How do you feel when you look in the mirror?
If you’re overweight, the feelings you have might even make you avoid mirrors. Just a glimpse of your reflection in a store window can instantly ruin a good mood, or make you downright depressed.
How do you feel when you try a weight-reduction diet and it doesn’t work as well as you expected?
Frustration isn’t the word. You wouldn’t be blamed for feelings of hopelessness, the sense that you’ll never be able to live your life at a healthier weight and, again, depression.
When you step back and look at how your extra weight affects you, it can be a revelation. Your body probably feels relatively normal even though your weight is higher than you want it to be, and you usually manage to go through your day-to-day activities without too many problems. In other words, many, if not most overweight people feel perfectly fine physically. In fact, very often it’s not until they look at themselves in the mirror that the are reminded of their extra weight.
And then, again, they can feel frustrated, depressed and hopeless.
And there’s the revelation. While your extra weight is a physical thing, the problems it can cause can be mostly emotional, or in your mind.
That revelation can be a key to you finally finding a way to manage your weight. All the negative emotions you feel due to your weight can prevent you from doing what it really takes to lose it.
If your weight and some of the ways you’ve tried to lose it have left you feeling down, then taking steps to change the way you feel mentally might help pave the way towards reducing your physical weight.
How to Change Your Mind About Weight Loss
It sounds so easy. If you feel bad about your weight, then just change the way you feel. Of course, just like weight loss itself, if you take try the short cuts, there’s little chance of it working. Your negative emotions about your weight are powerful and simply trying to have a rosier attitude towards them will be difficult to do.
Instead, by addressing a few different things in your approach, you can start to build up to the transformation in your mental outlook that will help you reach your weight goals.
1. Be the Friend to Yourself that You Would Like to Be to Others
Thinking again about what happens when you look in the mirror, what do you tell yourself? It’s probably not good. It probably goes something like this: “You’re fat! You’re never going to look good. What’s wrong with you?!”
Now imagine a friend came to you and opened up about her weight problems. Would you tell her “You’re fat! You’re never going to look good. What’s wrong with you?!”
Instead, you’d probably say something along the lines of “You look fine. Think about all the good things you do. I’ll do everything I can to help you.”
2. Take Small Steps
Too often weight loss begins by setting massive goals, like losing 50 pounds, and anything short of that feels like a massive failure. Instead, take small steps for your mind and body. They are easier to do and help you build your confidence when you do them.
To help change your outlook about yourself, do something positive, like call your Mom more often, volunteer, or buy a cup of coffee for the person behind you at Tim’s. To start making the physical changes you hope for, slowly add some physical activity, like taking the stairs, or make a small change to your diet, like taking one teaspoon of sugar in your coffee instead of two.
3. Do Something to Make You Feel Better About How You Look
Extra weight will not come off instantly. But you can get a new hairstyle to freshen up your look, or buy that outfit that you’ve been wanting to wear. When you do, you make some small changes that can make a big difference in how you feel.
Feeling better about yourself can help to motivate you to start improving your life in other ways too, including healthily losing weight and keeping it off. Call or visit your local Herbal One Centre to learn more.