The Indispensable Role of Mind Training in a Weight Loss Effort

By Sherali S. Bharwani

You have always been told that it's your mind that is primarily responsible for all the successes that come about in your life. Even in the those fields and situations, where it might seem that the mind has a secondary role to play, it's still the magic inside the brain that makes you win.

To be successful in any effort, endeavor or environment, you must be able to change and control that environment or endeavor. And it is the use of one's own mind that is ultimately his sole means of achieving that goal.

Likewise, in a weight loss effort, your mind is your most important tool that determines if the effort is going to be a success or will doom to failure. At the end of the day, to be successful in a weight loss effort, you have to control and use the power of mind as your primary tool along with the diet and exercise plan.

It is your mind, thoughts and the various associated mental states like nervousness, depression, anger, guilt, impatience etc. that are the initiating causes and materializing factors in making and keeping you overweight.

So naturally, if your mind is responsible for your overweight-ness (by making you eat in ways that make you fat), only your mind can work as a senior partner in getting rid of that weight and keeping it off permanently.

It's very simple to understand and appreciate the direct role of mind in a weight loss effort's success. If you can somehow bribe your mind to help you in losing weight, it will make your body (and you) change its dietary attitudes and your feelings towards eating.

When that happens, naturally the next thing that changes is the act of eating itself. And when you eat differently, you weigh differently!

So to make the long story short, it truly is the power of your mind that adds the most powerful possible success leverage to any diet or exercise program.

Why Most People Fail At Losing Weight

Why do so many people fail at losing weight? Is it because they are lazy? No. Is it because they are addicted to food? No. Is it because they aren’t good at exercising? No. Failure at weight loss stems from a few main factors:

People don't truly understand the risks of being overweight. Why do most want to lose weight? Most would say to look better. Looking better certainly is a benefit of losing weight, but this shouldn’t be the sole reason to lose weight. There is a 1000 pound gorilla in the room and it’s often ignored. Being overweight for a long period of time kills thousands of people each year. Thousands of studies have shown and proven without any doubt that losing body fat will improve and lengthen your life. Knowing the dangers of being overweight is a tremendous motivator to not only lose fat, but to keep it off.

People don't commit to permanent lifestyle changes. So many people think of a "diet" as something temporary. When they are on a "diet" they restrict themselves so much that they are miserable. Sooner or later failure is inevitable because of the unreasonable demands of most "diets." Some of these diets force you to only eat certain foods (e.g., no carbs, special soups etc…) You, like myself, have probably tried them before. The key to losing weight long term is to make gradual lifestyle changes you can stick to forever.

Most individuals are not provided the truthful facts of losing weight and becoming healthier. With the conflicting information in the media, and all of the different lose weight quick fad diets, it’s understandable why so many people really don’t know the truth about losing fat and keeping it off long term.

Most people don't understand they are constantly either gaining fat, or losing fat. There is no in-between. Some people justify binging or giving up because they hit a small road-block. This isn’t an all or nothing game. For example, when I was overweight, if I ate an unhealthy lunch, I’d go ahead and eat an unhealthy dinner since I already "messed up" the day. Or I’d say, I’ll start eating healthy on Monday since I’ve already eaten poorly this weekend. Every person at times eats too much. The successful people will not let a road bump completely derail their entire lifestyle change. If you are not implementing positive lifestyle changes and losing weight, you are gaining weight. Again, there is no "in-between."

Most people don't realize what they consume each day. So many overweight people eat thousands of extra calories and fat without realizing it. It’s tough to know if you are gaining weight or losing weight each day unless you are keeping an eye on what you’re consuming.

This article was written by Mandy, the creator of FreeWeightloss.com, and the author of theUltimate Weight Loss eBook.