Rethinking Deprivation
When we talk about losing weight, we have to ask ourselves some pretty fundamental questions. Some of this might sound completely obvious to you - but it’s still worth talking about because believe it or not, if we skip some of these fundamental ideas - we might just be leapfrogging some important concepts to ask ourselves in the journey of PERMANENT change.
#1 - You have yourself now, and you have your desired future self. Is this desired future self an idea, and imaginary friend, or do you intend to become this future person at some point in your life. Let’s be clear. You may not be there yet - but you are either “vaguely interested” in changing into this person, or you are actually committed to becoming this future person. Now, you may not know all the steps involved in getting to become the future person, but you are either really wanting to make change or you are not. Only you can answer this question. So think about this, and be honest with yourself, because there is no value in lying here.
STOP TELLING YOURSELF THAT YOU WANT A CHANGE THAT YOU ARE UNWILLING TO PUT IN EFFORT FOR. THAT INTERNAL CONFLICT AND FRICTION IN YOUR LIFE IS USELESS.
If you are seriously interested in making profound and permanent changes in your life and you are unwilling to really change anything, then you can stop reading now. Bye bye!
#2 - Ok, for the rest of you that are still reading: Can we all agree that in order to change, you actually have to DO SOMETHING differently? Unless you have a genie in a bottle and you can make a request, you wont get a change in your life unless you change your actions. Now, what I teach in my process is that your thoughts translate into your feelings and your feelings prompt your actions. Your actions ultimately create your results, (we will be discussing this on another post). Let me clarify this -
TO CHANGE YOUR RESULTS YOU MUST CHANGE YOUR THINKING. YOU CANNOT GET A DIFFERENT RESULT BY THINKING THE SAME THINGS THAT YOU ARE CURRENTLY THINKING.
I URGE YOU to evaluate your thoughts. Evaluate your priorities. Evaluate your beliefs. Your beliefs create who you are - and in order to change, you need to be willing to think differently about yourself. You need to think differently about what you are capable of and also what you need. Now you may have a long list of things that are important to you, and things that you love about yourself and things that you want to keep exactly the same. I want you to carefully evaluate all the aspects of your life and see if they are helping you and moving you in the direction that you want to go in.
When we talk about weight loss, it’s really easy stay narrow minded and only think about the food that we are and aren’t eating. However, the reality is that every aspect of our life - our professional life, our relationships, our health, our activity level, our spirituality, our finances, all tie into creating thoughts and those thoughts produce feelings, and then actions, which create our results. Every aspect of our life and how we respond to situations in our life is what is creating our current weight. It’s not just about calories in and calories out.
So how badly do you want to lose weight?
Here’s a small pop quiz that might help you figure this out: Close your eyes and imagine your favorite food. Just one kind of food. Whatever that is. So, if I gave you the choice, that you could live your life at your ideal weight permanently, without any work whatsoever, but you would forgo having your favorite food for the rest of your life, would it be worth it for you? And I’m not saying you need or should give up your favorite food. I’m asking this for several reasons:
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How badly do you want it? Some of you might say, “oh heck yeah, i’ll give up french fries forever if i can be at my perfect weight indefinitely”. Others will say, “oh definitely NOT!” And so you get an idea of what you are willing to give up or not.
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I am saying that this is something VOLUNTARY. You have the choice. Nobody is forcing you. All of this is completely optional.
Let’s say for example, you want to lose weight and you decide you will do this by reducing carbs. (this is just an example, I have no agenda in favor or against carbs). You can think to yourself: “Oh brother, i am sacrificing so much, what a pain in the neck” OR you can think to yourself “As much as I love carbs, this is a terrific opportunity for me to change my life, and this is a decision I am making for myself”. Which thought do you think will propel you to stick with your plan? My entire point is that your brain and YOUR THOUGHTS and how you tell yourself everything is CRITICAL in your weight loss journey and in your ability to actually make changes and see results in your life.
You have the choice to continue with your same thoughts and stay with your current results indefinitely. You alternatively, have the option, to start thinking different thoughts about yourself and about what you are capable of. When people think about giving something up, as far as food is concerned - they think deprivation, they think of how much they desire that one food, and they think that life is miserable without it. When in fact, you have full control over what you eat, and when. And you have the POWER to make decisions for yourself. This has nothing to do with deprivation.
The bottom line is - I’m not telling you to give anything up - I’m telling you that if you are truly committed to making permanent weight loss part of your future self - then decide for yourself what changes you are willing to make and gradually your priorities will rise to the surface.
You can make any change you want in your life. Absolutely NOBODY can do it for you. You have to want it badly enough for yourself!!
