5-step system to have the health and body you want

How to stop your negative thoughts to get the body you want

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stop your negative thoughts

To have the health and body you want, you need to stop your negative thoughts. Because they drive everything you do (e.g., overeat) and don’t do (e.g., get to the gym). Good or bad, they determine your results.

You probably have an awareness that you sabotage yourself. But you likely haven’t keyed in on exactly how. As I shared in step one of my process, to stop your negative thoughts you must first Uncover them. (Step two is Clarify.)

My third step is Transform. This is where you take your power back. Where you have authority over your negative thought patterns. Even when you’re having a bad day. This is the turning point because it’s what keeps you consistently taking the actions you need and want to take.

stop your negative thoughts
Photo by Kaylee Garrett on Unsplash

The tendency is, once you identify a negative thought, to simply replace it with a positive affirmation. My guess is you’ve tried that. And it’s not working. 

Like you might think, “I’ve tried before…I just can’t lose weight and keep it off.” And so you replace it with “My past doesn’t equal my future…I can do anything I set my mind to.” And you might want to think that, but to jump from self-perceived failure to unstoppable doesn’t feel true. 

Instead, let me share the process I take my clients through – and I go through myself – to transform your thoughts from negative to helpful in order to take positive action:

  • Observe: Take a mental step back. Watch the thought. Say to yourself “I notice I’m thinking that ‘I’ve tried before…I just can’t lose weight and keep it off.’” This shifts you slightly away from the thought. Instead of identifying so closely with it, you notice that it’s just something you’re thinking.
  • Open up: Once you practice observing, consider a tiny possibility. Add to the end of the noticing sentence “… and just maybe that’s not completely true.” Opening up creates a little more breathing room, moving you further from the initial thought.
  • Expand: After spending some time in that space, enlarge your idea of possibility. Such as “other people have lost weight after unsuccessful attempts…maybe I can, too.” Whatever thought you pick, it needs to move you further towards your ideal thought and it needs to feel believable.
  • Explore: What could you start to believe about your past that’s helpful? Maybe “I’ve learned a lot about what doesn’t work to lose weight… now I don’t have to waste time repeating those mistakes and I can learn from them instead.”
  • And ultimately… Keep going through this process of seeing possibilities until you get to the thought you really want to believe: “My past doesn’t equal my future…I can do anything I set my mind to.”

When you regularly Transform your negative thoughts, you’ll find that you’re not constantly negotiating with yourself. Sabotaging yourself. You find it easier to keep commitments to yourself, to stay on track. And you feel better on a regular basis.

It is worth the work, my friends!

Can you be in better shape no matter your age?

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Be in better shape

In my last blog I committed to sharing my 5-step system to have the health and body you want. To be in better shape. Today I share step two. 

I notice as women get older they tend to doubt what’s possible. There’s a sense that to be in better shape would require too much effort – or to turn back the clock – and it’s best to just accept “what is.” 

So they end up with a vague desire to be healthy. And it’s never enough to get them through the grind of what it takes to be genuinely healthy and to lose weight.

Every year it’s the same thing. Get excited in January. Set out to lose weight. Do the things. Lose weight. Go off track. Re-gain weight. Repeat every few weeks or months. 

And while step one is foundational to breaking the cycle, step two is equally crucial which is “Clarify.” Knowing what you want and what’s important to you. It answers the question, why bother with all of this? Life is unpredictable and messy, so if you don’t dive into what’s deeply important to you, and you’re just running on what you’ve always done, it won’t stick…

And it requires honesty about what you really want. 

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich from Pexels

You see, for years I’ve been encouraged – and it seems we’re all told – to not to get hung up on losing weight, or care about how our bodies look…that it should all be for a higher purpose, like being an example for your daughter or preventing type two diabetes that runs in your family. And if that’s true for you, fantastic. 

But if you want to feel great in your clothes, if you want to look hot in a dress…and I’m taking these words directly from the things my clients have told me… then own that, too. You have to claim your motivation even if you think you’ll be judged for it, even if you think it’s not good enough, even if you think it’s – heaven-forbid – shallow, own it. (You might recognize step one will come in handy if you have any of these thoughts.)

If you find yourself starting and stopping, feeling guilty for what you’re doing or not doing, or somewhat ambivalent about follow-through, then you have some “Clarify” work to do. Start by asking yourself powerful questions, like:

  • If age wasn’t a factor, what would I go after?
  • If I took good care of myself, what would be possible?
  • What would I aim for if I believed 100% I could achieve it?

When you’re clear on what you want, you feel more naturally motivated. It feels easier to follow through. This is why my clients succeed, we dive deep. We don’t just count calories. “Clarify” is the basis of deeply rooted motivation, making everything else easier.

Invest your time and energy in getting clear. Next time we’ll move on to step three.

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