Tips For Breaking the Weight Gain Habit

It's important to change the negative patterns in our lives, into more positive ones that will serve our health in the long term.

Our daily habits can have a great effect upon our body weight - shopping, eating, social & exercise habits - and important to examine how to make positive lifestyle changes.

Shopping habits are probably the first point worth looking at, as if unhealthy snack foods are taken home, they will undoubtedly be consumed, so the first point is to begin examining what you buy in your weekly groceries.

By bringing home healthier parcels of food from the shops, it will ensure that most of your meals (or at the very least, breakfast and dinner) will be of a reasonably healthy standard, and this is good for weight reduction and general health.

Consulting a dietitian for your food choices is probably a good idea, but needless to say, read the packets and cans and always focus upon low-fat choices where possible.

Be generous with your purchase of most natural foods such as fruit, vegetables and 100% fruit juices and, if you like to snack between meals, find some healthy snacks such as fruit or fruit bars which will not make your metabolism pay later!

Also, if you frequently eat out for lunch at work, consider taking your own lunch to work a little more, as this makes it easier to control what you eat.

Otherwise, try some new healthy restaurants or delicatessens, and experiment until you find a new 'favorite' meal which is equally healthy and also satisfying.

As far as exercise is concerned, walking is one of the best for weight reduction and the least likely to cause injury! Try and walk to as many places as you can, and move the pace up to a brisk walk.

Dont overdo it, just try and have a good 'stride-out' a minimum of 4 times a week. Otherwise take up a physical activity or sport which you enjoy, as enjoying the physical activity you do is essential if you are to keep it up for more than a few weeks.

Create Your Slim Inner Blueprint

In order to be fit, slim and a healthy weight, we must first begin thinking of ourselves that way.

The inner you must change first before the outer you can transform. This means that our everyday thinking must slowly transformed into that of a healthy person, by monitoring your thoughts and making corrections where necessary.

An example of this might be if someone asked you if you if you would like a game of golf or tennis etc - and instantly - your old 'programming' will say to you "No, we dont do those things because we're not fit enough and they're too hard - let's stay home and watch TV instead!".

This is the precise time we must make the necessary correction to our thinking, and saying to ourselves "Cancel that (the previous statement) - I am getting fitter and healthier this year - I would love a game of tennis".

And so instead, you accept to have a game of tennis, and this decision then becomes a part of your new inner and outer self - both reflecting your new healthy attitude and lifestyle. This starts a whole chain reaction of events which affect your body weight.

These everyday choices play a huge part in creating our a new inner blueprint, which is the subconscious mental programming that control our body's metabolism.

So it becomes important (when we are thinking to ourselves, or even talking to others) that we think of ourselves as being healthy, and at the very least, thinking that we are on the road to fitness - even if we are not there yet!

Basically this means: we become what we think - if we think of ourselves as 'fat and unhealthy', we will eventually become that way - and likewise if we begin to think of ourselves in terms of 'increasing fitness and health', we will slowly but surely gravitate in the direction of health.

Once we begin moving in that direction, every part of our life can also begin to change.

For instance, you may find yourself beginning to check out exercise options or classes (and watching less television!), experimenting with some different, healthier foods, or you may find yourself beginning to read books on health and fitness, going out with more health-minded friends, etc etc.

All these changes come about simply by thinking about yourself differently.

Yes, some might say that this means we are simply 'fooling ourselves' - and to a certain extent this is exactly how the process works.

We almost need to fool our subconscious mind into believing we are healthy now, in order for our subconscious to ensure we gravitate in that direction! This is how we change our inner programming.

So remind yourself regularly that you are becoming a new person, and that your 'old' choices and daily habits are going to be changing a lot from now on - to newer, healthier habits.

Practice regularly breaking any regular negative, unhealthy habits and replacing them with more positive ones.

Begin today to change the way you think about yourself - and changing your thoughts to more life-affirming ones - and you will begin to notice changes inevitably taking place in all areas of your life. Your mind and body will thank you in the long run.

Article © MindTraining.net

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"The Mind controls the body, and the mind is unlimited". Craig Townsend