a size ten in clothes but still shops for a size fourteen. Why? The heaviness may lie more in the mind of the individual, in the for of "emotional weight" than in the body. In such instances a person may be thin but still not happy, healthy, and in control of eating. You must feel good about yourself inside to feel good about what you see on the outside. The mirror image will never seem thin enough, good enough, or beautiful enough until you feel good about yourself inside. The next time you look in the mirror, really look-deep into your eyes. There is a lot of beauty inside all of us.
You can't continue to view the body and mind separately when trying to achieve weight control, because emotional weight is in your mind and physical weight is in your body. Look at yourself as a whole person-not just as hips and thighs. Start by cleaning up your thinking process. You're eating healthier, better quality foods and thinking healthier, better quality thoughts. Take a piece of paper once a week and write down some of your negative, self-defeating thoughts about yourself: fears, anger, disappointments and hostile thoughts-"I don't care" attitudes. Then on another piece of paper, write down some positive thoughts and actions that will help you rid yourself of overwhelming negativity. Start saying "I do care." When you write your positive thoughts down and start thinking about them, they are no longer just thoughts, but are now more alive, and represent goals. We all know how important water is, and without it we would die. Keeping a positive attitude is just as important to the mind as water is to the body. If we don't keep a positive attitude, our goals simply die.
Take the piece of paper with the negative thoughts and crumple it up and throw it away. Now, write down five or ten positive things you like about yourself. Don't hold back if you think of more! Focus each day on your positive qualities, and stop punishing yourself with the negative thoughts and actions over something you did last week, yesterday or even two hours ago. It is over, so go on and focus on the present. Take your time and really think about and identify with what you are writing down. Don't just write words-really feel them! It is only natural that you could write about fifteen pages on what you believe are your negative qualities and barely get out a word about your good qualities. This indicates that you still need to get to know yourself. It is time you meet yourself, and this exercise helps you do just that! The first step would be to start now-not tomorrow or Monday or even "someday,"-but NOW! Immediately write down on a piece of paper, "I can and will achieve a healthy permanent body weight; I am healthy happy and in control of eating." each time you want to quit, pull out your goals and review them. Do this a couple of times a day especially when you have thoughts of giving up! Positive thinking is a much healthier idea than binging and purging or using diet pills or laxatives which have many dangerous side effects psychologically and physically. Each time you feed your mind good thoughts and your body good food it is a wonderful spiritual message. It says "I care about myself and good things are going to happen! I deserve good things!" There are also side effects that result from positive thinking: a positive self-image and peace of mind!
Positive thinking is easy when everything is going well for you, but very difficult when things are somewhat chaotic. This is when you need to apply it most of all! Positive thinking doesn't always provide you with instant results just like taking a vitamin and mineral supplement doesn't always provide instant health. Yet it is still working for you. Your mind is powerful-use it! Every thought you think will eventually produce either positive or negative changes in your life. For most of us learning to ride a bike meant we had to get back on many times trying new ways to sit on or balance your bike. Overcoming an eating problem also requires you keep trying to discover how to find that healthy balance in life and positive thinking allows you to find out what works best for you. It's when you are the most tired and want to say, "I just don't care" that you are almost up the hill.
Nonverbal thoughts also contribute significantly to your behaviors and emotions, and can be used to change undesirable behavior. You can't just sit around and think positively in hopes that fat will melt from your thighs or that you can overcome anorexia or bulimia by just "thinking yourself better." You can't just think yourself into a size eight bikini; you don't build muscles just by thinking about them. Most change requires action. Start by saying "I'm important" and then make some important changes in your behavior taking it a step at a time. If you try too much too soon, you're going to trip and feel discouraged. The positive thoughts initiate the positive actions which cause the positive reactions. Therefore, overcoming an eating problem requires cognitive (mind) and behavioral (action) components. What we have just discussed might seem rather basic but it is the basics in life that work! The more technical or complicated ideas are sometimes too difficult to understand and apply. Getting back to the basics means using your own potential. To discover your potential you must think positively.
Negative thinking just fills you with fear and doubt moving you farther from discovering your potential for recovery.
The mind is a useful tool; use it don't abuse it. ~Aunt Millie
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