Use Affirmations To Help You Lose Weight

A winning attitude often takes work to develop. An important part of this work involves forming positive statements about yourself to replace old, negative, self-defeating thoughts. As a baby, you happily went about doing whatever babies do - touching, tasting, exploring, and learning. You were without thoughts about what you could or couldn't do, so you tried many things. Very soon, an adult undoubtedly intervened, giving you messages like "Good boy!" "What a bright girl!" "No, no - that is bad." We accepted these statements unquestioningly.

Over time, as we hear such statements repeatedly, we develop beliefs about ourselves, and begin to organize them into a belief system. Various experiences reinforce them and we begin to adapt our behavior to conform to them. If you were repeatedly praised as a bright child, you began to believe you were a bright child. Your young mind worked overtime, coming up with new ways to show how bright you were, and to elicit further praise.

In the process of living in that premise, your experience of yourself as bright broadened and took root. Soon there was no longer any question about it in your mind. You probably still think of yourself as a bright child, unless at some point that belief was challenged and you deliberately reevaluated it.

This is the way beliefs are formed and assimilated. As a child, it was a rather haphazard experience - our beliefs about ourselves depended to a great extent on circumstances and the beliefs of others close to us. As adults, however, we have the power to originate beliefs of our own choice. We can replace negative, limiting beliefs about ourselves with freshly chosen alternatives. We can get rid of beliefs that don't support us. In fact, to live our dream fully, a new belief system that enables us to be our best is a necessity. Our old beliefs got us this far; new ones will take us into the future of our dream.

To adopt new beliefs, we can now systematically choose affirming statements, then consciously live in them. They will become increasingly true, until we are certain that that's who we are. So begin by taking a closer look at the way affirmations are formed. An affirmation is a firm, positive sentence designed to convey a message from your conscious to your subconscious mind. It asserts something you know is true, even though it may not have manifested in your life yet. When the subconscious mind receives this message, it goes to work on a subconscious level to align with it and bring it about.

An effective affirmation must always be in first person (I), and the present tense, and must be stated positively, not negatively. So instead of, "I will not deviate from my diet and quit again" (which would focus your mind on the idea of failure), you could say: "I enjoy eating healthily, following my chosen healthy eating plan is natural and easy for me."

Now you have replaced the negative thought with a positive, colorful image. Since the mind can only hold one thought at a time, the thought of failing at your diet again is gone, and your subconscious mind has grabbed hold of the healthy idea and has swung into action to follow the positive thought that eating healthily is easy and enjoyable.

Here are 10 sample affirmations that you can use or change to suit you.

1. I am slim and healthy
   
2. I love to eat good healthy whole food
   
3. I enjoy eating healthily, following my chosen healthy eating plan is natural and
   easy for me.
   
4. I remain at my ideal weight easily
   
5. I am happy and fulfilled
   
6. I deserve to be slim,
   
7. I deserve to eat good quality healthy food
   
8. I feed my body with the healthy fuel it needs and it responds by giving me an
   abundance of energy.
   
9. When I look at myself in the mirror I feel pride at my appearance
   
10. When I am thirsty I drink cool, refreshing pure water

by Dianne R Maurer
Weight Loss Success Coach