This post is a sort of “quickstart” or review or restart. It lists the basics needed for permanent weight loss and for successfully achieving peace with food. It includes: create your own food plan, work on your feelings of agency, redefine “mistakes,” consider increasing your protein, court compassion and more!

This post explores the three attitudes needed to activate the process of weight loss. In particular, it highlights the one that will best predict your success. What could that be…?

First of all, you should be relieved to hear that urges are completely normal. There is nothing wrong with you! You should also know that an urge is simply a thought/feeling. As with so many things about eating, that is both the good news and the bad news! It means that you are completely in control of what you choose to do with the thought, whether to act on it or not. It’s all happening inside of you. But what you tell yourself, inside your own head, will be the thing that makes the difference. Easy to say, hard to do. At least initially.

This blog post is the “companion” piece to #5 which considered limiting beliefs. In this one, I will introduce the concept of neuroplasticity and offer effective strategies to move you away from your limiting beliefs and toward positive, empowering beliefs that will help you reach your goals. The first strategy offers a list of empowering beliefs which are “ready-made” for you to use and are frequently effective for people working on their weight. The second strategy teaches you how to discover your own limiting beliefs and transform them into empowering beliefs that serve you. It takes a little more work than the first method, but can truly pay off. Try them both or pick one. And the final strategy suggests ways to practice your new empowering beliefs. That’s for everyone. Don’t skip that step!

One tricky thing about beliefs is that we are often unaware of what we believe. The thought resides just below the surface of the flow of words in our minds. This means that in order to become cognizant of some of those “hidden” beliefs, we have to cultivate awareness. Somehow (and there are many techniques, fortunately), we need to tune in to what we’re thinking and let those beliefs come to the surface.

Briefly stated, you can either use a goal to help you further your aims or use it against yourself. And the fact that so many people use goals against themselves is the reason they hate setting goals in the first place. And it’s why they set small goals instead of shooting for what they really want.

So why set goals? I submit that the purpose of having a goal and working to achieve it is not to search for that elusive “happiness” or fix something but rather to get to know yourself better. To discover your own power, your own “awesomeness” as we call it nowadays. To become a self-actualized person. To engage more fully in life. To find out what you’re made of. It’s not the goal per se that’s the greatest value but rather to see who you become as you challenge yourself to become the person you truly want to be.

Don’t go on a “diet.” Rather, decide to create your own plan, gradually. It needs to be something you prefer to live with for the rest of your life. Allow it to easily fit in with your life—your schedule, what other people in your household eat, how much time realistically you have to shop and prep food, your food preferences, in short everything in your life! There is no diet plan out there that knows what your life is like, so design your own. Change one small thing at a time and practice being consistent before you add the next thing.