While I had an awesome weekend of coach training and connecting with friends and family, the mental and emotional intensity and the late hours left me mentally and physically tired.

When I’m tired, it’s easier to sabotage my thoughts, which lead to feelings that inspire actions that don’t support my goals.

For instance, when I got home Monday afternoon, I discovered that my husband had made Chocolate Chip Cookies while I was gone, which lead to a mental debate about eating some. In the end, I totally rationalized my decision to eat three cookies after dinner.

That’s not that big a deal, right? It’s not the end of the world, or my diet. No long-term damage was done.

But if I don’t make myself aware of those mental processes that lead to eating the cookies and let that line of thinking become a pattern, then I will consistently make choices that don’t support my goals.

Left unchecked, that line of mental reasoning can become so ingrained that when I’m trying to change my actions, it can seem like my hand is involuntarily reaching into the bag of cookies and moving them to my mouth.

If you’ve ever felt like your eating was out of your control, just know that’s a sign that you have some long-term habitual thinking going on that does not support your new goals.

If you can, try to document those unsupportive thoughts. They might be something like:

• I’m tired and I deserve a treat.
• It’s too hard to lose weight or eat healthy foods.
• I’m never going to reach my goal.

Then redirect those thoughts so they’re more supportive. For instance:

• What I really deserve is to be fit, strong, and lean. I have more energy and feel better when I eat healthy foods.
• How I look and feel when I am eating healthy foods and losing weight is worth the extra time and energy to prepare the food and stick to my goals.
• Slowly making progress means I’m more likely to maintain my results. Any progress means I’m moving towards my goals.

But in reality, we may be so out of touch with our thinking that we honestly aren’t aware of those sabotaging thoughts. Or we have so many thoughts racing through our head, it feels impossible to catch them as they’re happening.

If that’s the case, it’s a lot easier to catch the emotion. Negative catabolic emotion always is letting you know that your thoughts aren’t supporting Who you truly are.

Pay attention to how you are feeling when you are reaching for that bag of cookies. Notice how you are feeling when you contemplate skipping your workout. Jot down how you are feeling when you don’t want to get up and prep your food for the next day.

You don’t have to know the thoughts that lead to that feeling to create more anabolic supportive thoughts. Even if you can’t do it in the moment, go back later and create supportive thoughts that you can reach for the next time you are in that situation.

When you are coming at it from the emotional side, it’s helpful to write down these new supportive thoughts, and read and practice them daily so they are easier to grab hold of when you feel yourself sliding into emotion that is leading towards the action of comforting yourself with food.

You can use the process of redirecting your thoughts to reach any goal. Notice how you feel when you have successfully navigated the mental and emotional obstacles and are that much closer to success.

Use that new positive anabolic emotion to motivate yourself to keep reaching for more and more supportive thoughts. You can truly change your life by changing the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that lead to your actions.

Together we can do it!

 

 

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