Weight Loss Tip: It's a Brand New Day

To really have permanent weight loss it is important to look at each day as a brand new starting point. This shift in your mindset can make a HUGE difference in your success.

The habit that most of us have developed is to condemn ourselves when we go off our eating and exercise plan--when we "fall off the wagon" as it were. We criticize ourselves instead of recognizing that we just don't have to be perfect. And we criticize and criticize until we feel like complete failures...and then what do we do? We eat to feel better! We medicate ourselves with food.

This is the vicious circle we have created for ourselves over the years...and it is one of the reasons that diets don't work!

Diets are temporary...and sadly, the results from dieting are usually also temporary. To create lasting results we have to look at our process in the long-run.

You cannot change what you did in the past. You can't "uneat" the foods you consumed, nor can you exercise now for days you missed last week or month or year. The only thing you have any control over at all is this minute, right now.

Did you blink? Well, then that minute is gone, so you have control over this one...now this one...now this one.

Since you cannot change what was done in the past then berating yourself for it really is pointless. Let's look at what we CAN change--that fleeting moment that is "now."

Every day we wake up to a clean slate. Every day we can strive to make the healthiest choices possible in that moment. Depriving ourselves today because we overate yesterday is not the healthiest choice. Neither is overeating today because we "slipped up" yesterday.

Today is totally independent of what we did yesterday and what we may do tomorrow. Focus only on right now and ANYTHING is possible!

Accept that you overate and recognize that action was in the past. Every action in the past got us to where we are today. If we want to be in a different place next year, a healthier body for example, then we must change our actions right now. If we make small changes and regularly apply those changes until they are habits then we MUST be different in the future!

Notice I said "regularly" and not "perfectly" or "daily." It is NOT necessary to be "perfect"...if is important to be balanced and realistic about what you will eat and do. That is why I encourage you to start with super small steps and get used to those.

Following this logic of every day being a clean slate and that you only have control over the current moment, you may have surmised that every moment is also brand new! How liberating is that! You can choose to have control right NOW even if a minute ago you ate more than you intended! You don't have to wait for the new day for the clean slate--you can erase it right this instant if you choose to.

So instead of saying "I ate 5 Gingerbread men so I might as well eat the entire Yule Log too" remind yourself that you are human and that you can start over, "I ate 5 Gingerbread men but that is in the past and I am choosing in this instant to make healthy choices...honestly, I am so full I would not enjoy eating the Yule Log right now so I am going to pass."

When you can make this mindset adjustment then you WILL have weight loss success!