09 Mar 2008 03:50:23 | Kathryn Martyn, M.NLP
Stop Telling Yourself it's Too Hard to Lose Weight
Telling yourself you have to "struggle with this weight issue
for the rest of my life," is as good as telling yourself there's
no point in trying. "Why bother? I'll just gain it right back.
It's no use. I might as well eat more cake. Poor me. Life is
hard. You know the drill. Life's a beach.
Stop the struggle by stopping the self talk that supports the
struggle. You've heard it before - what you focus on is what you
receive. No where is that more true than in believing it is a
struggle to stay healthy. Who would want to be healthy if it's
such a horrible struggle? Yet, you've probably seen people who
are fit, healthy and happy? You might even know a few. They seem
to bounce when they walk. They're animated, and excited about
life, and no, if you asked them, they wouldn't say it's a
struggle. "What do you mean," they'd ask? Struggle? Nah, I like
it this way," and they'd mean it.
Forget the notion that you have to struggle and eat celery
sticks for dinner. It's not true. Despite the fact that you've
lost the weight before and gained it right back too, despite
your belief that you can't even look at food without gaining
weight. All of those thoughts are just more beliefs that are
keeping you stuck. What you focus on becomes your reality.
What if You Never Got Hungry?
I'm a prime example. I don't struggle. Some days I eat a lot.
Some days not so much. Some days very little. Yesterday I ate my
usual breakfast and then, strangely, I just didn't feel hungry
all day. I felt different somehow. Not ill, but I just didn't
want to eat. "What's up with this?," I thought to myself, but I
decided to just ride it out and see what happened. Well, I'm
here to tell you that nothing happened. I lived to tell another
story, see another day. Nothing fell from the sky and the world
didn't stop spinning because I didn't eat much yesterday. It was
just another day.
Today I ate a few handfuls of malted milk balls. No big deal to
me, but I know many of you are thinking, "I'd never be able to
eat just some, I'd have to eat them all," and that is my point.
Telling yourself you can't eat "some," or as many as you want,
but that you believe you'd be compelled to eat them all, no
matter how many there were is a belief that is keeping you
stuck. I don't believe that to be true, and so, for me it is not
true.
Changing a Fundamental Belief with EFT
How do you change a fundamental belief? You start with basic EFT
using it for everything that comes up, even though it may not
seem related. Every worry, fear, doubt, struggle. Use it on
everything, and those issues that do make a difference in your
eating will start dissolving away. Try it - what have you got to
lose but some weight?
What's EFT? It's Emotional Freedom Training and it's taking the
world by storm as an easy, self administered practice to help
reduce or eliminate the emotional issues that keep us stuck.
Free information available at EmoFree.com. I added EFT to my
toolkit as soon as I learned it because it's easy to learn, easy
to use, and it's effective.
Remember those healthy folks I mentioned earlier? They don't
view how they eat or how much they exercise as a struggle at
all. They are active because they want to be active, and they
eat foods that make them feel great. They probably eat a lot of
the same things you eat too - I'm talking about everyday folks
who have learned to feel good about themselves. None of them are
perfect - despite the common belief that there is some "perfect"
body, it's just not true. Everyone has a wrinkle here, extra
skin there. Every single one of us is flawed in some way or
another. It's what makes us unique.
Choose to focus on the benefits, rather than the sacrifice
Everything worthwhile takes effort - having a baby comes to
mind. All mothers will likely agree that childbirth has its down
side, but the ultimate reward makes it all worth it (yes, some
women feel great while pregnant, but I wasn't one of them).
Otherwise, everyone would be a single child. ;-) Think about it.
Becoming a professional musician or baseball player comes to
many who played Little League and started practicing the piano
when they were very small. Tiger Woods was only 3 or 4-years old
when his father first taught him to hold a golf club. He also
showed him videos of professional golfers when he sat in his
high chair eating his dinner (his dad was a little odd, I'd
say). Woods started playing golf at such a young age that he
literally grew up playing the game. He wanted to play. His
father undoubtedly drove him to work harder at it than most
children would, but he had to have a strong drive of his own or
he never would have made it. But what if he'd hit 6-year's old
and suddenly said to himself, "I don't want to practice. I hate
golf. I wanna play with my friends. I'll never be any good at
his stupid game."
Maybe things would have turned out differently. The bottom line
though is he did what he did because he wanted to (his parents
obviously had a lot to do with it too), and the reward? Today
he's considered the most gifted golfer of all time, and to what
does he attribute his success? The practice and discipline of
his mind. He learned from one of his primary coaches to harness
the power of his mind - using NLP and hypnosis techniques (and
likely he's since started to use EFT as well). Learn to use your
mind to focus on the results you want - or conversely focus on
avoiding what you do not want, and you'll win your prize, loving
the process, instead of dreading it.
How to Get Started
Starting from right now, go get a box of toothpicks or something
similar. Match sticks would work too, or marbles, or pencils,
small rocks or twigs from the yard. Something small enough you
can carry it with you. Whenever you catch yourself starting to
say something negative like, "I don't want to ..., or, "I hate
...," or "I'm gonna strangle ..." Anything negative you catch
yourself saying or beginning to say, whether towards yourself or
someone else doesn't matter.
Start noticing how often you're feeding yourself negative
energy. Then, apply the STOP technique as soon as you realize
you are doing it, you yell (to yourself) STOP, and immediately
replace what you were saying with something else. Here's what I
mean:
"I hate having to wash the ... STOP ... it's nice getting a
chance to stretch and bend while the car gets cleaned."
Yes, it's stiff and forced, at first. Anytime you attempt to
change a behavior it will feel forced. Just allow yourself to
learn to change your self talk, and that early discomfort with
the process will pass. It will start to be fun to "catch"
yourself. As soon as you start doing it, you'll realize how
often you're been feeding yourself negativity, and you'll also
see how easily you can change that habit.
Positive people tend to be happier people. I'm not suggesting
you get a personality change, but I am suggesting, if you
ultimately want to drop some weight and never see it again that
you change your thinking from how much you'll have to struggle
to how much better you're going to feel.
About Author :
Kathryn Martyn, Master NLP Practitioner, author of the free
e-book: Changing Beliefs, Your First Step to Permanent Weight
Loss, and owner of http://www.OneMoreBite-Weightloss.com