Your thoughts are powerful. They affect your emotions and drive your actions. Negative thoughts can be like a cage, locking you into bad habits. To escape, you need to hear these thoughts and learn to challenge them. Thinking positively is an important part of the weight loss process, because it allows you to be honest with yourself so you can build healthier habits.
Stopping negative thoughts can be challenging because you may have developed a habit of thinking them. When your go-to thought is a negative one, it can be hard to even hear yourself say them. The first step toward more positive thinking is to start to listen to what you’re saying to yourself. Negative thoughts can be ideas like worst-case scenarios, regrets, or “what ifs.”
Do any of these sound familiar?
- “What if I’m never able to lose weight?”
- “I didn’t do my daily walk today. This whole week of exercise is wasted.”
- “I shouldn’t have had that cookie.”
- “I screwed up and had a french fry. I might as well eat the rest, since I already broke my diet.”
These thoughts aren’t facts. They’re just thoughts. And they’re not helping you lose weight. In fact, negative thoughts can hold you back. Become your own best friend by learning to talk back to those thoughts. Be a voice of kindness, acceptance, and forgiveness. Try replacing your negative thought with a positive thought.
Give one of these a try:
- “Everyone makes mistakes. Mistakes don’t make me a failure.”
- “I can learn from my experience and do better next time.”
- “I’ve had both successes and challenges. There are things I’m good at, too.”
- “Beating myself up just makes it harder to succeed.
- “What would a good friend tell me about this?”
