So, your health kick’s going really well. Your weight’s dropping, your sleep patterns are improving and your energy levels are soaring. Then suddenly, for no obvious reason you’ve reverted to old habits and you’re back on the biscuits or the coke or the crisps. This is followed by waves of guilt and beating yourself up about lack of willpower. Sound familiar? Well guess what, it’s not simply about willpower and it’s certainly not your fault.
It’s estimated that approximately 96% of your thoughts and feelings come from your subconscious mind compared to only 4% from your conscious mind. Therefore, you should never underestimate the power of your subconscious mind and how it can affect your weight loss results. Your subconscious mind can be divided into six parts:
Beliefs
What you actually believe to be true, the right way to behave, what’s acceptable or not. Your beliefs are often transferred to you by those you spend a lot of time with, especially when growing up as a child. If your mum responded to stressful situations by “treating” herself to a sugary snack you’ll be inclined to do the same too.
Fears
Numerous studies show that fear is the number one most common emotion which stops us from taking action. Fear of loss, fear of the process and fear of failure can all sabotage your weight loss efforts. You might be afraid of giving up the foods you love or afraid of how difficult it is to make a change. You might be afraid that even if you change the way you eat and increase your activity levels you still won’t lose weight.
Rules
Throughout your childhood you were probably subjected to certain rules and expectations. For some of you this will have been related to food eg being told you can’t leave the table until you’ve cleared your plate. Your subconscious may still be instructing you to eat everything on your plate today, even if you’ve eaten what you need.
Resentment
You may resent others who represent the goals you’re trying to achieve. Maybe you resent how easy it appeared for Barbara from the Accounts Department to change that way she looked. If that’s the case your subconscious mind will not want you to achieve the same results if it believes it to be detrimental to you in some way.
Judgments
Do you judge others who look a certain way? Maybe you had an experience at school when a particular person who was in great shape wasn’t very nice to you. Does your subconscious mind associate looking great to not being a very nice person?
Self image
Low self esteem in childhood is often carried through to adulthood. Over 70% of adolescents have a negative self image and that image, unless addressed ,will be carried with them into adulthood. Is that you?
My point is that healthy weight loss isn’t just about what you eat or the way in which you exercise. Your subconscious mind really can affect your results particularly if you’ve tried things in the past and not achieved them.
The challenge is to get those self limiting, self sabotaging thoughts out of your subconscious mind and work on reframing them. Some of these beliefs may be so deep rooted you might not even realize they exist until you start to work on this area.
So, if you are yet to achieve the healthy weight loss results you say you want to achieve, the likelihood is there are some beliefs and fears which are really getting in your way.
If you’d like to find out how your subconscious mind is preventing you from getting the body shape you want and how you can flip that situation and get it working for you instead of against you apply for a Smart Start consultation with me today.
