What weight loss lies are you telling yourself?

One of the things I LOVE most about working with clients is spotting the lies that they tell themselves, and then bringing those lies out from under the surface, into the light of day where they can no longer hide from or behind them.

A little like bringing someone face to face with a culprit at a Police identity parade.

One of the most common areas I hear people tell themselves a whole heap of lies is when it comes to the business of weight loss.

If you are struggling to shift those unwanted pounds, I guarantee there is a lie or two you are telling yourself that is getting in the way.

Which weight loss lie are you telling yourself?

I know I’ll never get back to ‘that’ weight again

I travel a lot, so I eat at funny hours

I travel a lot with work so I have to eat out a lot

I deserve a treat

I work late so when I get home I need something convenient

It’s harder to loose weight when you get older

My Mum was big so I think it’s in the genes

I eat when I’m bored

I work from home so I think that’s the problem

I’ve tried every diet and nothing works

It’s harder to loose weight after childbirth

I hardly eat anything

My parents always made us finish our plates when I was growing up

Loosing weight is such a struggle

I was big as a child

I could do on, but I think you get the picture!

The truth is it’s the lies you are feeding yourself that are weighing you down and getting in the way of you shedding those unwanted pounds.

Why do I tell myself weight loss lies?

There’s the $64 million dollar question!

You want to stop obsessing about food and calories and weight. You want to be able to go to your wardrobe and pick out any piece of clothing knowing that it will fit you and you will feel great wearing it. You want to be able to slide on a pair of jeans and think ‘my bum looks great in this!’

So why would you feed yourself lies that prevent you from doing that?

Fear of Failure

Nobody wants to fail, especially not the ego. So if you have struggled to loose weight and you are getting frustrated with yourself and feeling a fat failure, what do you do? Start telling yourself a few seemingly white lies to make yourself feel better and hide from that feeling of failure!

You are what you think

When you tell yourself something often enough, that thought becomes hard wired into the brain. In simple terms, that thought becomes a belief. And what do beliefs do? They run the show! What starts out as a few little white lies about why you aren’t loosing weight starts to be the story you live your life by.

The path of least resistance

Keeping in shape requires commitment. Maintaining a toned, fit body requires you showing up each day and moving your body. A flat stomach comes from going to your exercise classes, getting on the floor and doing your stomach crunches and planks and really pushing yourself. And with commitment also comes accountability. Yet it’s easy to listen to that voice in your head which says, start tomorrow, you are tired, have a lie in, you need to rest, you’ve had a tough week you deserve a treat…..the path of least resistance.

Food has become your emotional crutch

You know you want to shed those extra pounds. You know you want to be able to look in the mirror and at least vaguely like what you see. You know you are tired of feeling the fat one out. However you have developed a love hate relationship with food. You love food, you love coming home and sitting on the sofa with a mountain of food. You love that way that eating makes you feel good…..but that feeling doesn’t last long does it? Because afterwards you feel shame, you feel guilty, you feel angry with yourself. You ask yourself why can’t I stop doing this?

You’ve made food your emotional crutch. You think of food as comfort eating, yet that comfort lasts about 5 minutes doesn’t it? What you are really trying to do is create a feeling, an emotion thats missing from your life and you have allowed food to take the place of where that feeling should be, whether that is happiness, contentment or satisfaction.

Self Sabotage

Self sabotage is what you do when your beliefs don’t line up with what you are trying to achieve. If your core beliefs are ones of not feeling you deserve happiness, that you are not good enough, that you are not worthy, you are not loveable then when you take steps to do something that is going to make you feel good, somewhere along the line you will sabotage your success.

You will have a ‘bad weekend’ of going out and eating and drinking a lot and then rather than simply getting back on track, you will continue that self destructive pattern.

You will loose the weight you wanted to shed, reach your goal weight and then put it all back on again, and probably a few more pounds to boot.

How to loose weight and keep the weight off

Having got to this part in the article, you may already have received your wake up call. You may already be feeling fired up with the knowledge that you are going to do this! That enough is enough and those lies, those gremlins are not going to run the show any more. That you are taking your power back and that starts right now!

If you have got to this part in the article and you resonate with why you have been telling yourself weight loss lies and know you need a helping hand to start feeding yourself a different story and to squash those beliefs that are holding you back, then relax, help is at hand.