Want to Lose Weight? Change Your Mindset with Neuro-Linguistic Programming First
NLP or Neuro-Linguistic Programming is an alternative form of Psychology that is actually a modality and a set of tools and techniques based on how your thoughts create your behavior. You should know that your attitude, values, and beliefs are vital in making the world you see, feel, and hear. Every person has his own unique view of the world (this is not to say that they are right or wrong). What you perceive in the world is practically a reflection of the things that have happened in your life. If you see yourself as failure, guess what? Can you expect massive success? You see, you may be thinking that life happens to you and that you are a victim, but with NLP you will realize that life happens for you. It’s also about understanding how to learn from one’s mistakes.
In this article, you will discover some simple NLP techniques to start changing your mindset now. The techniques are universal, it’s not only about weight loss. You can also use them to change other negative behaviors that prevent you from achieving your goals. While this article focuses on how to improve your health with NLP, specifically, how to lose weight, it can also help you eat healthier, go to the gym on a regular basis and relax more.
With neuro-linguistic programming, you can change your values and beliefs so you can make quick yet lasting changes to any area of your life
It can help improve your mental, physical, and emotional states. It can even help you become as successful as other people through modeling. Through it, you can achieve greater achievements and overcome challenges. You see, it’s all about getting to the root of the problem- just like the holistic world rule says. Some people know all about diets, healthy nutrition and fitness. Many of them may even be certified sport professionals or dieticians- but why the heck they don’t follow through what they preach?
Here comes the missing ingredient- changing your mindset. When I started my body and mind transformation (I got really serious about it in early 2011 and this was also when I decided to quit my tedious job and change my career so as to embrace my real passion- more about it in “about me”section”), I was lucky that I had mentors who pointed out to the importance of mind work, not only body work. Of course, these two go hand in hand. It’s all interconnected.
But I sometimes think that learning how to master your mind is much more important than learning all about your body, you see, if you can master your mind and emotions, it will be really easy for you to transform your body or achieve any goal really. I now see goals, challenges and obstacles as an “exciting journey” that makes me stronger and I am really grateful for it.
Neuro-linguistic programming can help you consciously get rid of the baggage in your unconscious mind
It can help you dispose of what you do not need while you keep what you need. Neuro-linguistic programming was modeled after the leaders of the therapeutic community in the 1970’s. Fritz Perls, the developer of Gestalt Therapy and Virginia Satir, the Grand Dame of Family Therapy, were the experts researched about by founding doctors John Grinder and Richard Bandler.
The futuristic science of neuro-linguistic programming brings clinical hypnosis to a higher level of achievement as well as helps people overcome their life challenges. Today, neuro-linguistic programming is extensively used in sales, business, sports, education, inter-personal skills, and therapy. Psychological journals consider it as a very powerful tool for change.
Time Magazine, for instance, states that it has an untapped potential for treating problems. Psychology Today, on the other hand, states that neuro-linguistic programming cannot be thought of as a hustle because it has theoretical underpinnings that represent a great attempt at synthesizing and codifying the insights of body language and linguistics.
But why do people tend to repeat their old behaviors? Limiting behaviors and negative emotions are actually stronger than you may have thought. They are stronger than your logical conscious mind, which is why the patterns that are stored and generated by your subconscious mind are hard to change or get rid of. Your old beliefs can be likened to phobias and traumas, which can only be altered at a subconscious level.
So if you have always believed that you are not capable of changing how you look or taking control of your weight, you really will not be able to accomplish those things. If you believe that you are not worthy, lucky, or deserving of the things that you want, you will have a hard time. Then again, the beliefs that you have formed at such a young age can still be changed no matter how limiting they may be. They are, after all, just beliefs.
Practical Neuro-Linguistic Programming Strategies
With neuro-linguistic programming, you will be able to understand and see how you can change the behaviors and responses that do not work for you. Anchoring is one of the key techniques that it uses. Anchoring involves the use of an external or internal representation to trigger feelings, behaviors, and memories. It can help you achieve the outcomes in life that you desire.
If you want to lose weight and take control of the way you eat, you can do it with this technique. For instance, you can use it to help you manage your food cravings. Nonetheless, how does anchoring work exactly? Consider this example: Whenever you drive and see a red light, you automatically hit the brakes. You do not really ponder about doing it; you just do it. The same thing happens with neuro-linguistic programming.
When you undergo this method, your practitioners will help you deal with underlying issues through presuppositions, representational systems, sub modalities, meta models, sensory acruity, and Milton model. You can choose a technique based on your personal preferences and needs. The practitioners of NLP view life as a combination of unintentionally and intentionally chosen anchors.
Such anchors can be negative, positive, or both. Your negative anchors can bring problems into your life. For example, if you are in a relationship and you have developed a negative anchor to something that your partner does, he or she can trigger your bad feelings without even realizing it. As for your unhealthy eating habits, you may have developed them as a way to fill in a void in your life.
Many people face the problem of emotional eating, or, better said, “emotional overeating” and this is something I focus on in my book: “Essential Oils for Natural Weight Loss”. If you use food to feel better and to change your emotions, or to relax, chances are that it is something deeply rooted in your behavior. In order to get rid of it, go for healthier choices to deal with stress, essential oils and creating your home spa is one of them.
What worked for me, was programming myself to stretch or go for a walk, whenever I fancied some unhealthy foods that were not empowering my in any way. Of course, this is not about going hungry. The objective is to change your relationship with food and choose healthy and nutritious foods that fuel your body and mind.
What are the causes of emotional eating?
For instance, if you were abandoned by a parent when you were still a child, you may have resorted to eating in order to feel better. Such a habit can last all the way to adulthood. Hence, if your significant other leaves you, you may turn to food to comfort yourself. Even if you know that indulging in junk food is bad, you still do it because it has been your habit ever since. You just cannot help it.
With neuro-linguistic programming, all that can change. Your NLP practitioner will help you realize what you truly want and encourage you not to figure out the answer mentally. You may be eating too much simply because you want to feel satisfaction. Once you realize this, you can find out what other things you want aside from feeling satisfied (just like I mentioned earlier, it can be aromatherapy, watching a good documentary, going for a walk, relaxing, breathing, stretching or making yourself a delicious smoothie). Instead of food, you may realize that it is love that you really want. Self-love to be more precise, as without self-love there is no love (this is my belief by the way).
You may actually have emotional hunger instead of physical hunger. Just being able to identify this can already help you avoid food triggers. When someone offers you a cookie, you can decline instead of immediately taking it. If you continue this new habit, you will soon realize that you can feel satisfied without indulging in food. Eventually, you will lose weight, create your own healthy nutritional way and you will feel so much better with your new-found confidence.
Neuro-linguistic programming will provide you with a “map” on how you should view reality. It will help you learn how other people respond to certain situations that you face. Moreover, it will enable you to see the differences in your approaches and theirs. You will realize that if you want to achieve the same outcome as theirs, you have to change your approach.
Getting Started On Neuro-Linguistic Programming Now
I know that if you are new to NLP, all this stuff may seem a bit confusing. To simplify things, I advise you to start from transforming your negative beliefs that prevent you from achieving your goals into positive and empowering ones. One of the easiest and quickest ways to do it, and you can do it by yourself, is to create your own affirmations and then, turn them into incantations.
Incantation is like an affirmation, but you should read it out loud and employ all your emotions, jump, clasp your hands, shout “yes” and be excited. Ok, I get it, you may be thinking that this sounds stupid and childish. But you know what? If you want to be successful, you must commit yourself to doing things that other people who choose to be failures (fair enough, their choice, we can all choose different paths) are not willing to do. This is the sordid truth. So- do you want to be successful? If so- do it and create your incantations. Start your day with them and repeat a few times during the day. It will take some time, but the more you do it, the more will you be able to re-program your mind and therefore change your life.
Make sure you detect all forms of “self-sabotage” which occurs when a person wants something and may be really motivated, but then their mind says: “but I…” and comes with at least several excuses not to achieve this goal.
Here is an example (this one is what one of my reviewers said after reading my book: “How to Lose Massive Weight with the Alkaline Diet”):
“I would like to eat more alkaline, but I am not this kind of person who survives on kale!”
You see the negative pattern? She want to be healthy and lose weight but certain part of her brain attaches to much pain to going through the journey of discovering new foods. In order to justify her choices and not seem like a failure, she creates a storythat basically says that the alkaline diet is only about munching on kale (simply not truth- it’s about creating balance with foods and creating your own way, knowing which foods should be reduced and which foods should be added). She then adds:
“What this author says does not make any sense, unless you are anorexic like her”
Her brain will feel better after accusing someone else of her failure. She needs to understand the fact that she is a grown-up women not a girl and that she should be responsible for creating her own balanced nutrition.
As she uses the word “anorexic” (and calling me anorexic) she justifies her old ways of eating and she rejects what is actually healthy and balanced, as “unrealistic and anorexic”. She associates too much pain to the word “diet” and she thinks that dieting is about going hungry. She is so set in her ways, that she can’t even read the book properly and she picks on everything she finds during the read.
One thing she needs to repeat to herself on a regular basis is that:
Slim people eat a lot but they choose real foods and they know how to create healthy and balanced meals that stimulate their metabolism. I can learn from them and lose weight while not going hungry and giving my body more energy. Once I have more energy, I will be able to embrace my new fitness lifestyle and transform my body the way I want.
Remember: You are responsible for your own health!
Another interesting comment that I once got from own of my readers was:
“I can’t think of myself as a person who has an alkaline juice with some green powders as my meal”
OK, let’s analyze this.
First of all, the alkaline diet is not about surviving on green juices. This is something that you should be doing between your meals to feel energized (add to it more water and quit or at least reduce coffee and caffeine in general) you should not see green juices as a meal replacement (unless you are doing a really specific cleanse with your doctor or a health professional but it’s not the topic now).
Again, the alkaline diet is about eating to your heart’s content but choosing real, wholesome foods where the alkaline foods make 80% of your diet and the acidic foods are reduced to 20%.
Just because this reader attached so much pain to juices and smoothies, he created a belief that it’s not for him. This is also because of the word: “diet” which I personally don’t like as it brings on negative associations. You see, most people think of the word “diet” as something that restricts you and gives you pain and makes you go hungry and reject your little pleasures.
However, the alkaline diet is a lifestyle that encourages you to create healthy and nutritious meals and make you more conscious and aware about your everyday choices. He then says he does not like my recipes, however he does not understand that I am not telling him that this is what he should be eating all the time. He probably has some associations with diets and “meal plans”, whereas my concept is to provide recipes for inspiration and creativity. They can always be transformed. It’s not that you have to eat exactly what I do- everyone is different. I use recipes to show people how more alkaline foods can be added for more energy and zest for life.
One more thing is when he says: “I don’t like those foods…”- the guess what, I feel like asking him- are you ever gonna become successful? You see, I am an entrepreneur and in order to start a business I had to do many tasks I did not like and could not outsource them. However I have this awesome, empowering belief that I developed thanks to one of my mentors, Tai Lopez that says: “Think like an investor, not a consumer”.
One simple switch- I am an investor, not a consumer. I need to develop my emotional muscles. I need to change my story!
Again, do you want to be successful? If so, be an entrepreneur, and think of your body as a business. Be an adult, not a kid that goes around saying: “ I like it, I don’t like it, but I want it now…!”. Learn to control your emotions as well. Besides, instead of spending your time trolling over the internet, or critisizing other people for their success (I am not referring to constructive critisism as this is always welcome here)- should’t you be at the f—-n gym right now?
I know this may sound harsh to some people- if this is not for you, then stay where you are. NLP gives you choices. You create your destiny. So you see, you want to be successful but you can’t force yourself to eat a salad or add more broccolis to your soup. Do you think I like broccoli? I don’t, but I add it to my foods and try to make it delicious. I am pro-active, not re-active.
Here is what this reader should focus on:
Everyday, I focus on adding more nutritious foods to my diet.I drink vegetable juices as I know that they give me energy and I love taking care of my body, having clean skin and looking and feeling amazing.
BTW, I was not attacking anyone in this article. I am just exposing some limiting beliefs, that fair enough I was also a victim of.
This one was a big one for me:
“ I want to quit coffee, but I just like the way it smells and I like hanging out in coffee shops”- yes, I wanted to quit coffee, I knew it was making me tired, but yet I would still visualize myself having a cup of “cortado” taking the sun outside of my favorite local Spanish coffe-shop (I am living in Spain). It wasn’t until I began to see myself as a non-coffee drinker and would visualize myself having a cup of relaxing rosemary infusion that I finally kicked the habit. I would just say to myself:
“I love herbal infusions, they are alkaline and give me energy without making me nervous. I love the way they smell and they give me variety so that I can always choose whatever suits me!”.
It’s about developing empathy with yourself (self-empathy) as well as those around you. You see, I was able to analyze the feedback I got from my readers from their point of view, and so instead of going angry that they did not like my book, I focused on getting back to them and offering them some free coaching so that they can achieve their goals. This is what the regular practice of NLP will give you- better intuition, better understanding.
This is going to be an exciting journey!
Remember- start from writing down your new, empowering beliefs and attach as many positive emotions to fresh fruit, vegetables and wholesome foods as you possibly can!
Dieting is not about eliminating. Dieting is about adding more amazing, nutritious foods that are going to transform your body and mind and make you feel stronger. You need energy- get it from real foods!
And remember: Be a grown-up, not a mommy’s boy or girl.
Think as an investor, not a consumer.
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