7 Tips for Obtaining A Healthy and Happy Body Shape

Have you tried to lose weight in the past, but find you always go back to how you were before or bigger? Perhaps you’re so fed up with failing each time to lose weight, you’ve given up your belief in your ability as you can’t bear to let yourself down again. But every day you let yourself down because you’ve given up hope in yourself, the spark in your eyes has diminished and you feel like a useless lump. You feel guilty about what you eat and cry silently in your mind.

I know, because I have been there too. I spent many years of my life fighting, crying, failing hopelessly, hating myself and desperate, but there is hope and I am proof of that.

Shedding weight is a very personal thing to each and every one of us and how you eventually gain control will be very different to any one else. Because you are unique.

We all have personal programmes and patterns running inside our subconscious mind which make up our habits and behaviours but also make us who we are. Although there are many quick fix solutions and diets to follow, these don’t tend to last long term if you don’t work at the deeper level. Your body and mind need time to adjust from old eating patterns to new eating patterns as well as adjusting to being a particular size. If it feels outside of its comfort zone i.e. vulnerable to the all seeing eyes of those who may notice you, it will often try to take you back to when it feels more comfortable going from pain (vulnerability) to pleasure (comfort zone). This could very well be a your padded shield attached to you which is your excess weight. Feeling vulnerable will result in driving you towards your unique detrimental patterns of behaviour, i.e binge eating, out of character cravings, grazing and a feeling that you are missing out and wanting to make up for food that you haven’t allowed yourself to eat. Here are some tips for you which helped me in the past and I would love to share them with you……

1. Remember everything in moderation. You should avoid starving yourself of the things you love because the more you do, the more you will crave it. This craving behaviour happens to anyone who tries to lose weight by starving themselves of the things they enjoy. Many people in the days of the war would often stash their food or scoff it all at once in fear of not being fed for a long period. Either way it creates a feeling of lack in your subconscious mind and causes you to behave in ways you wouldn’t normally around food. It also causes you to see food as some kind of enemy which it certainly isn’t because you need it to survive! It’s just about making the right choices for the healthy stuff.
2. Only do exercise that you feel good participating in, and doesn’t create a sense of dread or “I can’t be bothered”. It has been scientifically proven that the more you try to make yourself do something you don’t find pleasure in, the more likely you are guaranteed to fail. Fact!  However, if you are not used to a regular exercising regime, you need to allow your body and mind time to adjust to a new routine/habit, so give it a few weeks and if you still don’t enjoy your exercise choice, try something different. I remember walking out of a Legs, Bums and Tums class a few years ago, and decided I would never go back. I hated it, even though I kept pushing myself to go. For some reason I never felt like I’d had a particularly amazing work out after the classes so I decided to try Spinning after a friend raved on about it. After my first Spinning class I came out feeling like I wanted to die, which was great! That is exactly how I like to feel after I have exercised and I have been going now for over 5 years, at least two to three times a week (give or take the odd holiday). I now mix it up with walking, yoga and sometimes a small gym work out. I never beat myself up about not spending at least a whole hour in the gym. Go for as long as you feel you want to. Allowing just 30 minutes for a work-out is better than nothing. Also don’t presume that you have to do something vigorous, if you prefer Yoga or Pilates, they are just as effective and get you into the habit of caring about having a healthy body.
3. Avoid weighing yourself every day, or even every week. It is unreasonable to put pressure on your body like that. Let it do its natural thing and adjust over the month. I would suggest you throw away the scales – I can hear your doctor screaming at me! When I threw my scales away, it was the most liberating thing I ever did (I haven’t weighed myself for over 5 years). I still went on to lose 2 stone in 2 years, I went by how my clothes felt. Give your body time to dissolve the weight, avoid putting the pressure on as this can drive you to self sabotage if you don’t fulfil your desired weight (by the deadline you’ve given yourself).
4.  Tune into your stomach. If it’s crying out for food with hunger pains (not psychological/emotional hunger pains), let it have something to eat. You can still lose weight and be full-up, it just depends on what you eat. If you have to follow any eating regime, try to stick to low GL foods which fill you up but are healthy at the same time. I really like Patrick Holford’s approach but again, don’t get sucked into spending loads of money getting tied into promises, it’s not necessary to add additional anxiety.
5. Give yourself a chance to adjust to any new regime. Don’t be hard on yourself if you don’t lose a pound in a week, know that you are doing the best you know how. The most important thing is to notice any emotional eating patterns. If you find that you constantly crave food when you’re bored, lonely, depressed, happy, guilty then you are only eating away at your emotions, and the feeling will still be there after you’ve eaten the food. It may numb any emotional pain for a brief half an hour but you could end up feeling worse after eating something which in your opinion is “baaaad” (no food is bad if it’s eaten in moderation). When you beat yourself up with guilt you are making yourself feel much worse than you did before. Forgive yourself, let it go, DO NOT PUNISH YOURSELF! Instead sing a happy song and tell yourself that you are an amazing, fantastic person learning as you go (see Daily Affirmations for Self love and treat yourself to some positive self talk). We all make mistakes as that is how we learn.
6. Learn to be nice to yourself when you look in the mirror. So many times people decide that if they lose weight they will be happier, feel more sexy, have more friends/relationships, be popular, get more respect. All these things you can have at any body shape or size if you can learn to find the inner balance first. If you learn to love what is on the inside, the rest falls into place. This is a big challenge for so many people but it’s important to gain the quality that you are looking for first rather than decide to be happier, more popular, have respect, feel sexy after you lose weight. Chances are these are just things you HOPE you will have when you eventually get there. However as I mentioned previously, if you are constantly putting the weight back on then you need to look deeper within to find out what needs to change in you first.
7. Finally to uncover more about my personal story and what NOT TO DO for successful weight loss, fill in the form below to receive my FREE report on the 6 Biggest Mistakes People Make When Trying to Lose Weight. 

Love <3