5 Ways to shift your mindset about dieting

Spring is here and it will soon be summer. Maybe you’ve been through multiple seasonal weight loss efforts only to end in disappointment and failure every time. Your disappointment and failure isn’t a sign that weighing less will never be a reality for you. It’s a sign that you need to shift your mindset.

What’s mindset you ask? Mindset is what you know or all that’s in your head. It’s facts, beliefs, values, and conditioning. It’s your entire collection of objective and subjective knowledge. Mindset allows you to achieve your dreams in some aspects of your life and can hold you back in others.

Your mindset as a bright and able student, for example, assures you that you will earn your PhD degree. Your fitness mindset however, may not be that of a physically fit human being capable of balancing food and activity. Your weight mindset may be that of failure. It causes your efforts to get fit to fail every time.

Without shifting your mindset from can’t do it, to I can do, it doesn’t matter approach you take to get fit, or how important it is to you, or how many times you try. If your mindset is not right your results won’t be right either.

You can shift your mindset from negative to positive.
  1. Identify beliefs that are supportive. 
    • You may not have the facts to validate the supportive beliefs yet. You may not believe you can lose weight, but the fact is people successfully lose weight, therefore it’s possible for you to do it too.
    • Develop positive beliefs that will get you what you want. Your belief-system becomes your mindset.
  2. Ensure your beliefs are in harmony with reality.
    • Losing weight, maintaining a loss, and getting fit is possible for anybody. Sculpting your body into the body of a model or a Greek God is much less likely if you don’t have the right genes.You can’t affect your genes, but no matter what are your genetics, you can influence them by bringing out the best.
  3. Find the best role models
    • Watch what your role models do. Spend time with them to gather insight and to learn how they behave under certain challenging situations. Consider their actions in everything you do. Assume their identity. You may not yet look like the fit and trim person you are becoming, but you’re already there in your head.
  4. Strengthen your mindset with visions and goals
    • Know where you want to go. See it clearly in your mind by creating a vision of you living your life at goal. Visit the vision in your head many times during the day.
    • Break your vision into goals. What are the steps you’ll take to make your vision your reality? Make each step a goal. Use your goals to shape your vision.
  5. Protect your mindset
    • Your mindset is vulnerable to your own negative thoughts as well as the haters you may have in your life. Practice “talking back” to your and their negative messages. Reinforce your mindset with this simple phrase, “Yes, I can.”
    • Keeping your confidence is key and you might need help with that. A supportive community of like-minded people is extremely helpful keeping your mindset positive.

There is a way for you to get what you want.

By having the right mindset you will have it. The right mindset won’t give you overnight success and it doesn’t guarantee you won’t have some tough challenges or that you won’t make mistakes. The right mindset, however, will help you keep such things in perspective, help you to learn and grow, and most importantly, be your path to lasting success.

Jackie Conn

About Jackie Conn

Jackie Conn is married and has four grown daughters and four grandchildren. She is a Weight Watchers success story. She's a weight loss expert with 25 years of experience guiding women and men to their weight-related goals. Her articles on weight management have been published in health, family and women's magazines. She has been a regular guest on Channel 5 WABI news, FOX network morning program Good Day Maine and 207 on WCSH.