Eating well and moving more are essential to any weight loss journey. But since losing weight is as mental as it is physical, without the right mindset, you are missing a major ingredient.

You can feel invincible on your weight loss journey. However, without the right mindset, these changes are not likely to stick around long. Old routines will kick in and your progress will come to a halt.

Why is your mindset so important? How can changing it help with your weight loss journey? Let’s explore.

Why Your Mindset Matters on Your Weight Loss Journey

There is no denying that losing weight is hard. You can put time and effort into creating the perfect goals, fill your fridge and cabinets with all the good stuff, and renew your gym membership. For a few days or a few weeks, you may be rockin’ your new routine.

All it takes is one long day at the office for ordering pizza to sound like a much better idea than grilled chicken and broccoli. One slice, two slices, and half of a pizza later and you are feeling miserable. You are sad, ashamed, and beating yourself up for ruining your progress. What’s worse, all this discouragement makes you want to stay in bed instead of working out and you no longer have the motivation to work toward your goals.

Sound familiar? If you have ever been on a diet before then you have likely found yourself in a nearly identical situation.

It is common to let your food choices determine your worth – telling yourself that if you mess up, you are valued less. This is why your mindset matters.

On a weight loss journey, you have to be able to stay strong in times of challenge and give yourself grace in moments of weakness. The good news is you can take steps to change your mindset so that you can find a healthy balance once and for all.

So, How Do You Change Your Mindset?

There are a couple of things you can do to change your perspective on dieting, your weight loss, and your value. You need to change the way you view food and the way you view yourself. Once you are able to make this shift, you will be able to achieve lasting results.

Change How You View Food

We have been trained to think of foods as either good foods or bad foods. So, when dieting, we tend to think about only eating foods that are considered good. And when we eat food from the bad list, we fail. Just like the example with the pizza above. This way of thinking can be toxic.

Changing your mindset means changing how you view food. Take away the labels and you just have food. Focus on how what you eat makes you feel and keep your options open. It is always a good idea to work with a nutrition coach to learn how to approach food from this new mindset.

Learn to Be Kind to Yourself

We are our own worst enemies. We are the first to beat ourselves up over mistakes and the ones to hold the longest grudge against ourselves, too. We are critical of how we look, how we act, how we eat, etc. And when it comes to losing weight, we place our own value on our level of success.

This mindset needs to go. It needs to be taken out for a long walk off of a very short pier — and left for good.

Try implementing these habits and soften how you are with yourself.

• Start a gratitude journal.
• Place positive affirmations throughout your house and your workspace where you will come face to face with them and be reminded of the positive message.
• Journal your feelings and reflect on them.
• Catch yourself when you are engaging in negative self-talk and turn it around.

Changing your mindset is not going to happen overnight. But by putting in the work and finding the right support, you can begin to make small changes in your thought process that will lead to long-term weight loss.

Beyond The Box Nutrition goes beyond dieting with certified nutrition coaches who personalize programs to help clients develop healthy lifestyles and maintain long-term weight loss.