5 Lessons I learned through my weight loss failures!

After going through many "Weight loss" adventures and failing miserably(with a little bit of success sometimes) all these years; I realized some things! Very important things! which I quote "The lessons I learned through my weight loss failures!"

So, these lessons are wonderful and I've decided to strictly follow them while making a fresh start on my new weight loss journey. My Goal in life that I want to enjoy the journey because the other way round doesn't work and I've learned that the hard way all these years. "Loving the journey" is on my mind now and not some number on weighing scale(I'm trying!). I've decided to learn to love the journey and these lessons will help me to do exactly that!

Here are the 5 lessons I learned through my weight loss failures:

1. Loving my body the way it is now to lose weight and not the other way round!

This one thing, which sounds a little bit cliche, but is the most important thing of all which I learned through the hard way by going through hundreds of diets and exercise regimen. All these years I saw this message here and there but never really understood the real meaning behind it. I always thought "Yeah! I'll love my body but its not the way I want right now!" After studying the laws of life, I realized that it was a big mistake.

Once I came across Abraham-Hicks saying that.......

That's when this concept finally started making sense! After all my weight-loss attempts so far, I never really found myself loving the person in the mirror. No matter how many kilos I lost, it was never enough to love my body.

So, if I really want a joyful weight loss journey then I must love my body even before I lose weight. Otherwise, it will be a really long and painful journey from 1 kg to 30 kg.

2. Making peace with where I am now!

It's like the Basics-101 of laws of life when you want a joyful life journey. I've had my fair share of mistakes in my life ut the biggest one was not making peace with where I am! As I said the earlier post, "weight loss" topic never left my mind and I always thought I'm out of time, ironically most of the time I wasted is because of "thinking about how much time I was wasting!". I needed to lose weight as fast as possible to prove everyone that I could do it. In that whole messy process I never really made peace with my body, with my current weight, with my career, with myself, with my entire life.

Now, I've realized that its ok where I am now! I must make peace with myself, with my body and my failures but most importantly my weight loss failures! I must forgive myself for my weight loss failures and remind myself that I am where I am and it all right! I must keep in mind that those failures will prove themselves as stepping stone to success eventually.

As they say - "No matter how many failures you've faced so far in your life, thinking about them in you "NOW" means messing with both your "FUTURE" and your "NOW"!

3. Don't compare yourself with other people's weight loss.

All my life, I did the one thing religiously that was comparing my weight loss journey with other people's weight loss. I used to get surprised to see how many people lose so much weight with hard work and dedication. I always thought I could do it too and I did actually to some extent but I never got be at my ideal body weight.

That's when I started thinking less of myself. I thought" how come these people can do it and I cant? I guess I'm not working hard enough!".

After studying Laws of life, I realized I've gathered a lot of resistance(negativity) over the years around this weight loss topic and I must need to release that resistance little by little to finally succeed at losing weight only if I'm wanting to have a joyful weight loss journey.

It also made me realize that what works for one person doesn't necessarily will work for another because we are all unique! We have all lived a unique life so far with our unique beliefs, opinions, our life experiences. We all have a unique mindset shaped by the life we've lived so far.

Think about it in this way - you cant apply the same diet chart to every other person on the planet who wants to lose weight. There are many factors to take into account - that persons food culture, geography, body composition, his genes, his physical history, his work. These factors are very important but what I've learned with laws of life now is that there are indeed more important factors than these. Those factors are - that person's overall mindset, how he thinks about his himself, his own body, his life and most importantly his beliefs.

As we all know that Our beliefs shape our reality! So for a person, if he has not suffered from his weight issues and has not gathered a lot of negativity around it over the years then sometimes it's easy for him to get in shape which we can easily see as examples from around the world- there are many people who have succeeded at losing weight and that too often in healthy ways but there are also those who haven't in spite of trying for years.

So, taking inspiration from others is a good idea! but I going to keep in mind that in the process of taking inspiration from others I'm not being hard on myself. And I'm also going to see that its Inspiration and not motivation as motivation comes from a negative place and inspiration comes from a positive place. Its inspiration which works in the long run, not motivation!

4. We have a freedom to choose our own beliefs!

Yes! and the only criteria is - how does that thought make you feel in the same way? because belief is nothing but a thought we accept as true and keep thinking about it for a long period of time.

For example, Rice is a staple food in India. There was a time(Unfortunately still is to some extent!) that this divine grain had acquired a bad reputation in weight loss industry. All my life, 9 out of 10 people told me to leave the rice out of my plate but I love rice, I always have, so I couldn't really abandon the rice completely but whenever I ate, I ate it with guilt. Now, years later, you can find several articles over articles stating that Rice is Nice. You can take a look here to see how Rice is Nice.

For years, I made my life miserable by taking advice from others as don't eat this, don't eat that! I'm now done with it! I've found an amazing formula now by Jerry Hicks - If you cant see yourself doing something happily for 1000 times then don't even do it once!

So, here's something I've locked in my mind now that if something doesn't feel good the first time I hear it, I won't keep thinking to it to let it sink into my mind to become a core belief and eventually my reality I don't want! Same applies to my weight loss journey. After all, we are what we believe we are! I think I'd rather fail for my own reasons than failing for somebody else's!

5. Make friends with food!

We all know that saying - "We are what we eat!" but I've now learned the importance of its modified version! It goes like this - "We are how we feel about what we eat!".

I've come across a lot of food trends in our life. I'm sure we all have! We all have flipped through the pages of hundreds of magazines. Listened to friends and family members telling us what to eat and what not to eat! but mostly "what not to eat!".

One thing I now realized about my those "Dieting" and "Jumping from one food trend to another", I always ate food in fear! Now I've decided that I don't want to eat in fear anymore! Advice from others, magazines, the internet may be true and they may work for us. I'm not saying that every advice from the weight loss industry is bullshit but as I mentioned in the earlier point, I'm going to apply a filter to these pieces of advice such as - Is it making me feel good? Am I doing it out of fear? Can I see myself doing it happily for a longer time period?

After learning the Laws of life, I've realized that I can enjoy all kind of food without being fearful. I only have to listen to my heart. Our inner voice always shows us the right way! Sometime my inner voice may tell me to enjoy an ice-cream and sometime it will tell me to pass! I just have to listen with love!

So, these are the lessons I've learned through my weight loss failures! These are kind of my new beliefs now. I've even got tools to implement these beliefs and make it the wanted reality of my life.

I'll write about it in my upcoming posts.

Stay tuned!