Can changing your mindset helps you to reach your health and fitness goals? Is this one of the factors many people often missed?
The mind is the root cause of many evils. This is very true! The mind is a free spirit that tends to wander and if not controlled properly it can cause havoc to your life.
You have the ability to create your own mindset. Whether your attitude is positive or negative is up to you. The ability to change your environment, circle of friends, and attitude, is within your control.
Just like a computer absorbs raw data, so does your mind. Within your mind, a culture, within itself, has grown.
Many people feel like they have no control of their own mind because this culture has become negative.
The negativity is a result of past experiences, being in a negative environment, or being under the influence of nonconstructive ideas.
Similar to a computer virus, you have to identify it quickly, to avoid letting it spread within your mind.
You can also pass this virus of negative thinking to people around you. As a result, you are spreading negative energy around, like “weeds in a field.”
Much like a farmer, you cultivate too. The energy in your mind is the crop, and it is up to you, whether it is weeds or wheat.
If you have a farm and let a field take care of itself; you will be lucky to have any kind of a crop, from it.
This is the same with the energy within your mind.
Many people fail in their objective to attain good health and fitness through a proper diet and exercise regime not because they are not putting in the efforts, but because their mindset is tuned to a negative channel from which it is not willing to budge.
In such a case, is it possible to alter the mindset and make it think in a positive direction so that your efforts towards attaining good health and fitness are successful?
Yes, this is definitely possible although you need to change your mindset and work towards maintaining a positive view towards attaining your objectives.
In relation to that, we know that obesity is a common problem that is affecting many a person all over the world.
While many people try diet and fitness regimes with differing levels of eagerness, most of them fail in their endeavor as they do not stick with the regime for long.
One reason that this happens is because of their mindset not being tuned properly towards health and fitness.
The mind works in curious ways and it is difficult to get a control over the mind.
A person might feel weak even if he is physically not if the mind thinks that he is. That is the power of the mind over the body. So, developing the right mindset is of utmost importance for a fitness regime to work.
The minds of many people are set in the negative mode and they view everything with a negative mindset. This is a root cause for many a person to fail in their endeavor of fitness and health.
In order to support this negativity that is building up in their mind, they come up all forms of excuses and slowly and ultimately they are getting pulled to quitting their efforts and reach the goal of failure that is embedded in their minds.
Aside from that, fear that is present in their minds. Fear is something that they cultivate thinking of failure and this makes them put off their efforts at attempting to get fit and healthy.
Fear is also the cause why people overeat and makes them more obese by the day.
Another mindset obstacle to fitness and good health is setting unrealistic goals. One should realize that they cannot overnight become like the celebrities with their lovely good looks and sexy body.
When they attempt to reach unrealistic goals that they have in their minds, it leads to frustration and dejection. This will ultimately lead to failure to put in the efforts to attempt a continuation of health and fitness.
It is best to avoid setting unrealistic goals but to have the determination to continue with the fitness regime and have short term achievable goals and try to meet them.
How To Change Your Mindset?
But, how does one change or alter their mindset to tune their mind to receive positive signals and get a positive outcome to their efforts of fitness?
Avoid Setting Unrealistic Goals
One of the mistakes that we make in trying to reach a level of fitness is to set unrealistic goals that are not possible to achieve overnight.
When the body does not respond towards your efforts, this causes dejection and frustration leading to the cessation of efforts towards health and fitness. Instead, break your objective into smaller achievable goals and work towards it.
Stay Motivated
For any regime to work, it needs to be constantly worked on and maintained. If you quit before long, then you will not realize the fruits of your efforts.
In order to stay with the regime, you need to stay motivated. This can be done with listening or reading to some motivational material, positive self-talk, and positive affirmation.
Think Positive
A positive mindset emits positive signals and the action process that follows will also be positive. This is referred to as the Law of Attraction where like attracts like. If you are positive about health and fitness, you will not feel dejected or frustrated and quit your efforts.
Remove Fear of Failure
One thing that puts away people from trying hard is the fear of failure. When they fear failure, they will try to make excuses to shy away from their objective in hand and try to take the easy path which leads to quitting their efforts.
Fear is something that they cultivate thinking of failure and this makes them put off their efforts at attempting to get fit and healthy.
Also, fear is the cause why people overeat and makes them more obese day the day.
Address the Whole Person and Individual Weaknesses
Since the problems of obesity and eating too much can result in many dangerous health conditions, including stroke, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and some kinds of cancer it is important to make the necessary lifestyle changes to lose the weight and keep it off.
If you can maintain an ideal weight with a body mass index (BMI) of between 18.5 and 25, you will better be able to achieve overall excellent health.
Using holistic health practices to achieve a healthy weight, you will not only prevent some serious disease but you will experience a greater quality of life.
Typically, most people are overweight as a result of two key things: the food you eat and the amount of exercise you get.
Unlike, other methods that simply put you on a diet and advise a gym membership, holistic medicine, seeks the underlying causes of the behaviors, emotions and thought process that resulted in you being obese and addresses all aspects of you as a person that lead to this dysfunctional aspect of your wellbeing.
Ask Yourself These Questions:
- Why do you overeat and eat more food than you really should be eating?
- How can you approach eating in a healthier way?
- Why don’t you exercise in the adequate amounts?
- How can you improve your exercise plan to incorporate more and healthier exercises?
- What are the various factors, including physical factors, social factors, and psychological factors, getting in the way or exercising and eating properly?
- What are the triggers to overeating?
- How can you stay on a healthy diet and avoid eating the wrong foods?
- What is your relationship with food?
- How do you deal with stress?
- How do you feel about yourself? Do you feel worthy of a healthier lifestyle?
When you uncover the answers to the above questions, you can avoid the unnecessary and unhealthy patterns in your lifestyle that keep you from achieving a proper weight.
Holistic approaches also attempt to uncover other issues in your life that may contribute to weight problems, like relationships, stress management, and any other medical conditions that you may have that can contribute to weight gain.
This overall approach to one’s whole being is key to sustained weight loss and is the underlying success of the holistic approach to losing weight.
A Holistic Approach to Conquer Overeating
People overeat for a variety of reasons. Often there are triggers to overeating that can be addressed. A trigger might be to walk by a doughnut shop, smelling the freshly baked and fried doughnuts.
There also might be social triggers, such as being tempted to eat when others are eating around you.
You might eat when you’re lonely as a way of cheering yourself up.
You might be depressed and may be using food to make you feel better. You might be using food as a way to reward yourself for doing something good.
Finding these triggers takes intense scrutiny on your life. When you are overeating, think about the feelings you are experiencing before and after eating.
Is stress behind your weight gain?
Is it a lack of knowledge into healthy eating?
Is self-sabotage an issue you need to deal with?
Perhaps you rely on food to alleviate sadness, loneliness or other difficult emotions?
Think about which things are contributing to your overeating pattern. There can be many different triggers to overeating that need to be dissected out of your behavior so you can avoid the triggers that cause you to eat too much, eat the wrong foods, and to gain weight.
Send Positive Messages to Yourself
In many cases, a trigger will tempt you to turn to eating food and this habit can eventually becoming your enemy.
Too many people (usually because of environmental issues and problems with past childhood memories) choose to punish themselves for eating too much.
Others use food as a way of expressing self-control. This rarely helps the weight loss process and reinforces bad eating habits.
Those who had parents that used food as a way to control them, such as in discipline, or to redirect their child’s wayward behavior are at a greater risk of overeating and becoming obese as an adult. These people need a holistic approach to losing weight.
One way to break the pattern of overeating is to try giving yourself positive messages.
Positive messages include telling yourself that “my need to eat a snack will not last and will pass over time” or “I have the ability to control my eating behavior” can reinforce positive patterns of eating and can lessen the urges to eat.
When you are successful in reducing your consumption of food, you can send yourself other types of positive messages, such as “Being healthy is great” and “I am proud of myself for eating healthy foods in the proper amounts today.”
These thoughts and phrases can help you in reframing your relationship with food. You think of yourself in a different way—as a responsible person eating food for the right reasons.
Positive messages can work with exercising as well. You can say to yourself “I am strong and exercise will help me” or phrases like “I feel good after I have exercised” and “I am proud of myself for exercising for thirty minutes today.”
These will make exercising easier and you will be more likely to partake in it on a daily or near-daily basis.
Meditation
Those who practice meditation will gain a greater mindfulness of the various thoughts and emotions they are feeling so that they can become aware of emotions they hadn’t noticed in the past.
Meditation can help those who binge eat learn the ways they use food in order to cope with negative emotions.
It also helps overeaters understand that they should eat when they actually feel hungry and stop eating when they are full. The underlying causes of eating too much can be addressed by meditating.
In meditation, you sit or lie in a comfortable position. You usually close your eyes and focus on the in and out of your breath as you begin to relax your muscles from your head to your toes. You can say a syllable or mantra in order to deepen the state of relaxation.
Then you let your mind remain in the present moment in a state known as “mindfulness.” Do this for several minutes until you feel entirely relaxed.
Then you may tell yourself that you do not need to focus on past traumas but can stay in the present, eating less and exercising more.
Guided Imagery for Weight Loss
Guided imagery is a form of meditation that involves imagining yourself in a beautiful and serene place while focusing on your breath.
You imagine your body to be much thinner and that you can see, hear, and smell everything in the place you have chosen.
The place you choose can be anywhere but most people choose beaches, mountaintops, forests, or meadows to imagine.
This practice relaxes you and gets you more in touch with your body so that you eat less after practicing this technique.
Journaling and Self-Monitoring
Try keeping a journal of your thoughts and successes or engage in some other form of self-monitoring method so you can be more aware of exactly what you eat and why you are eating.
You can write down a list of everything you eat during the day, which can enlighten you as to your eating behaviors.
You can use your journal to reflect on the various emotions you are feeling, learn what drives you to eat, (and keeps you from eating) as well as the outcomes of your endeavors around eating and exercise.
Journaling can reinforce positive behaviors so that you can easily look back on where you once were and reflect on the positive path you are now on.
Yoga
Yoga is a centuries-old practice that will not just improve your balance and flexibility but can improve your mind and body connection so that you can begin to eat better. It involves doing several different poses in tune to breathing exercises.
Yoga is part meditation and part exercise. It can be one of the forms of exercise you do as part of a weight loss program and can help you learn to eat less because you are more in tune with your body.
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy with a qualified psychotherapist can help those who have problems overeating learn to modify their eating behavior.
One type of therapy that works particularly well is cognitive behavioral therapy.
Rather than searching for the underlying reasons behind your overeating, this type of therapy can teach you how to change your behavior in order to reach your goal of losing weight.
When you seek the assistance of a therapist trained in cognitive-behavioral therapy, the therapist will help you learn how to replace old and well-established patterns of eating with behaviors that are more productive.
The therapist might address problem thoughts and beliefs such as “I am depressed so I deserve to eat” and can show you how these thoughts drive you to overeat.
Cognitive behavioral therapy can help you change your obsession with body image as the reason behind your trying to lose weight and help you focus on losing weight because this is a healthy goal rather than because you hate how you look and want to change your appearance.
These techniques are very helpful in helping you learn how to eat properly and with a goal of healthy weight loss.
Hypnosis
Hypnosis is an alternative therapy technique that has worked on many people who suffer from obesity. A qualified hypnotherapist can use various techniques to put you into a therapeutic and relaxing trance.
Then they can help put into your brain thought and suggestions, such as “I want to be healthy” or “I can control my eating” or “I like to exercise.”
They can give you post-hypnotic suggestions that help you take what you got from hypnosis to use after you have come out of the trance.
You can come away with thoughts in your head that promote healthy eating and exercise. Hypnosis may be done just once or on a regular basis in order to reinforce positive ideas around losing weight the healthy way.
Thus, take action on your health and fitness objectives.
The main key to changing your mindset towards attaining health and fitness is to tune it to be positive in thought. This is a morale booster and you will see the effects it has when your objectives begin to get realized, slowly but steadily.
Having the proper mindset is of utmost importance and generating a positive view towards reaching the objective of health and fitness is very necessary for your fitness regime to be fruitful.
Remember, your mind has a will of its own and it is your duty to tame it and control it to reach your objectives.
Do not fall into its traps and direct it where it should be and what should be right for you.
POINTS TO REMEMBER
You have the ability to create your own mindset.
Failing at health and fitness objective is due to their mindset tuned to a negative channel from which it is not willing to shift.
You need to change your mindset and work towards maintaining a positive view towards attaining your objectives.
The mind works in curious ways and it is difficult to get a control over the mind.
How to change your mindset?
- Avoid setting unrealistic goals
- Stay motivated
- Think positive
- Remove fear of failure
Address the Whole Person and Individual Weaknesses
A Holistic Approach to Conquer Overeating
- Send Positive Messages to Yourself
- Meditation
- Guided Imagery for Weight Loss
- Journaling and Self-Monitoring
- Yoga
- Psychotherapy
- Hypnosis
TAKEAWAY QUESTIONS
– Can changing your mindset helps you to reach your health and fitness goals?
– Is altering your mindset one of the factors you missed?
– Are you having some difficulty changing your mindset?
– How do you change your mindset effectively?
– Have you consider the holistic approach to stay fit?
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