5 Mindset Shifts to Help You Lose Weight

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Full Episode Transcript:

5 Mindset Shifts to Help You Lose Weight

Hi there, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being a faithful listener. I have gotten a lot of you messaging me through social media, telling me that they are loving the content in this podcast, which I absolutely love hearing. Thank you so much for this.

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Alright, so let’s dive into the goodness for today’s episode. Today I want to bring you 5 mindset shifts to help you lose weight. So, you might think that losing weight is just a matter of consuming less calories than you’re burning. Of course, when this is done over and over again, you will see the number on the scale decrease. However, as you know, no one would be needing help with losing weight if they were able to just do this easily.

One of the things that can make weight loss difficult, is how you think about yourself or about weight loss period how you think or your mindset, can affect how you feel. How you feel then directly affects your actions. Or sometimes how you feel can cause you to not take action. And of course, your actions or inactions will always result in something.

Since we’re talking about weight loss, that something is either losing weight, gaining weight, or staying the same weight.

I want to make your weight loss a little bit easier for you by giving you some help with your thoughts. Because your thoughts will ultimately trickle down and affect your weight loss results. They’ll also affect the whole process.

The process of weight loss can either be unenjoyable to you or it could somewhat enjoyable or even very enjoyable. One of my goals is to make it as enjoyable as possible. Because it’s not just the end result that you get to enjoy, but also all of the other things that come along with it, and even the process itself.

So of course, it would be very easy to say that you can just think all these positive thoughts and that should affect your results, right? Well, not if those thoughts are not believable to you at all. That’s why the thoughts that you have should be at least somewhat believable to you.

That’s why we’re not going to go from completely negative thoughts to completely positive thoughts if those positive thoughts aren’t believable to you. Instead, we’re going to shift a little bit toward the positive thought. Or the inspiring or motivating thought.

Just a note, that’s what I mean when I say positive thought. A thought that makes you feel good or evokes a positive emotion. A feel-good emotion. An emotion that’s going to help you do the actions that you need to do to create the results that you want. Not a feeling that’s going to be demotivating to you or discouraging to you or leave you feeling doubtful of your capabilities.

So the goal with this podcast episode is not to encourage you to choose this positive thought that feels completely untrue to you, but leave you with mindset shifts to help you with your weight loss that are believable to you right now. That move you closer to the thoughts that you’ll ultimately be having later. Just naturally.

When you start feeling like your new eating habits are easy to sustain. When you start feeling like cravings are not a problem for you. When you start feeling like weight loss is something that comes easy for you now if you want to lose weight.

Alright, so how this will work is I’m going to give you a common mindset or thought that I often see, and then give you an idea of how to shift that thought. Now granted, these are not going to be your exact thoughts. Maybe they are, but you’ll find yourself being able to pick out similar thoughts that you have.

You’ll also see what I’m doing with the examples I’m giving, so that you can easily do this on your own with some of the thoughts you find yourself having. Or you may even borrow some of these mindset shifts that I’m providing here.

But, I just want you to keep in mind make sure if you’re borrowing these ones, that they are believable to you, at least somewhat.

This is so important, because if it’s not truly believable to you at least to some degree, you’re going to have trouble with that thought creating a more positive feeling in your body. If you’re in disbelief of the thought, you’re going to have disbelief as a feeling.

Instead, I want you to have a better feeling in your body with the better mindset shift, and not a feeling of disbelief to go along with it. We just want the more positive feeling. Does that make sense?

I oftentimes find myself having a very clear idea in my head of what I mean, and sometimes when it comes out of my mouth I’m not quite sure if it’s as clear as it was in my head. I’m sure we all have that to some extent, because we all understand things a little bit differently.

Okay, mindset shift to help you lose weight number one. Original thought: “Other people have an easier time with weight loss.”

 The reason why this thought or mindset is not helpful, it’s because you’re implying to yourself that there’s something wrong with you. That you’re going to have to try harder than other people. I want to offer to you, what if this were simply not true?

I can tell you for sure, there’s nothing wrong with you. But also, what if you don’t have to try harder than other people. This is very possible as well.

In fact, I can guarantee you that it’s very possible. By thinking this thought of other people having an easier time with weight loss, you’re not making it any easier for yourself.

In fact, it’s probably causing a feeling like discouragement. Discouragement or a feeling similar to this, is not likely to drive you to want to do the actions, or inactions that are required to lose the weight that you want to. So, it’s a pretty useless thought to have. In fact, it can even be a harmful thought to have.

So, here’s a mindset shift you can have that will provide a better feeling that’s probably still believable to you. “Some people may have an easier time with weight loss, but I’ll have an easier time than other people do.” Because this is at least equally as true as the previous statement. I would even argue that it’s truer.

It just opens you up to the possibility, but also opens you up to reality. There are always going to be some people that have an easier time and some people that have a harder time than you. So, this mindset shift is going to feel much better to you than that original thought.

Onto mindset shift to help you lose weight number two. Original thought: “I don’t have enough willpower.” Or some variation of this. It can be something like “I don’t have any willpower”, “I need more willpower”, etcetera.

The reason why these thoughts are not helpful to you, is because it puts you into that feeling of lack. Or a feeling of a deficit. Again, sort of like there’s something wrong with you that you are just short on willpower.

First of all, more willpower is not needed on your part. I don’t base my coaching on helping people build more willpower, because it will typically fail at some point anyway. Therefore, I help my clients with more reliable skills that just keep getting stronger, so they don’t fail.

So, I want you to just get rid of that needing more willpower thought. It’s not helpful and it’s not even true.

Instead, the mindset shift could be “I don’t need any more willpower than I currently have.”

With this shift, you are essentially saying you are enough. You have enough. You’re not in a deficit. There’s not something wrong with you. And it helps you to feel empowered that you are perfectly capable of making the changes you want to make.

That original thought may leave you feeling like you are not enough, or with an emotion of discouragement, but the mindset shift could very well leave you feeling capable or even empowered. That’s going to feel so much better than discouragement or lack or not enough.

And when you’re feeling capable or even empowered, do you think that this will help you to more easily do the actions that you need to do to get the results you want? Of course it does.

See how these simple shifts make you feel differently and then will cause better actions or inactions. In the case of eating habits and weight loss, an example of a better inaction would be maybe leaving the cookies alone when you’re feeling stressed.

A better action might be to choose the healthier lunch option that you intended to choose, rather than that in the moment less healthy option that you’ll then feel badly about afterwards.

Mindset shift to help you lose weight number three. Original thought: “I need to lose weight, because I hate how I look.” Or some variation of that. Sometimes the thought can have even more hurtful or harmful language. So, how do you think a thought like this makes you feel? Some of you that have this thought might initially say, motivated. Does it really make you feel motivated though? I just want to invite you to think about that.

I’m guessing deep down it makes you feel badly. Typically, when there’s a thought like this one, there are other negative thoughts about your body or yourself. Thoughts like this can self-sabotage, because food can be oftentimes used to then make you feel better, because that inner critic is making you feel so poorly about yourself.

I’m not saying this is always the case, but often times it can be.

So a new thought you might want to have, the new mindset shift, might be something like “I want to lose weight for me.” Nice and simple. I absolutely love this mindset shift. It’s really such a great reason to want to lose weight. Not to make yourself any more beautiful or any more worthy.

It’s just because you want to do it for yourself and your future. That’s as good a reason as any.

So if you don’t remember any of what’s in this podcast episode today, at least remember that one simple thought “I want to lose weight for me.”

Okay, mindset shift to help you lose weight #4. Original thought: “I’m addicted to __________.” It can be anything, “I’m addicted to sugar”, “I’m addicted to food in general”, “I’m addicted to cookies”, “I’m addicted to potato chips.”

The reason why this thought “I’m addicted to_________,” won’t help you lose weight, is because it’s very disempowering. It can make it feel like you are completely out of control.

Let’s just say hypothetically that even if one of these were true, which I would highly challenge you on, but even if one of these were true, how helpful do you think it is to have a thought like that? Not very helpful. Like I said it’s very disempowering.

It potentially makes you feel like there’s something wrong with you and your brain. It potentially makes you feel like there’s almost no hope for you. It sort of makes the problem a massive problem.

Think of it like this. It would be like looking at a small hill and imagining it as a giant mountain that you have to walk over. Makes it feel so much more difficult, right? You might even feel like you’re capable of walking over a small hill but not over a giant mountain.

So that original thought is not a helpful one for weight loss. Or for breaking any “bad” eating habits.

Instead, try this mindset shift. “I sometimes feel out of control when it comes to eating _____________, but I have more control than I think.”

Here at least you’re accepting the possibility and even probability that you have more control than you initially thought. Or maybe you really do believe that you have more control, but your brain just likes to tell you you’re addicted.

I’m sure you’ve noticed that this thought allows you to shift into more of a sense of control and capability. Even if you don’t fully feel in control yet, you’re admitting that there is some control you can have.

Okay, so moving onto the last mindset shift to help you lose weight, which is #5. Original thought: “I’ll like myself better when I lose the weight.”

I saved this one for last, because well, it’s typically the one that people believe so strongly and it’s difficult for them to let it go.

This one can be a little bit sneaky. As in, it doesn’t feel like it’s a terrible thought to have. But, It’s not a great thought to have because you’re essentially saying that at a lower weight, you’ll then be able to like yourself better.

Connecting how much you weigh with how much you like or even love yourself is never good. It’s one of the deeper things that I tend to work on with some clients.

With a simple shift, it will not only feel better to you, but it’ll also help you to make the changes that will last a lifetime. Actually, when you do separate your self-love and self-worth from the number on the scale you’re going to be so much happier, which will just be life-changing for you.

So, for this one, a simple shift can be “I can like myself and lose weight at the same time.”

Another variation could be I can like myself before I lose the weight.” Once you get good at practicing this new thought come of this mindset shift, then you can shift into “I can love myself and lose weight at the same time” or, “I can love myself before I lose the weight.”

The reason why this mindset shift helps you to lose weight is because when you like or love yourself, you want to take care of yourself. This usually means eating nutritious foods. It usually means getting good sleep and hydrating and maybe even a little bit of exercise. That usually means talking to yourself nicely.

All these things make weight loss a whole heck of a lot easier and more enjoyable.

So once you’re able to, when it’s safe and you’re not doing something like driving, write down a couple of thoughts you have about weight loss or yourself or your body that don’t feel good to you, and write down a simple shift you can make now that will feel better.

Put those simple mindset shifts in a place that will serve as a reminder to you to practice them daily.

When I say practice, I mean either read them or say them aloud. The more you do this, the more you’ll feel better in your body, and the easier time you’ll have with weight loss. Also, the more you do this, the more your brain will believe them. And then you can shift into an even better thought if you want to.

Alright and speaking of reminders, I told you I would remind you to help spread the love to someone else who could benefit to listening to this podcast and give it a quick review and rating. Even just a quick rating is helpful.

Thank you for listening, thank you for your review, thank you for your rating. Take care and I’ll talk with you next week.