You can learn to use your thoughts and feelings to achieve what you want.

Why do I even try? Every time I lose weight, I gain it back and then some.

“This one piece won’t hurt. And besides, who will know?”

“If I lose too much weight, I’m going to have to buy new clothes. I don’t have the money or the time to shop.”

“These snacks are my favorites; I cannot resist them even if I try.” “I am too tired to exercise, besides missing one workout will not matter.”

“My whole family is fat. What makes me think I can be different?”

Negative thoughts like these seriously undermine your efforts to lose weight by prompting you to behave in ways that will sabotage your weight management efforts. That’s why we say that to change your body, you have to change your mind.

Changing Thoughts — Changing Behavior

Each of us responds to events in our lives according to how we understand and interpret what is happening to us, this is known as cognitive behavior. If our brain tells us something is dangerous, we respond one way. When it tells us something is difficult, we respond in another. And if our brain says, “‘this is a worthwhile challenge and you can succeed” our response is quite different.

Let’s say you’re meeting a friend for lunch at an Italian restaurant known for its three-cheese ravioli. As part of your healthier living you have decided to order broiled fish and steamed vegetables. Suppose you view this event optimistically, as an opportunity to demonstrate your weight management skills. If you say to yourself,

“I feel good about the weight I have lost. The food will be delicious and I’ll feel satisfied. I know I can do this.” You have spoken positively to yourself. Chances are you will succeed. You will be able to do it and you will feel good about it.

On the other hand you view the situation pessimistically – - let’s say you’re feeling sorry for yourself. You speak negatively to yourself. You’re thinking: “Why do I always have to suffer? I don’t get to eat out that often. I don’t think I’ll be able to do it. My willpower is shot,” it’s a safe bet you won’t be able to do it and you won’t feel good about it. Call it the power of expectation. If you expect the worst, you’re more likely to get it. If self-defeating thoughts are swirling around in your head, the results you’ll get are likely to be negative.

The goal, of course, is to change the outcome by changing the way you react in such situations. How you choose to experience an event, person, place, or circumstance affects how you experience it.

Your Inner Dialogue: Watch What You “Say!”

 Statements (thoughts) you make to yourself (inner dialogue) can affect you in much the same way as statements made by others. Negative inner dialogue fueled by negative thoughts can arise in relations to eating habits, snacking, exercise, and even the weight management program itself. Self-statements like “I’m too heavy to be seen in shorts” or “It was a crummy day, so I needed those chips” may be the trigger for undesirable behaviors like avoiding exercise or snacking excessively. And, if not changed, they can disrupt your weight loss program.

Learning To Change Your Inner Dialogue

If you find that negative thoughts sometimes get in your way, these success strategies can help:

1. Listen to yourself. Become more sensitive to your thoughts, feelings and the ways of reacting to others. Realize which negative messages get triggered and under what circumstances. To be successful, you need to develop different habits. One of the most important is self-awareness.

2. Replace negative thoughts and statements with positive ones. As soon as you hear a harmful, negative message, pause and replace it with a positive one. This may sound contrived at first, but it begins to feel natural the more you do it. The new dialogue serves as a guide to new behavior. Does this mean that you tell yourself you look forward to exercise when you don’t? Absolutely! You can say something like, “I love the way my body and muscles feel after I exercise. I sleep better at night and have more energy during the day, and, besides, it’s a small investment of time for such a big help towards my health.” Whatever words you choose, you can counter the negative with something positive right on the spot.

3.  Practice Your New Self-Statements. Successful weight loss involves consistently replacing negative old patterns with positive new ones. To truly break old habits, it’s important to practice the new ones again and again. In the example above, you would repeat the positive self-statement 10 times before and during each exercise session. “Once in a while” or “every now and then” won’t cut it. The result? As the new belief replaces the negative one, you may actually begin to believe that daily exercise is as important as brushing your teeth.

Mental training techniques, which we’ll discuss in more detail later, provide an opportunity to rehearse and practice positive patterns in your mind hundreds of times. This consistent repetition has a powerful influence and can lead to lasting change. Negative patterns of thought wither and stronger patterns of self-respect and self confidence take their place.

One of our guiding principles is to teach you – - and then remind you that you always have choices and options. You can decide what to eat and what not to eat. And most important of all: You can decide what to think and what not to think. The choices you make directly impact the results you get.

Caroline J. Cederquist, MD