In the toolbox of your healthy lifestyle, there are so many instruments that it’s no wonder we often get lost or put more emphasis on the least relevant among them, especially in the battle to lose weight. You could find that dream-come-true exercise routine, but will you really rush to the gym or prance happily to the Pilates class if you feel miserable in your own skin and you spend most of your time exasperating those thoughts? Likewise, you could also come across a diet that looks and feels right for you, and yet somehow, those cravings always get the better of you.
If it’s any consolation, you’re not alone. Far from it. We are all products of our own thoughts, and as such, it’s time to reclaim the control over our thinking patterns by reviving our positive mindset. It’s the most important “gadget” in your weight-loss toolbox, one that will determine whether you’ll stick to all the other ones, including your diet and your exercise regime!
It Reduces Your Stress Levels
Whether they are at the office or in your private life, as long as there are stress triggers your mind will be tempted to react. As a result, your body is flooded with cortisol making you much more susceptible to your cravings and making poor dietary choices – thus hindering your weight loss.
Once you embrace the fact that you cannot remove stress entirely, you can begin to find ways that will reduce your own reaction to it, and positivity is a great place to begin. Noticing and amending your behaviour from being angry or allowing those negative thoughts to overrun your mind into acceptance and productivity helps you build a more positive attitude. A lower cortisol level thanks to your positive thoughts means you’ll have a much better chance to progress with losing weight!
It Allows Reason To Prevail
When you allow anger, unhealthy self-criticism, impatience, or any other negative emotion dominate your mind during your decision-making process, you are far less likely to make healthy choices or reasonable ones.
When you embrace a positive mindset, by encouraging yourself, focusing on the fun and rewarding aspects of your weight loss journey, you immediately let yourself become more realistic. By choosing attainable, measurable goals and milestones, you enable healthy weight loss guided by reason, not anger or self-loathing. Be your own best friend and use your positivity to ditch unrealistic and opt for manageable daily and weekly milestones!
It Empowers Healthy Choices
Out of sheer desperation, people often settle for those fad diets with rigid rules and little wiggle room to actually enjoy the meals you consume. Not to mention staying in the healthy limits of weight loss, so that you let your body adapt – very few of those diets focus on giving you enough macro and micronutrients to keep you healthy, not just lean.
Building a more positive mindset towards eating, and turning healthy eating into an enjoyable ritual, you can actually stop dieting, and start eating your way to fitness and health. Unlike “diets”, systems such as the ONE3ONE method focus on creating a person-specific eating regime that will fit your lifestyle. With a tailor-made solution, you start looking forward to cooking, and each of your meals is a treat, rather than a chore – which only keeps strengthening that positive mindset of yours!
It Lets You Enjoy The Journey
You have made an incredible, brave decision! No matter whether you wish to lose a few pounds or you’re in for several years of committed weight loss, the fact that you have made up your mind is worthy of celebration. If you start off this incredible journey with an “I hate myself, I have to change” attitude, chances are you’ll quickly fall back to your original weight and look. But if you choose the “I love myself and I want to be the best I can be” attitude, your chances are much greater to follow through and have fun along the way.
No one says it will be easy or setback-free, but it’s precisely the challenge that should fuel your desire to keep going. Allow yourself those bad days and have a support system standing by, whether it’s a friend on speed-dial or a playlist to lift your spirits. However, the entire journey doesn’t have to be a torture, but a reward, as it will help you truly overcome some of your fears and weaknesses, and even encounter new ones on the way to your dream look.
It Becomes Your Key Motivation
When our motivation is external, the risk of it fading and failing is too great in moments when we need it the most. Finding it within ourselves, on the other hand, by choosing positive, empowering, uplifting thoughts, allows us the freedom to be in the driver’s seat. Every time you feel like quitting or succumbing to the urge to take that slice of pizza, it’s your inner positive self who should tell you that you’re worth much more than that temporary desire.
Instead of focusing on the bad things that have caused the craving to come back, look into the future and visualize your future, fit self. Focusing on the positive, real and yet-to-happen alike, means that you give yourself a fair chance to succeed.
Sophia Smith is Australian based fashion, beauty and lifestyle blogger. She is very passionate about organic beauty products, yoga and healthy lifestyle. Sophia writes mostly in beauty and lifestyle related topics, mainly through blogs and articles. She is regular contributor at High Style Life and Ripped.
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