I can - No you can't! Who's right?

26^th March 2014

A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes. – Mahatma Gandhi

Another in the bag day ProPoints wise, I even gave into temptation in my meeting on the night when  a couple of members bought in cakes to help raise some money for our Race for Life, peanut butter rice crispies niceness is what I’ll call them – oh my word they were delicious, I was brave, I was strong I had one at 3pp and resisted the rest, I also resisted the courgette cupcakes that I bought home with me, they’re going back to the meeting this morning!

My day ended on 28pp with 6pp on my pedometer, breakfast was;

1½ Warburton thin, egg, mushrooms & cherry tomatoes (7pp).  Had apple, grapes and a banana for snacks, then for dinner we had this;

Delicious, Morrison’s garlic & herb crusted chicken, carrots, broccoli, red pepper and gravy with a spoon of cranberry sauce (9pp)

Then I made tea before leaving for work so it was ready for me as I walked in – almost felt like someone had made my tea for me! Almost!  Egg and cress sandwiches (9pp).

So that’s two on track ProPoint days complete and I’m sure a lot of you will agree, getting back on track is difficult, once you’ve started it gets easier as the days go by and when you’ve done that first week you’re on a roll.  That’s why when you feel like you just ‘can’t do it’ I suggest you 

“Fake it till you make it”!  I love that saying; it’s so true and has helped me often, if at first you can’t success – pretend you already have!  It’s like when members say “I’ll Try” NO that’s not what I want to hear, but a bit of UMPH on the end of that and say “I’ll TryUmph” even if you don’t believe it – saying it gives you so much power to start with – the mind is an amazingly powerful tool.  Believe you can’t and guess what – YOU WON’T!  You brain agrees with everything you say”  

If you are constantly negative, or down on yourself – if you believe you just can’t do it, do you think you’re likely to succeed?  However if you think positive thoughts and say to yourself “I can do this, one step at a time, let’s make it through today and I’ll be one day closer to success”.  Which are you more likely to successfully lose weight with?

Your subconscious mind is working all the time so if you’re conscious mind is thinking negative, chances are your subconscious mind is backing it up! 

Think about it – negative thinking – words and attitudes bring up negative and unhappy moods and actions.  When our mind is negative we’re making our success much more difficult to achieve. 

Let’s compare the difference shall we, Imagine you get out of bed in the morning thinking;

Scenario 1 - Oh here we go again, I gained last night on the scales- typical, I’m never going to get under that next stone, it’s so difficult.  I ain’t going to be able to stay on track today its cake day at work, then I’ve got no chance this weekend with it being Mother’s Day, oh it’s so hard, I just can’t do it.  Oh I’m so fed up with it all, think I’ll have a bacon sarnie from the café on the way to work, might as well I can’t lose weight!

OR 

Scenario 2 – Right let’s do this, those scales may not have shown me a loss last night, that’s okay, I’m still feeling better for eating healthier, if I keep this up the results will have to show.  So today is cake day at work, well I want to get under that next stone so I’m going to take a box of Weight Watcher cakes with me, I can have them, or if I choose to have one of the cakes there I’ve got my weeklies, it’s all good.  Mothers Day on Sunday though so I’ll skip the cake today because we’re off out for a meal and I’m saving my weeklies for a dessert that I’ll enjoy much more.  Breakfast what shall I have, mmm egg on toast I think, might as well get up, I’ve got weight to lose!

Don’t tell me you didn’t FEEL better just reading the second scenario!    

What do I know ay?  Well I can tell you Saturday morning I was scenario 1, I have been scenario 1 on and off for a while, blaming my hormones, my life (mom being ill and other stuff that’s been going on), the weather - heck I’ve blamed anything and every because I was accepting that negative mindset! 

Monday I had a good talk to myself and decided it’s about time I put my positive head back on permanently not just when I could be bothered, I won’t lie I did think “oh here we go again!” but as I said at the beginning ‘fake it till you make it’ and it didn’t take that long to feel back on top. 

Yes eating well for two days will have helped and not drinking the wine will have helped too, but the biggest ‘help’ of all didn’t cost me a penny, it was a change of mindset, changing the negatives to positives, deciding I want to think positive!

Don’t believe you can do it?  Think it’s too hard, right let’s try a quick experiment before I get off;

Think about my Alfie when he was a puppy, so cute, this tiny little fluffy Shih Tzu about the size of a Sky remote control, he was so adorable you just wanted to scrunch him all the time, he’d run and fall over himself he was so clumsy and full of energy.

Got him in your mind – cute yeah!

Now think about that sky remote control, the fast forward button, the rewind button, those numbers 1 – 9, what’s at the top of that remote control, there’s the power on/off button then theres, oh what is it, there’s the box office and tv guide button, there’s a mute button too, what else? I know half way down there's those coloured buttons, and a back up button then next to that a help button.....

Hold on - where’d Alfie go? 

That little exercise proves that you can push one thought aside from another thought!  

Personally in this case, I’d rather think about the cute puppy wouldn’t you – you get my point don’t you.  When we have negative thoughts we can push them aside and think about something positive instead.  

So if you’re still not convinced that you can replace the “oh it’s just too hard – I can’t do it” thoughts with a “yay I can” thought quite yet, then today every time you have one of those negative thoughts, think about my little cute Alfie the size of a remote control, here’s a visual to help you!

Remember, the more time you spend with a negative thought, the greater its power to do you damage – take that power and make it work for you!  

Think positive thoughts BeYOUtiful!

xx