Matters of the Heart: The Mental Side - Self Talk

We're taking a break from your regularly scheduled Dinner Recipes to discuss Matters of the Heart... The Mental Side - Self Talk. ;)

I've been thinking a lot this week on how powerful the mind is, and how it comes into play in the process of losing weight through exercising and eating healthy.

If I tell myself at the beginning of my workout, "I really don't feel like being here," I am almost guaranteed to be slower and work less during that hour. I noticed it yesterday at the gym. Sure thing, that mental check-out affected me physically.

Likewise, over the weekend, as I was struggling to keep on track with my healthy food choices, I had a mental obstacle... I was telling myself things like, "This is hard," "I don't feel like doing this anymore," "I'm never going to make my goal," etc. The more I said these things to myself, the harder and harder it became to make healthy choices in the kitchen!

I once saw a counselor, Dr. Orv Neeson, who taught me about Self Talk. That mental sort of chatting you do with yourself in response to all of life's stimuli. His point was that Positive Self Talk can be powerful and uplifting, while Negative Self Talk can take you to the depths of depression.

As a teen, Dr. Neeson gave me a list of common negative self talk with positive phrases to replace those thoughts with. When I caught myself thinking about how so-and-so must not like me because she didn't say, "hello" to me as we passed in the halls (this is high school, remember), I would replace it with something more logical and positive like, "Oh, she must not have seen me."

Simple, but powerful. I remember clearly the first time I applied it with success and the pressure it took off of me to feel poorly about myself.

As I find myself struggling with negative self talk again, now in the arena of healthy choices, I am encouraged to try and make my own list... Negative things I tell myself (like those above), and positive responses to them that I can feed back to myself when I need to...

"This is hard" >>> "Yes, it is! But look what you've done so far! You can obviously do it!"

"I don't feel like doing this anymore!," >>> "Do you want to be fit, and healthy, and feel good in your own skin? Then, yes, you feel like doing this."

"I'm never going to make my goal!" >>> "Don't give up on the goal until the date you've assigned yourself. You never know what could happen between now and then."

These are just a few of the things I need to think over with myself, but I find that purposefully sitting and thinking about the negative messages I'm sending to myself and how to counteract them with positive, logical thoughts (all those things your best girlfriends would tell you if they were in your head!), I am a lot more likely to not let the mental side of things get the best of me.

Perhaps you struggle with The Mental Side, too, and need to evaluate your Self Talk. I would encourage you to make your own list today, and not let negativity get the best of you making healthy choices!