Are you still thinking that your weight problem is all about the food?

Are you still stuck in the cycle of, “when I lose weight, then I’ll be happy”?

Well I can tell you from my personal experience, as well as the past experience of my clients, that that does not work. It does not work to take only physical action to lose weight in an effort to “get happy” while ignoring the real reasons you gained weight in the first place. In fact, if you are even able to take physical action without struggle and you do end up reaching your goal weight, you will still be unhappy unless you lose weight (and get happy) from the inside out.

It’s Not About The Food

Your weight issue has never been and never will be about the food. Sure, there are practicalities that come into play when dealing with the human body - the human body loves whole, healthy foods, good clean water, and wonderful, good-feeling exercise. The human body will easily shed fat when fed healthy, whole foods with portion control.

However, if you do not have your Inner YOU aligned with the fit, healthy, sexy body you wish to create on the outside, nothing else matters. You won’t even want to feed your body foods that you believe will help it shed the fat if all you do is force yourself to take physical action while ignoring all of the inner stuff that drove you to become what you are today.

It will always be a struggle for you until you get congruent on the inside with what you want on the outside.

Self-Esteem and Your Weight

“Self-esteem, on whatever level, is an intimate experience; it resides in the core of our being. It is what I think and feel about myself, not what someone else thinks or feels about me.” - Nathaniel Branden, How To Raise Your Self-Esteem

When your self-esteem is in the gutter, how easy is it for you to take fun, effortless action to create the fit, healthy, sexy body of your dreams? How could you possibly believe that you deserve to live in a rockin’ body like that when you think so poorly of yourself?

If you do not believe you deserve to live in your ideal body then you will not even be open to learning how to become a deliberate and conscious creator of your reality. You will not feel you deserve to have the body of your dreams when you have low self-esteem and you will not be open to learning a new inner (or outer) lifestyle.

5 Ways Low Self-Esteem Affects Your Weight

Here are just 5 ways low self-esteem negatively affects your weight:

1. Obsessions Galore - When you have low self-esteem you just might find yourself obsessed with food and your weight. You have the faulty thinking that “if only I lose weight, then I’ll be happy”. You attempt to control food, the scale, your body, how much and how often you exercise…all of this “stuff” becomes your focal point because you avoid the real problem that created the symptom of the overweight body.
2. Something Went Wrong, So I Must Be Wrong! Low self-esteem will contribute to your faulty thinking that YOU must be wrong when things don’t go exactly as you’d have liked them to in your life. You cannot control what other people do - people will come and go in your life, jobs will change, circumstances will alter and the only thing you can control is your own vibration, your inner world. When you have low self-esteem though you think that everything is about you when the truth is, sure, you do have a part to play in your life and you are responsible for your results (absolutely) but just because things go haywire it doesn’t mean that you are now “wrong” as a person.
3. Look At ME - I’m FAT! It’s one thing to be fat and to take healthy action to create a fit, healthy sexy body - healthy action that is driven from the belief, expectation, and feeling of deserving that, “YES, I CAN have exactly what I want”. It’s completely another thing to be living with low self-esteem and tying your self-worth to your overweight body, to your fat. The problem is that your low self-esteem played a large part in your creation of your fat body in the first place and low self-esteem will KEEP you in that fat body. The Inner and the Outer Always Match - Always, Always, Always (Abraham-Hicks). When you continue to connect your fat body with your sense of self-worth as a human being, guess what you’ll get?
4. You Feel Bad…So You Eat Can you truly feel good about yourself when your sense of self is so low? Do you feel good when you have the continual feeling that you are “never enough”, no matter what the heck you do in your life? And what do you tend to do when you feel bad…do you turn to food, think that “what the heck, I feel awful anyway so why not eat such and such”. How can you feel good when living with low self-esteem, feeling like you just cannot handle the curve balls that life throws at you? If you don’t have the tools in your toolbox to know how to deliberately feel good now you will continue to bang around in your life thinking that controlling food and your weight is the answer.
5. A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy The fact is that you cannot maintain an outside that feels good when your inside feels so bad and low self-esteem…well, it feels bad! Low self-esteem is the cornerstone of self-sabotage and self-sabotage is rampant in those who are the “false starters” - you know, you are doing everything perfectly with your food and exercise for a week or two, you get to a certain point either with how long you’ve been sticking to it or you see a certain number on the scale and “suddenly” you stick a wrench in it. Low self-esteem will drive you to sabotage yourself every time and keep you from getting what you say you want - you live a self-fulfilling prophecy that continues to give you the results of failure and disappointment. It cannot be any other way when you continue to live with a foundation of low self-esteem.

The mainstream diet industry sells you that, “once you lose weight, then you’ll be happy”. This doesn’t work and there is the glaring fact that 95% of all dieters fail. The only way you can gain true happiness is by taking action to get happy on the inside so that you honestly, in your heart of hearts, believe, deserve, and expect to live in a fit, healthy, sexy body on the outside.

However, low self-esteem will not allow you to believe you deserve to lose weight and have a fit, healthy, rockin’ body. You will not believe you deserve to learn a better way, to learn how to become a match on the inside to what you want on the outside. You will not believe you deserve to have what you want.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking action to get healthy and fit, in fact if you have high self-esteem you will naturally desire to learn how to do this with ease if you place a high value on your physical fitness. High self-esteem will lead you to take the actions that are congruent with what you live on the inside and when you are “living happy now” with high self-worth on the inside then things will begin to line up for you. You will be on your way to learning how to deliberately create a fit, healthy, sexy body for yourself with effortless action.

In the end though, if you are unhappy on the inside losing weight on the outside will not make you happy. It’s an inside job. Besides that, if you are unhappy on the inside you will be drawn on the outside to whatever keeps you unhappy. How easy is it to take those actions that you believe will create your dream body when you feel so poorly about yourself?

5 Ways High Self-Esteem Makes Weight Loss Easy

Look for my next post on 5 ways High self-esteem makes weight loss easy for more on this topic of self-esteem.

In the meantime leave a comment below on the points you relate to in this article and how your self-esteem has affected your weight. Feel free to include any action steps you have taken to raise your self-esteem and how that has been working for you to help you create a fit, healthy, sexy body for yourself. F.U.N.!!

Photo by pilipala9

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2. Do You Deserve To Be Thin?
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What are you worth?

What is your value?

If you look at it from purely a spiritual perspective, every human being is worthy of all of the abundance the Universe has to offer. However that is not the topic of my question today. I am asking YOU… what are YOU worth?

What ARE You Worth??

Are you worth a trip to the grocery store for some whole foods or are you worth a steady diet of fast food?

Are you worth a walk around the block or are you worth laying on the couch, overeating on chinese food and brownies, and watching T.V. all night long?

Are you worth a new, cute top, a pair of jeans that fit, and some hot shoes so that you feel awesome now while on your weight loss journey, or are you worth a ratty pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt?

Are you worth some sexy lingerie that fits, a bottle of perfume you love, learning how to cook whole, healthy foods, and people in your life who love, support, and cherish you?

Or are you worth waiting until tomorrow to feel good, waiting until you have the money, waiting until you are ready to live your life finally….tomorrow?

YOU Determine Your Worth

While it is definitely true that every human being has intrinsic worth just for the fact that “they are”, you are the one who determines what you are worth. You determine whether or not you’re worth investing in professional coaching to help you, once and for all, solve your issues with food and your weight.

You are the one who determines whether or not you are worth investing the time in learning a new way of living so that you not only can lose the weight without struggle, but that you can also keep it off for life.

You are the only one who determines whether or not your value is high enough that you deserve to have what you want - a fit, healthy, sexy, rockin’ body. A body you LOVE living in. A body you praise rather than criticize. A body you appreciate and adore.

You are also the only one who determines whether or not you deserve to live a life that includes a healthy relationship with food. A life filled with an appreciation for food rather than a fear of it.

Stay Tuned For More…

Stay tuned to The Fit Shack this week for more on this topic of self-worth, self-value, which at it’s core comes down to self-love and your self-esteem.

You will never have peace with your body and food until you determine you are worthy of that life. It will always be a struggle for you to live with your body, your weight, and with food until you clean up the real issues (and food sure ain’t it!).

Share Your Comments

Leave a comment below to share how your current actions demonstrate how much you value yourself and your desire to live in a fit, healthy, sexy body.

Share whether or not your actions are easy and effortless for you, or share your thoughts on how you’d like to be living right now - whether you’d like to be living with actions that match how highly worthy you feel on the inside… because when you get there, the healthy weight loss actions come together for you with effortlessness and ease. F.U.N.!!

Photo by erin MC hammer

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Can you really lose weight while eating Halloween candy? Sure, why not? I did!

Yep. It’s True!

Last week I lost weight while eating Halloween candy.

I lost weight without struggle. 

“What does that mean”, you ask? What could it possibly mean that I lost weight without struggle?

Motivation Not Needed Here

It means that I did not have to motivate myself to exercise, force myself to eat healthy foods for my body (foods I believe are good for my body), and I didn’t have to fight against cravings or urges to eat candy, cake, cookies, fast food, nothing like that. Instead, I naturally and easily wanted to take the healthy actions that I did. It was FUN and I am lovin’ it.

How Could This Be??

When you get in alignment on the inside with the fit, healthy, sexy body you wish to create on the outside then almost as if by “magic”… there is No More Struggle to create that body of your dreams.

Now as a body transformation expert, am I telling you that you can just lay around and not take any action at all? Uh, no….the “work” is in getting your Inner YOU congruent with the body you want to live in on the outside and when you do that…

It’s Fun to take those healthy action steps that will give you the body of your dreams.

It’s Easy to make healthy choices for yourself.

There is No Battle or Struggle against anything that you think is “bad” for you because you are in alignment on the inside with the body you want on the outside. You naturally and easily (without effort or force) gravitate to the foods and the actions that will give you the body you desire to live in.

The Inner and The Outer Always Match - Always

Bottom-line: We live in a vibrational, energy-based Universe - there is no denying this. You can disagree and argue against that forever if you choose to however it won’t change the fact that everything in this world we inhabit is energy. EVERYTHING.

Same thing as if you were to choose to deny the law of gravity. You can do that (knock yourself out! lol), but how will doing that help you? Why expend energy and focus on arguing against that which you cannot change, the fact that all in this life is energy and everything begins with a thought. (hmmm, and who controls your thoughts?)

On the flip side, how could it help you to learn how to play the game of living in this vibrational energy-based Universe and get in energetic alignment with your own fit, healthy, sexy body so that it is easy and effortless for you to take action to get that body…and KEEP it?!

What if it were an enjoyable journey for you to create your ideal body? If it weren’t a struggle and you enjoyed the journey, wouldn’t it be fun?

What About the Halloween Candy?

I began this article writing about the fact that I lost weight eating Halloween candy. Yes, it’s true I had some candy and you know how I feel about it? Big Deal. That’s the sum of it. Contrast that with how I would have felt last year or previous years when I would have thought I’d “fallen off the wagon so I may as well eat whatever else I want to!”.  Today I don’t even have that desire and I really am not even interested in the candy like I would have been in the past. I’d rather have a banana and strawberries - no joke.

It’s a totally different life to live when you are in alignment on the inside with what you want on the outside. You can eat candy (if you want to) and still lose weight because you really don’t even care that much about it. If you choose to have some Halloween candy you have some but you don’t need more than a few pieces. You don’t feel guilty afterwards, there isn’t any of that struggle going on with food.

It’s completely different than being in the space where food is all you think about and your weight is the most important focal point in your life.

It’s a completely different life to be taking action to create the hot body you wish to live in (replace “hot body” with what you define “hot” - healthy, strong, fit, whatever) and enjoying where you are TODAY. It’s completely different than having the thought that “once you lose weight, then you’ll be happy”. That Doesn’t Work - been there, done that, it. does. not. work.

It all comes down to getting in alignment on the inside with the body you wish to live in on the outside. When you do that inner work then the weight loss “just happens”. Can you imagine the joy of that? It really does Rock, that’s for sure!!

…Oh, and you wanted to know how much weight I lost last week while eating Halloween candy? 7 pounds. My new jeans are already loose. Yeah!

 
Photo by minipixel 

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I’ve recently revised, rewritten, totally revamped and updated my About Page here at The Fit Shack. Check it out!

I realized it was about time to rewrite it since I began The Fit Shack back in March, 2007, and while I’ve written over 620 articles here at The Fit Shack, I am not the same person I was when I started this blog site.

I’ve gone through massive personal transformation because of the choices I’ve made to work with my own coaches, guides, and mentors, not only in areas of personal growth but also in the area of business growth. In actuality though, business growth effects personal growth also, so it all interwines and interweaves to help one grow and evolve in every area of life.

As a matter of fact, you can see this so clearly when it comes to any work you may choose to do in the area of your relationship with food and your body. Here are some excellent examples:

When you go to work each day or when you sit down to run your own business, what is always there with you?

When you go out on a date or spend time with your significant other, what is always with you?

When you pray, go to church, walk outside in nature, write a letter to your higher power/Source Energy, God, whatever you name it, what is always with you?

When you get on a plane, go on vacation, lay on the beach, drive your car to the store, go to the mall, try on clothes….what is always there with you, never ever leaving your side?

Ok, you need a hint? It’s Your Body, lol! You are continually dragging your body with you every single place you go whether it’s to your home office, your CEO corporate office headquarters, your cubicle, your family’s house for holidays, on vacation or to the grocery store, Your Body Goes Everywhere With You.

When you feel miserable about your body because you don’t live in the fit, healthy, sexy body you’d like to live in, how does that affect every other area of your life?? If you feel bad about being overweight, about how you look in your clothes, about how you look naked with your significant other, how does that bad feeling affect your work, your relationships, your outlook on life? How does this affect your level of confidence, your decisions to go for it at work, in dating, in following your life’s passion?

When you decide to commit to yourself and do something different to once and for all clean up this area of your life around how you deal with food and your body, you cannot help but affect every other single area of your life. How could you avoid that when your body goes everywhere with you?

What would your life be like if you had a fabulous relationship with your body today? What if you were walking around in a fit, healthy, sexy body everywhere you went? Would you feel more confident? More alive? More attractive? Stronger, healthier, fitter, maybe even sexier?

How would every area of your life be affected if you loved the body you are living in? What would be different for you today?

Share in a comment below which specific areas of your life would be different today if you were right now living in a fit, healthy, sexy body. A body you loved and adored. What would you be doing differently today? What would that be worth to you, to be in the body of your dreams, right now?

Photo by Mario Pleitez
 

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Are you congruent with your weight loss goal? Or maybe your first question is… what “congruent” even means, and what does it have to do with your weight loss goal?

What It Means to be Congruent

When you are congruent you are in total and complete alignment with your goal. All parts of you are onboard with where you are headed and there is no self-sabotage at all going on. Congruency starts in the mind, which is why it is vital to bring mind, body, and spirit together in order to have total success at transforming your body (which transforms your life).

The mind rules the body and if you take backwards action by continuing to force yourself to take the physical actions of dieting and exercising without getting your inner you onboard first by getting congruent with your weight loss goal, you will never have lasting success.

Even that extremely small percentage of dieters who have succeeded in maintaining their weight made a change in their thoughts. While they struggled and forced themselves to diet and exercise in order to lose weight, along the way anyone who has ever succeeded at reaching their goal weight and in maintaining their weight for life changed their thoughts.

If you do not do this there is practically no point in even attempting another diet again because you are guaranteed to end up back in the pile of the 95% group of repeat dieters who fail over and over again. It will never work to force yourself to take physical action while ignoring the root cause of your overweight and that lies in your inner self. 

When you clean that up first so that you become congruent with your weight loss goal then you are on the path to fun, effortless, weight loss success. There is nothing else to “fight”.

5 Signs You Are Congruent With Your Weight Loss Goal

Here are 5 signs that you are congruent with your weight loss goal. These signs tell you that you are on the easy, fun path to weight loss success and in fact, it goes far far beyond that - when you get congruent on the inside with the lifestyle you wish to lead on the outside (yes, it takes a lifestyle change to create that fit, healthy, sexy body you say you want to live in) then your days begin to flow. 

Your daily living experience becomes fun, joyful, and abundant with all of the good stuff that life has to offer you and you are filled with inspiration to take healthy action. You are really rockin’ and rollin’ when you are lined up on the inside with what you want on the outside.

Now onto the 5 signs you are congruent with your weight loss goal:

1. It is easy for you to Take Action. You can own all of the countless healthy weight loss plans in the world but if you never take action on a single one of them, what results will you get? When you are congruent with your weight loss goal it is super easy for you to not only take initial, decisive action, but also it is super easy for you to continue to act. You follow through long term rather than for just one day or one morning (that behavior is a sure sign of non-congruency) and healthy action ends up becoming second nature for you. There is no more struggle.
2. Self-Sabotage is a thing of the past. When you are congruent with your weight loss goal and have your inner you onboard with what you want to create on the outside, a fit, healthy, sexy body, then self-sabotage is a thing of the past. All parts of you are lined up and energetically onboard with the body you wish to transform into and you don’t even consider sabotaging your efforts to get there. This all begins with your inner self, getting that part of you inline and congruent with the body you wish to live in.
3. Self-Doubts are erased. When you are congruent with your weight loss goal you feel confident and secure that you will reach it. Self doubts are gone because there is nothing to fear. Who was the one sabotaging you before? Was there someone forcing you to stay fat? Nope, that was the part of your inner self who was bringing you down. Now that you are congruent with your goal you are fully confident you will get there. You no longer doubt how you will handle visiting relatives, what will happen when you’re away from home, stressful situation that used to lead to overeating, or whether or not you will succeed. Congruency leads to solution-oriented thinking, rather than failure-focused thinking.
4. The Inner Battle is gone - No More Forcing Yourself! When you are congruent with your weight loss goal you are no longer fighting anything at all. Where before you were constantly fighting with yourself to stick to anything that you thought would help you lose weight, now you take action so easily and effortlessly because there is nothing to fight. All parts of you are lined up with what you are going for and no one is in your inner court trying to hold you back. In fact you may suddenly become aware of the absense of your past inner battle. There is nothing else to “fight” because you are totally lined up and onboard, all parts of you!
5. It’s FUN to lose weight. It’s actually fun for you to lose weight, to take decisive, healthy action, to eat well, exercise, go shopping for cute, new clothes, socialize with friends and family without doubting yourself, all of the things that before were so hard for you to do when you were stuck and locked in inaction. You are confident and secure in the fact that not only are you getting to your goal but that you will stay there. The “battle” is done, it’s fun for you now to finally transform your body into the fit, healthy, sexy body you’ve always dreamed of living in, and you are enjoying the whole process. All because you made the choice to get congruent on the inside with the body you wish to create on the outside. You chose to get congruent and get your inner you onboard before you took the physical actions to lose weight.

Life is great for you when you are congruent on the inside with what you wish to create on the outside. These are 5 fabulous signs for you to recognize in yourself  and they show you that you are totally and completely on board with your weight loss goal. And this is how life is supposed to be for you - fun, easy, abundant in all areas - Simple!

On the other hand if you are still struggling to lose weight, forcing yourself to “be different”, always hitting up against self-sabotage and never sticking to anything long term, then these are clear and loud warning bells that you are not congruent with the fit, healthy, sexy body you desire to live in. Those are signs that whatever you’ve been doing (or choosing not to do, such as getting congruent on the inside before taking physical action) hasn’t been working for you because if you have to struggle and battle to lose weight, hey, that’s not fun, and that’s not how life is supposed to be.

When you are lined up on the inside with what you say you want on the outside, everything flows and it’s easy for you to take action.

Where Are You At?

Where are you at right now? Is your weight loss journey fun and easy for you? Are you loving life, feeling happy, confident, and successful NOW while you are losing weight and getting fit? Or are you on the other side of the spectrum - not getting the results you want, feeling miserable about your weight and your lack of action, and still forcing yourself to be different?

Leave a comment below and share where you notice you’re at right now. And if you’re in a space where you’re not getting the results you want include where you would like to be instead. All change is preceeded by awareness so it’s a step in the right direction to become fully aware of where you are today.

 
Photo by HocusFocusClick

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