Jump Start Your Weight Loss by
Making Peace with Your Inner Critic
Here’s are some very common scenarios….
- “I exercised this morning, so I’ve earned this pizza.”
- “I’m stressed out after a rough day, and chocolate helps me relax.”
- “I can treat myself. It’s the weekend, and I ate healthy all week.”
Relatable statements, right!
I’ve heard countless clients say, “I’d be able to lose weight if only I were able to stop self-sabotaging.” Guess what, they are absolutely right. This is called your “Inner Critic” or “Inner Gremlin”. In a nutshell, many people sabotage their weight loss goals, for many different reasons.
I’m going to help you recognize your ‘inner critic’ when you see it, understand why you might be doing it, and figure out how to overcome it.
First Tip to Making Peace with Your Inner Critic: Identify what success really boils down too…
Here’s one truth, there’s a huge difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it. I will go a step further and challenge ‘knowing what to do’ because you don’t know what you don’t know…
It’s easy to hop from one diet to the next without ever sticking with anything. Success (or lack thereof) comes down to our mindset, psychology, and habits.
- No diet that is solely based on the food you eat will help you figure out why you gained weight in the first place.
- A diet won’t fix emotional, mindless, stress-induced eating, and it won’t fix habitual, compulsive binge-eating
Basically, a diet won’t get to the root cause of why you overeat.
People often think a fear of failure is holding them back. I frequently hear, “I don’t want this to be yet another failed diet attempt.” But surprisingly, it’s a fear of success that holds people back the most.
The best diet won’t matter—no matter how determined you might feel—if a part of you wants to destroy progress toward your goals.
Second Tip to Making Peace with Your Inner Critic: Why we’re subconsciously scared of success…
Our “inner critic”, “that voice negative self-talk” kicks into high gear when we’re subconsciously scared of success. Many of you are thinking, WHY would you be scared of success?
Well, if you’re successful, any number of fears could be realized.
- For instance, you won’t have food as a way to temporarily escape or quiet your mind at work or home.
- Or you’ll have to deal with uncomfortable feelings such as self-doubt, regret, disappointment, or fear (because you’re not suppressing them with food).
- Maybe you’ll lose the “Once I lose the weight I will finally…” safety blanket that protects you from taking action on an intimidating (but ultimately rewarding) opportunity.
These are real psychological roadblocks, but nothing that can’t be overcome. To break from a pattern of self-sabotage, you need to get to the root of why you’re sabotaging yourself.
Third Tip to Making Peace with Your Inner Critic: Why we’re subconsciously scared of success…
Some might argue that the only way to put your “inner critic”/gremlin in its place is by actively engaging with “it/he/she” by arguing, fighting or by ignoring. Many have tried this approach only to discover that this gives your gremlin MORE power, not less.
That pesky inner voice is so deeply embedded our psyches that your gremlin is here to stay.
Assuming you don’t want your gremlin to slow you down, your best option in taming your gremlin is to befriend it/him/her.
A few suggestions here:
- Pause, notice, AND acknowledge the Gremlin’s presence
- Breath – Basically, STOP and Be STILL (don’t pass go and don’t go to the kitchen!) Listen to last week’s LIVE for more on this step!
Conclusion
I will not sugar coat negative self-talk, this one is just a difficult to conquer emotional eating, which I spoke on in last weeks LIVE.
Until we identify and deal with the reasons, we fear success (in this case weight loss success!), we’ll never be successful. A lack of knowledge about what’s good for us is rarely the real problem in this day and age. Instead, we tend to suffer from a lack of consistent action… and that usually comes down to what’s going on between our ears.
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