What Beliefs Are Stopping You From Losing Weight?
- Nov 27, 2023
- 4 min read
Written by: Rossella Tocco, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Beliefs are the obstacles between what we want to achieve the goal. They come from family influences and past failures that make us say “It won't work for me.”
Over time we have trained these thought patterns of ours, we have put them inside our heads hundreds of times, and they figure out our state of mind, which figures out our actions, and which figures out our results.
And the results are often always the same because our thinking patterns make us see things from the same point of view.
Do you remember Roger Bannister? The one who has succeeded in running a mile under four minutes. Before him, the athletics world thought that it was impossible to run under four minutes because the heart could explode, and the medicine of the time confirmed it. The interesting thing is not Bannister's record, but that in that same year, other athletes after him managed to overcome that limit. That is, once we undermine that belief, there is no longer a limit for anyone.
Let us get to our weight loss goal now
We have a situation, maybe we say we want to lose weight but we add that we are not constant, that we are greedy, that our metabolism is slow, or that we are in menopause.
We link the starting situation with a thought, with our belief and this figures out a situation of great frustration that pushes us to forced actions, such as eating better or eating less. The result will inevitably be short-term if the work we do is at the level of action.
If, however, we work at the level of thought and begin to put new thoughts in our heads, which generate new emotions, then the actions will be a consequence of our free choice and the results will be long-term. The new thoughts will initially be just small neural filaments, but repeated over time they will become our new beliefs.
Now we do what a lawyer does: when a client arrives, the lawyer knows that he must build a defense and will not cite the contrary cases, but the one that supports his argument line. The same thing happens in our heads as we try to find all the evidence that what we believe is true.
Fortunately, you can change your beliefs. We know that the head does not like to change, it often resists changes because it is safer to stay where we know, even if we no longer like what we know or is no longer useful to us.
When I decide to make space for more useful beliefs. Let go of what you no longer need and what is not consistent to achieve your goal. The difference between reality and imagination is small and I often believe that the belief I have is true even when it is not.
The question is: if we can create these distortions to feel safe, think about what we are capable of erasing within ourselves to prove that our beliefs are true?
What we see is only one conceivable way and at that point when we all see the same thing then we are convinced that it is real.
Our brain sees images and analyses everything based on context but are we sure that what we see is reality? Everything is not perceived correctly, and the brain gives us the image we are used to, ignoring all the changes: if I have the belief that I cannot succeed if I have the belief that I gain weight just by breathing air, the brain will find the prove that this is the case to stick to what it is convinced of.
Very often deletions are useful: for example, if I am at school and I talk to my children's teacher and there is noise, I concentrate and can only listen to the teacher's voice speaking to me, cutting out all the buzz that is there. But if I start canceling the possibility of succeeding, I will also cancel all the situations in which I could succeed, in the name of a belief!
Let it go
If a belief is not useful and does not lead me to my goal, I let it go. How? Imagine yourself driving in the countryside, at a certain point you arrive at the end of the road, and you find something that says that you cannot pass because it is dangerous, you turn right and see that there is another signal that says that landslides may fall, you look back and see that there is a queue of cars. You find yourself in a situation where you want something, you see it, but you have no solution on how to get there. You want to lose weight, but you can't! Our unconscious takes directions are often based on what we feel. In every scenario we have a belief to let go of to move forward, to get out of the trap, and align ourselves with what we want, by challenging the belief we will realize that it was just a trap in our head.
Rossella Tocco, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
After graduating in law, Rossella continued to deal with people and practiced as a civil lawyer for 13 years. She attended postgraduate specialization courses in Coaching at the International University Center of Arezzo, she became a Practitioner, Master and NLP Trainer, also working internationally as a Coach and Trainer. She is accredited by ICF as a Master Certified Coach.
