Think Yourself Thin

by JJ Smith

  • Many meditations begin by placing your attention on your breathing. As you do so, you become more and more relaxed. Inhale (count) through your nose. Pause. Exhale (count + 2) through your mouth. Pause. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Ignore thoughts and distractions, and continue to bring your awareness back to the breath.

  • Clear your mind. Heighten your senses. Be still. Breathe. Meditate for 5 to 10 minutes.

  DAY 18: HAVE A MINDFUL MEAL

  Food for thought: Learning the difference between physical hunger versus emotional hunger will help you gain control over your eating habits.

  Exercise:

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  The mindful meal is a planned meal in an intentional space that you create to understand more about your feelings when you are eating. It will help you focus on your own hunger, digestion, and moods. The more often you eat mindful meals, the better you will begin to understand the difference between real physical hunger and fake emotional hunger. Here are the steps:

  PREPARATION:

  • Set aside a time when you can be alone without any distractions.

  • Turn off your television, computer, and phone.

  • If you don’t like dead silence, listen to light music.

  • Make sure the lights are on and the room is well lit.

  • Slowly and deliberately prepare a meal for yourself. Take time to notice the colors and smells of your food. Feel the sensation of cutting your vegetables and meat. Hear the sizzle of the food cooking but hold off on tasting anything until it’s time to eat.

  • Be sure not to eat any food or snack during the preparation phase. Do not eat until you are sitting at the table.

  • Create a nice table setting for yourself. Use your favorite tablecloth, silverware, and dishes, and perhaps light some candles. You might also set out some flowers and make it beautiful for yourself.

  THE MEAL:

  1. Sit down. Before you begin to eat, assess how hungry you are.

  2. Before you start to eat, look down at your food and see what is on your plate.

  3. Take a breath and then say a word of gratitude, prayer, or grace.

  4. Decide what you want to eat first and put that first forkful of food into your mouth. Chew it slowly and really taste it.

  5. Continue to chew and taste the food thoroughly. Put your fork down after every two bites and pause.

  6. Notice your thoughts and feelings as you eat. Notice how you feel when you are really focused on eating.

  7. After you are halfway done with your meal, stop and put your fork down. Take a few deep breaths, close your eyes, and notice where you are on the hunger scale.

  8. If you are still physically hungry and desire more food, allow yourself to eat more.

  9. When you feel full and satisfied, put your fork down and place a napkin over your food.

  10. Give yourself permission to get up from table, put your food away, and go do something else.

  11. Notice what you are feeling. Are you satisfied? Do you want to eat more? Are you able to go do something else or are you thinking about eating more?

  12. If you continue to think about food, even though you are not physically hungry, try to figure out what else is eating at you. What is it that you truly need right now?

  13. If you continue to desire food, sit still, think for a while, and write in your journal what you are feeling. Allow your obsession with the food to pass so you can you enjoy some other activity besides eating.

  Commit to having a mindful meal at least once a week to really help you tune in with your physical hunger and emotional hunger. It will help you be more conscious of your eating habits and your feelings and moods when you eat. As you continue on your journey, you will begin to gain more control over how to satisfy your body with food without overeating.

  DAY 19: CREATE A WEIGHT-LOSS VISION BOARD

  Food for thought: Your mind responds strongly to visual stimulation.

  Exercise:

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  A weight-loss vision board is one of the most valuable weight-loss tools that can help you achieve your goals. If you want a vision of your future life to look completely different, then it’s important to focus on the pictures and images that inspire you to make healthy choices along your journey.

  Your mind responds strongly to visual stimulation, and when you surround yourself with images that invoke positive emotions, your brain will work to achieve the affirmations and images. Your vision board will program your subconscious to attract things that will help you reach your weight-loss goal.

  HOW TO USE YOUR WEIGHT-LOSS VISION BOARD:

  • Look at your vision board often to feel the inspiration it provides.

  • Believe it is already yours.

  • Read your affirmations and inspirational quotes out loud.

  • See yourself living a life in your new slimmer body.

  • Picture yourself shopping for smaller clothes.

  SUPPLIES TO MAKE YOUR VISION BOARD (YOU CAN ALSO CREATE AN ONLINE/VIRTUAL BOARD):

  • Pictures, quotes, and photos that cause happy thoughts (you can use magazines/books)

  • Glue/pins, markers, scissors

  • Poster board, a large sheet of paper, cork board, or pin board

  • You can use glitter, paint, or stickers. It’s your board. Make it your own.

  • Have fun with it and get your children to help you.

  WHAT TO PUT ON YOUR VISION BOARD:

  • Pictures of how you want your body to look when you’ve lost weight

  • Images, quotes, and words that give you happy thoughts

  • Things you WANT to look at because they make you feel empowered, happy, and motivated about losing weight

  • Motivational quotes that make you feel empowered

  • Images of people you admire or people you love

  • Pretty pictures of delicious food and healthy recipes you’d like to try

  • The outfits you’ll be wearing at your goal weight (skinny jeans and form-fitting dresses)

  • A list of exercise goals—like crossing the finish line of a marathon or a Bikram yoga pose you’d like to master

  When you complete your weight-loss vision board, be sure to share it with your friends, family, and online support system.

  DAY 20: LETTING GO OF CONTROL

  Food for thought: In the process of letting go, you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself. —Deepak Chopra

  Exercise:

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  LETTING GO OF CONTROL OF ANOTHER PERSON OR SITUATION.

  In your journal:

  • Name a person or situation that is currently occurring that is causing you to feel powerless, hopeless, or out of control

  • Is there any part of this situation that you can control? How can you do that? Which part do you have no control over?

  • Admitting and understanding that you have no control over this person or situation, what can you do to soothe and take care of yourself?

  • Write a letter to this person or to the situation letting them/it know exactly what you’re feeling. Don’t hold back with this letter; let everything that you feel come out. Then, allow yourself to take the letter and burn it, or even put it in a bottle and send it out to sea, or pray and turn it over to God.

  • Visualization Time: Imagine yourself on an island with the person or situation that feels out of control. See yourself saying goodbye to them or to the situation; then see yourself getting into a rowboat and rowing away. You see them and you wave goodbye as you continue to row your boat away from them. They continue to get smaller and smaller as you row farther and farther away. You know that the person or situation still exists, yet you are allowing yourself to detach from them. Realize that it might be beyond your power to solve or change this situation, so make a pact that you are going to stop trying. Instead, do something for yourself that feels good—detract attention from the person or situation and put that attention on yourself. Focus on what you do
have control over and the power that you do have.

  DAY 21: SPEAK YOUR TRUTH

  Food for thought: The first step in managing your emotional overload is to speak your truth unapologetically, without shame, fear, or embarrassment.

  Exercise:

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  You have noticed or suspected for some time that you’re a little different from other people. You are more sensitive and you feel more deeply than others. You have difficulty separating yourself from other people’s emotions. When others feel angry, hurt, or sad, it affects you deeply. You are more vulnerable to the emotional energy that surrounds you. If this is you, say, “Yep, that’s me.”

  Speaking your truth requires that you be honest with yourself and others. Speaking your truth is difficult because it requires that you acknowledge your vulnerability. You have to learn to speak your truth to yourself first because eventually you will have to speak your truth to those who are closest to you. When you’re not honest with yourself, you set yourself up to experience even more misery. You keep everything in and hide your feelings and then emotional overload hits you like a huge wave and totally engulfs you. You then slip into emotional eating, caring too much for other people’s feelings and other unhealthy behaviors and habits as a way to cope with the overload of emotions.

  The first step in managing your emotional overload is to speak your truth unapologetically, without shame, fear, or embarrassment. In doing this, you also learn to control your boundaries. Ever since you were young, you became easily overwhelmed by your emotions and have used food to manage your feelings. But it is time to take control of your feelings and stop allowing them to control you. Speaking your truth is liberating and empowering. All the energy you’ve spent hiding your emotions can be redirected in a positive way. You can love yourself for being a person who feels so deeply and at the same time look forward to learning how to manage your feelings and set boundaries for yourself.

  Write the answers to the following questions in your journal and reflect on how you can speak your truth and set boundaries for yourself:

  1. How have you tried to distract yourself from your feelings by eating? When was the last time you did this?

  2. How has being someone who feels too much helped you in your life? In what situations has it helped you?

  3. What does it feel like to have no boundaries and to let people walk all over you?

  4. What would your life be like if you were able to set boundaries and not allow people to cross those boundaries? What would you lose? How would you be different?

  5. How do you try to manage your empathy for others? Are you effective at managing your empathy toward others?

  6. One person I need to set boundaries with is _________. How will I set boundaries with them?

  DAY 22: UNDERSTANDING YOUR BOREDOM

  Food for thought: Understanding boredom will help put an end to the most common emotional trigger that causes overeating.

  Exercise:

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  Even if you’re not overweight, the most common reason people overeat is out of boredom. When you’re bored, the experience of eating food breaks the monotony. It typically happens when you’re watching boring TV, enjoying a lazy Sunday, studying for school, killing time, or are just bored at work. If you’re the type who always has to stay busy when you have some downtime, you eat because you just have to be doing something. You have to fill any hole in your schedule with eating. Understanding boredom will help put an end to this emotional trigger that causes overeating.

  Use your journal to answer the following questions:

  1. Do you ever eat out of boredom?

  2. How does eating when you’re bored hurt you?

  3. When do you find that you are most often bored? At work? Weeknights? On Sundays?

  4. Do you think that you use boredom as a substitute for something? If so, for what?

  5. Are there other ways you can nurture yourself and break up the monotony when you are bored? If so, what are they?

  6. Are there other things that excite you besides food? If so, what are they?

  DAY 23: ENERGIZE YOUR LIFE

  Food for thought: Watch out for people whose mere presence drains you or sucks the life out of you.

  Exercise:

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  Have you ever monitored your energy level and identified energizers and energy drains? When your energy falls, there is a tendency to reach for food, so keeping your energy high and balanced helps free you from emotional eating. Personal-energy work begins with monitoring your energy and discovering your energizers and drains, especially those “energy vampires.”

  Always beware of energy vampires, those people whose mere presence drains you or sucks the life out of you. Some people are not kind, nice, or supportive, and you should minimize or eliminate the time you spend with them. Some of us have family members or friends dampening our self-esteem every day. Even if they are your flesh and blood, try to remove yourself from their presence as much as possible. Hurtful words negate any progress toward self-worth and self-love.

  In your journal, write down the names of those people, places, or things that deplete your energy. Now make a list of your Energy Pick Me-Ups, things that cause you to feel more energized. Every time you feel your energy decreasing, do one of your Energy Pick Me-Ups.

  Here are some examples of Energy Pick-Me-Ups:

  • Think of something that brings you joy. Breathe in the joy and imagine this joy moving throughout your body.

  • Stand up. Allow your arms to make large figure-eights. Now switch and go in the other direction. As you move your arms through the air, you should feel more energized.

  • Laughter is very energizing. Read a social media post or text from someone who makes you laugh out loud.

  • Clap your hands. Stand and give yourself applause. Ask someone near you to do it, but if someone else can’t do it for you, do it for yourself.

  • March in place—pick up those legs as if you were doing high-knee exercises. Large-muscle movements increase the flow of energy and help you release stress.

  Assess your energy right now using a 0–10 scale with 10 being the highest. If you are below a 7, do one or more of the quick-energy pick-me-ups described above or any that you’ve created for yourself. If your energy continues to be low, try a different energy pick-me-up until you feel more alive. Get in the habit of monitoring your energy level throughout the day and build it before it dips too low. Be aware of the energy drains so you’re not blindsided by them. Remember that when your energy is low, it’s easier to give in to emotional eating. The higher your energy level, the more likely you are to eat when you’re actually physically hungry.

  DAY 24: PREPARE YOUR HOME ENVIRONMENT FOR SUCCESS

  Food for thought: Your home environment should prepare you for success, not failure.

  Exercise:

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  Think about what your physical environment in your home looks like. Does it energize you or is it chaotic and hectic? Are there piles of clothes on the floor? Is there one room that you’ve been wanting to clean up? As an example, your bedroom is meant for relaxation and romance. Does your bedroom create that vibe for you? If not, maybe start there. Start small and just focus on one room that you can organize and clean up so that you will feel good to be in it. See if cleaning and organizing this one room makes you feel energized and lighter on your feet. This will also give you momentum that will allow you to clean and organize the next room. The goal is to clean up small spaces or one room or closet at a time.

  Decide which room or workspace in your home you plan to clean, organize, decorate, or liven up so that it energizes you and makes you feel good about yourself. Within the next week, focus on making that room or space a place where you will enjoy spending time.

  DAY 25: IMMERSE YOURSELF IN LEARNING

  Food for thought: If you want to learn about or master anything in your life, you have to immerse yourself in it and let that knowledge consume
you.

  Exercise:

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  Have you immersed yourself in learning about health and weight loss? If you want to learn about or master anything in your life, you have to immerse yourself in it. Let the knowledge consume you. I knew everything about eating clean and detoxing, which helped me stay slim. However, unexpected weight gain forced me to learn about my hormones and how they were impacting my weight. I studied over a hundred books and articles on the topic to learn everything I could about how hormones impacted weight loss, how to get tested, and what treatment options were available. I consumed information, found a hormone doctor, and successfully balanced my hormones for weight loss.

  Gain knowledge of weight loss and fat burning and let this knowledge consume you. Learning about health and nutrition is where the miracle of weight loss begins. It is time to get excited about learning what will lead to greater weight-loss success. Start reading books and magazines that inspire you to eat clean, work out, or master the mental. Read success stories and other inspiring stories of weight-loss success. This will inspire you to want the same thing in your own life. Follow the footsteps of winners.

  List the books, magazine, websites, or documentaries that you plan to read or study to provide you with the knowledge and inspiration to succeed on your weight-loss journey.