Tips That Mentally Prepare You For Your Health Journey

For the last 9 months I have stopped drinking alcohol at all and I've started hitting the gym 2-3 times per week. It didn't happen all of a sudden. I needed time to transform my thoughts into action and I want to share with you several tips which helped me during my health journey.

1. Make your health a high priority. You must begin thinking differently. First, decide that your health is one of the top priorities in your life. Know that your body is naturally thin. Many people work to build a house or buy and apartment but they do not understand that the place where they will spend most of their time is their body. It is time to treat your body as the greatest gift that you have. It is time to shine as the person you were always meant to be. When you have healthy and positive energy in life, amazing things like love, joy, success, and wealth come your way.

2. Focus on creating healthy habits, and the weight loss will follow. If you’re drinking green smoothies for fast weight loss, you’re totally missing the point! Getting on the scale every day is a waste of time. You will not lose pounds every day, and guess what, some days you may actually gain weight because your body is adjusting during the weight-loss process. If you focus on fast weight loss, you’ll be on a diet for life. Ninety-five percent of people who lose weight on a fad diet gain it back in three to five years. I’m done with dieting! You need to change your eating and training habits for life. So prepare yourself for the journey. Embrace a lifestyle change where you desire and crave healthy foods, where you never have to count calories and serving sizes, and you truly won’t have to diet again. Focus on getting healthy, and the weight loss will follow.

3. Detox family and friends. Sometimes you need to detox your emotions as well as your body by withdrawing from family and friends who discourage you, tell you “you can’t do it” or “you’re not ready to do it.” Blah blah blah! If there is negative talk coming from some people in your life, I would encourage you to limit the amount of time you spend with them. We all have enough negative thoughts on our own without people adding to them! Don’t gravitate toward people who say you can’t do something. Know that when you start this journey, you will want to give up. It’s normal. But I know that sometimes the only way to grow in life is to be uncomfortable. How else do you grow mentally, spiritually, and physically? When you cheat or mess up, it’s no big deal. You will experience being irritable, doubtful, cranky. And then one day, you will experience the joy, the energy, and the feeling of accomplishment that settles in. Don’t you want that feeling.

4. Understanding the difference between emotional hunger vs. physical hunger. Sometimes our relationship with food is an emotional one rather than a physical one. Sometimes we eat to fill an emotional gap or some other negative emotion. But no cookie, cracker, cake, ice cream, or pie can satisfy emotional hunger. Emotional hunger comes on suddenly—I must eat something now. But you rarely feel satisfied or full, and so you just keep eating and eating until the entire bag of chips or pint of ice cream is gone. If the hunger comes on after an argument or a negative emotion, then it is emotional hunger. You need to learn to deal with the emotions head-on. Physical hunger comes about gradually every three to four hours. Watch the clock. If you ate a meal and were full one hour ago and then feel a sudden need to eat something, it’s probably emotional hunger. Dealing with your emotional issues will help you improve your relationship with food. Just as we can get rid of toxic wastes in the body, we can get rid of toxic emotions as well. Instead of eating to distract ourselves from bad feelings, we need to process and eliminate them—just like the body does with food: it takes the nutrients it needs and expels the rest.

5. Engage in positive self-talk. Thoughts and feelings turn into actions, and actions into reality. Remember, you are beginning a new chapter in your life. Let me encourage you right now to get started with your journey. Many ask, “How do I start?” or “How do I get there?” Well, it begins with positive self-talk. You want to stop thinking and saying negative things about yourself. You are not fat, lazy, ugly, or sick. Your true self is naturally thin, beautiful, and healthy. If you have negative thoughts about yourself, you’ll attract negative people and outcomes in your life. If you say that you can never lose weight, you’re exactly right: you won’t. If you say you can, your subconscious mind believes that and begins to move your actions in the direction of losing weight

6. Don’t get obsessed with weighing yourself every day. Don’t let your bathroom scale ruin your motivation. Frequent weighing can be confusing, so instead focus on how your clothes look and feel on your body. Scales are reliable over the long haul but give you inaccurate day-to-day reads. Weight fluctuations can be caused by hormonal changes or fluid shifts and can lead to unnecessary disappointment. It can show gains or losses that are not there because most basic scales can’t tell the difference between fat, muscle, and water weight. Your weight also fluctuates by several pounds throughout the day, and weighing yourself too much will only be confusing and discouraging. Plan on weighing yourself only once a week at the same time of day and wearing the same clothing or no clothing (naked is best).