Did you know that losing weight can be easy if you just change your mindset? I’ll show you some easy ways to change your mindset and lose weight (for good!).
I’ll give you some tips to guide you as you begin this life-changing journey. You’ll discover the power of your mind and realize that you are in control.
1. Visualize a Better You and a Better Life
Of course, no one needs to tell you what you already know…the health benefits of weight loss are endless.
You already know a better you means a better life. What is a better you? Define it. Visualize it. Manifest it. Know your why.
What could be more motivating than a better life? Is it really that easy? Yes and no.
Achieving a goal can take a lot of work. But what happens after you achieve it? A better you isn’t just about one goal, it’s about a lifetime.
Losing weight is about overall health and long term success.
Embrace the journey toward a better you, better health, and a better body image. Don’t focus on the “diet” and instead focus on weight management and your overall physical health.
Your weight loss goals are only part of the journey toward a better you and a better life. Creating healthier habits now will improve your overall mental and physical health.
A healthy diet is the first step toward weight loss success.
Healthy eating can have a ripple effect in your overall wellbeing by improving your energy levels, building your self-confidence, and helping you make an overall lifestyle change that will cascade into other aspects of your life.
2. Understand Your Mindset
Sometimes we need a nudge, but sometimes we need more than that. You may have heard that motivation isn’t real…and I agree.
Motivation has to come from within. Inspiration might come from others, but your motivation is driven by your mindset.
You’ve also probably heard that you can achieve anything you set your mind on. It’s true.
So what is mindset?
Mindset is a combination of your attitude and beliefs that shape how you perceive and react to various situations.
When it comes to weight loss and healthy habits, mindset plays a critical role in your actions, persistence, and response to setbacks in your weight loss efforts. If you know your why, this will become easier.
Changing your daily habits to achieve long term weight loss will require the right mindset. This is more than just a diet or a short term change in your eating habits.
This change of mindset is about achieving weight loss goals for the short term, making healthy choices now that will turn into healthy habits, getting rid of old habits (especially the unhealthy habits), and maintaining a healthy body weight forever.
A positive mindset is critical for weight loss success. This will help you see the overall weight loss journey as self-improvement instead of something negative.
A positive mindset will also help guide your behavior for long term success. In order to achieve sustainable weight loss, a positive mindset enables resilience after setbacks.
Mindset also helps you set achievable goals that are realistic and time bound, such as “SMART” goals, with a focus on overall positive changes and the ability to stay motivated toward these changes.
In his book, “Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude1,” the renowned success philosopher Napoleon Hill stated that a positive mental attitude is imperative to success and goal achievement.
Especially during weight loss, it’s important to stay motivated and avoid a negative mindset. Positive thoughts have to take over all negative thoughts. This is non-negotiable.
Hill’s extensive research on success and failure determined that failure is the result of a negative mental attitude. In order to succeed in your weight loss efforts, remove all negative thoughts.
3. Play the Long Game
If you want sustainable weight loss, you have to play the long game.
Set short and realistic goals, but have the end game in mind. What that means is that your weight loss journey is forever.
Losing weight is the short term goal. Keeping it off is the end game. How do you do this? Mindful eating, improving physical health, and eliminating some bad habits are just a few things you’ll need to do.
You’ll need to educate yourself on what types of food you should be eating as part of your short and long term diet plan, and then change your eating patterns to accommodate a long term weight loss journey.
In order to change your mindset to lose weight for the long term, you’ll definitely need to make permanent changes in your routine and eating habits.
You may have to make adjustments in your social life, such as limiting happy hours or social events that might tempt you with bad food choices or drink sugary drinks.
This type of adjustment might only be temporary while you learn to be more disciplined in this area.
You may need to incorporate a fun activity that can also provide you with exercise you need for weight loss.
Your weight loss mindset will also have to focus on healthy eating as a long term solution rather than a short term way to shed excess weight.
Eliminating junk food and eating healthy should not be part of a short term goal and instead should be part of an overall strategy to adapt to mindful eating and permanent weight loss.
4. Have a Good Support System in Place
Even if it’s a family member, friend, or coworker, having a coping mechanism and support system in place to help hold you accountable and cheer you on is important.
We shouldn’t need external validation, but it’s important to have others keep you on track when your negative thoughts reappear. Sometimes you just need a reminder or a nudge.
Supportive people in general can make a big difference in how you respond to setbacks, deal with uncomfortable emotions, and work toward our SMART goals.
The more support you have, the better you are equipped to change your mindset to lose weight and ultimately lose weight for the long term.
Having a support system in place also helps your mental health.
It’s helpful to have encouragement and especially helps to have a team in our corner when we have setbacks or need lifting up.
Support groups are a great way to find this support system.
Many people struggle with emotional eating, which is an area that a support system would be helpful.
Support networks keep you on track, help you stay focused, help you while you diet, and are there for the long run to help you keep your weight loss mindset.
5. Show Yourself Some Love
You may have heard of the terms self compassion and self love. These are real.
You have to be kind to yourself and accept the things you can’t change. You can change a negative mindset, remove negative thoughts, change your mindset to lose weight, but you can’t change the past.
Accept the things about yourself that you can’t change and be grateful for who you are. Remind yourself that the person who should care about you the most is you.
Be there for yourself as you would a friend or someone else you care about.
Remember that weight is just a number and doesn’t define who you are as a person. Everyone struggles with weight in their own way.
6. Knowledge is Key
Understanding what you need to do to lose weight is only part of your new journey. You have a lot to learn about how to apply what you learn to maintain the weight loss and prevent weight gain.
Making healthy choices for not only a diet, but also a lifestyle is important.
You have to focus on overall eating patterns, food groups, avoiding certain foods, getting enough of the right exercise, and maintaining good physical and mental health for a long term.
Understanding what a negative mindset is, knowing how to avoid emotional eating and what to do instead, and what you can do to exercise on a regular basis without struggling.
Eating the right food and even a little exercise will make a big difference in how your body feels and will help you maintain the weight loss mindset, even long after you are no longer needing to lose weight.
Eating right and seeing the results will be beneficial to your confidence and will give you more energy to lose weight and keep it off.
Knowledge of what causes weight gain for you will be crucial to making the right lifestyle choices over the long term. Mindful eating isn’t just about losing weight.
How your body feels when you eat healthier and cleaner is good motivation, but when a diet ends, you may resort back to your old habits.
By replacing bad habits with healthier ones, you are setting yourself up for success and an overall lifestyle change.
Learn how to eliminate processed foods and how to increase your muscle mass while losing weight.
This is important because losing weight isn’t just about decreasing a number. You don’t want the weight loss to come from muscle. Refer to nutritional experts for specifics.
7. Develop a New Routine
Stop focusing on food and making it the highlight of your days or emotions. Find something else to do that’s productive, like exercising or learning something new.
In order to maintain the weight loss and practice mindful eating, you need to see food as a necessity and not a reward.
Mindful eating is more about the food and what or how much you eat. It’s only part of the mindset required for weight loss.
Mindful eating focuses on being in sync with your body and being fully aware of what your are consuming at that moment. Take the time to savor each bite and think acknowledge your senses.
Don’t make your routine revolve around food, but do make sure you have a plan to eat healthy and maintain the weight loss after the initial diet is complete.
If you don’t develop a new routine, your diet may have the opposite effect and you could end up gaining every pound back and then some.
Just make sure your new routine involves a healthy diet with exercise and is something that you can and will stick with in the long run. Watch what you eat and don’t go back to your old habits.
If your goal is weight loss, it can be easier if you just change your mindset. Losing weight and keeping it off requires a long game and a new routine. You’ll need a good support system and an understanding of what your unique needs are to maintain the weight loss.
- Hill, N., Stone, C. (1987). Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude. Pocket Books. ↩︎
