Is Your Lack of Empowerment Sabotaging Your Weight Loss?

I don’t know why I can’t lose weight and keep it off! I hear this ALL of the time from driven and goal-oriented women, frustrated by the constant battle with weight. It’s a common problem. In fact, weight loss might be the number one struggle of the women I mentor in the health center. On a deeper level, our negative thought patterns are undercutting our weight loss efforts.

This blog is going to cover how to LOSE WEIGHT and KEEP it off!

Stop the cyclical dieting and binging. Stop the unhealthy fad diets! And, more importantly: stop sabotaging your healthy habits with thought patterns that provoke a negative response

Gain control over your habits and self-confidence.

The Problem with Losing Weight

First off, I completely get the struggle.

I actually struggled with weight a LOT over the years. I had a very unhealthy relationship with food between the ages of 15-25. My eating disorder included periods of starvation, followed by binges. I was so unhappy with my body and it was never good enough.

When I would reach my goal weight, I would feel the weight of having to watch what I did to avoid gaining it back.

What an ugly cycle!

But, I know that most struggles come from something deeper. The problem with losing weight is typically the underlying issues causing it.

That’s why you can’t succeed!

You are essentially trying to put a band-aid over a bullet wound. You are trying to cover up the symptom without addressing the problem.

And, the problem isn’t that you are lacking self-discipline or a failure.

Diving Into the Deeper Thought Patterns

There are things impacting you that you don’t even realize are there. So much of our thinking is really driven by that subconscious thought. Those are the innate responses that are driven by our past experiences—sometimes experiences we don’t even remember.

The Feeling of Deprivation

When you are restricting your eating choices to lose weight, you are really removing freeform choice and creating a box. At first, it works. You stay confined to those food choices and lose weight quickly. You get excited and motivated to stick with it. But, suddenly, you hit a plateau. And, as that happens it gets harder to hold on.

No matter how much you want to lose weight, the feelings that surface to fight deprivations are stronger.

The Loss of Empowerment

Because you are experiencing deprivation, there is a loss of empowerment you feel at your core. This probably isn’t something you register as a complete thought—after all, aren’t you the one who chose the diet plan?? No one is making you do this!

But, truly, your innermost nature is not on the same wavelength.

Deep down, you’re experiencing the fear and instinctive response that you are programmed to have when facing deprivation.

The Old Energies

If you go back into your family history, you will probably find a story of serious deprivation—maybe as recently as the Great Depression, the Holocaust or slavery.

Science has found that DNA can carry memories of traumatic stress through generations. PTSD can be passed down through DNA methylation in humans. One scientific review found “an accumulating amount of evidence of an enduring effect of trauma exposure to be passed to offspring trans generationally via the epigenetic inheritance mechanism of DNA methylation alterations and has the capacity to change the expression of genes and the metabolome.”

This old energy—or old imprint—will come up when we are depriving ourselves of something sugary or carb-filled. Even though our mind is trying to make a healthier food choice, our inner feelings despise being deprived or forced.

We don’t like having our power taken away.

Changing the Thought Patterns

It isn’t your diet plan that needs to change, it’s your thought pattern.

Our thoughts are a lot like rivers. Over time, they create paths that become more and more worn. Your neuro-pathways become a trench over time. And, if we don’t replace the negative thoughts of deprivation with feelings of empowerment and freedom, what will win out?

Eventually, we will seek that empowerment and freedom in the form of a cookie, a soda or pizza.

And guess what that does?

Sends you into a spiral of feeling less empowered due to feelings of failure. Now, is where you might turn to binging in an effort to get back the power or as an act to seek comfort from those feelings of deprivation.

Do you see the harmful cycle?

Changing the thought patterns is the only way out of the cycle because you will seek empowerment and comfort over your conscious will in the long run. It’s only a matter of time.

Switching Deprivation to Freedom

What if you could feel empowered by healthy choices and drawn to the foods that power your body? Rather than feeling deprived, you can feel the freedom and joy that should come with fueling your body.

When you start to feel deprived, try my tapping method to switch the thought processes:

Start by tapping the left brain around the left ear with your left hand—this is where the negative thoughts associated with control come from. “Don’t give in! Don’t eat that! I don’t want to fail!” This will actually be the area responsible for sparking that feeling of deprivation. Even though it seems like it is helping, those thoughts striving to maintain control are creating feelings of imprisonment and restriction.

Repeat three positive weight loss mantras:

I am no longer depriving myself of good health.

I am no longer losing my freedom.

I am no longer feeling forced and confined.

Next, use your right hand to start tapping the right brain around the right ear—this is where the idea center is. This is where your intuitive center is that determines what’s right for you. Notice, the focus isn’t really on weight loss, but on gaining good health. We gain something with this approach—which steers us away from feeling deprived and towards feelings of empowerment.

Repeat five positive mantras for good health:

I am gaining good health with my new choices.

I am easily letting go of excess weight.

I am feeling the freedom that healthy choices give me.

I am free of sabotaging myself with these old habits.

I am healthy, fit and well.

Take a deep breath and feel the shift towards empowerment and positivity. Replace negative thoughts with “I am attracted to healthy food. My appetite is desiring what’s healthy for me.”

Changing the Psychological Response and Relationship with Food

As you keep working on this, you will start to change those thought patterns. This doesn’t happen overnight, but you will immediately start to feel the changes. It is going to take practice to change your thought patterns.

You need to change the psychological response that tells you sugary foods are comfortable and exciting. These are the foods that often make you feel sick and sluggish! You need to change the internal relationship with food that says vegetables are less desirable and require discipline—aren’t these the foods that make you feel refreshed and energetic?

We’ve formed thought patterns that aren’t logical.

But, you can use this process to change the patterns and create a healthy relationship with food.

Relishing in the Freedom of Good Health

The body is going to take care of processing and utilizing the food you give it—especially when you give it nutritional food and not junk.

Even though you are working to change your negative thought patterns, the body benefits the most from this process. It knows how to heal, but it is being hindered by these emotional and psychological barriers that have led to poor food choices.

When you change your thinking, you change your health.

Removing those thought processes enables your body to be drawn to what is really good for it. Suddenly, you are feeling stronger and losing that excess weight. You start to crave the foods that give you energy and make you feel stronger—you start to avoid the ones that make you feel tired and heavy.

And, that response makes sense, right?

Finally, your deepest thoughts are aligned with reality and you feel the freedom to eat how you desire! It’s a wonderful feeling.

Healing from Deep Within

I hope you will join me in my Healing Center where we will continue to dive into these deep thought patterns.

I help people in all walks of life struggling with a wide range of deep emotional traumas. We work through these problematic thought processes and blocked energy centers to achieve lasting healing.