Week 3, Intuitive Eating Challenge for Isabelle & Lilly

Isabelle:

This week I was sent a copy of 'Shift Your Mindset' by Lysa and Gina, and I do think it has helped to get me back on track.  Although I definitely cannot honestly say I have trusted my instincts all the time in terms of eating my this week, it has been a definite improvement from last week.

I find that I am catching myself out sometimes - like I will be walking to the cupboard for a second or third biscuit and suddenly hear in my head 'Hey, I'm not hungry anymore - I should just have it later when I am hungry'.  Although this hasn't worked to deter me from the fridge every time, it has worked more of the time than it usually does!  So this is progress! I think I have become much better at only eating when I am hungry, it's the stopping when I'm satisfied that has become more of an issue!  I'm still struggling to see that whatever food is in front of me is not going anywhere, and I could have it later, but I am definitely acknowledging the fact now, and saying this to myself so that I can at least resist for awhile longer than usual!  

The next few weeks will be interesting - university has finished for the semester and I won't be in the usual routine while studying for exams, so I'm hoping I don't fall into old habits and don't think of food as a distraction / procrastination technique!  I'm going to work really hard to focus on stopping when I am full, and maintaining the smaller portion sizes because I do think that this really helps me psychologically.  I've never really been one for seconds but finishing what is on my plate (when my eyes were always too big for my stomach) left me stuffing myself to the brim.  

This week, I am pleased to announce that I have lost another 300g - so I am down to 77.5.  Not a big loss, but a loss all the same!

Lilly:

The 3 principles are simple and straightforward but they require a massive shift in thinking. I realised this during the week that I’d left dieting behind when 2 friends wanted to tell me how many calories they had consumed that day and my reaction was to stare at them as if they were crazy.

However, it became evident to me there are two mental aspects still holding me back. What’s with my emotional attachment to the scale? And why do I still willingly choose to overeat or justify food, especially junk food, when I’m not feeling like it? 

Deep down, I’ve forgotten reality. I’ve adopted a ‘greediness’ approach to life without a job, but it doesn’t make sense. How does eating more now help me for later, when I’m hungry and have no food? It means I spend more money purchasing food. I’m no Einstein but that seems illogical. 

However, on a pleasing note, this week as ‘weigh day’ approached I noticed that the numbers didn’t matter to me anymore. That felt very liberating.

One down, one to go. 

103

How Can I Get What I Want?

Have you ever said “I don’t want to eat that cake?” and then found yourself eating it? Why is it when we say we don’t want something, that’s exactly what we get? 

What happens when you say “don’t be late, don’t be late”?… You end up being late.  

Have you heard that our mind is composed of conscious and unconscious parts?  Our conscious mind is in control of our conscious will and is the part that sets goals.  Our unconscious mind is the part that goes through the motions required to reach our goal.

In order to be successful, you need your conscious mind and your unconscious mind to be in harmony.  One way to tell if your conscious and unconscious mind is in harmony, will be that you reach the goals you set for yourself. 

So how can you harmonise these two parts? 

First understand our unconscious mind cannot process negatives. It doesn’t process “don’t or no”. The unconscious mind doesn’t judge, it simply does what it is told.

Imagine I said to you “Don’t think of a big yellow canary”. What did you just see in your mind right now?  How come when I said don’t think of a big yellow canary, that’s what you see? Your unconscious mind will only focus on the big yellow canary and instantly produces a picture of one in your mind. 

So when we say, “I don’t want to be fat”, your unconscious mind processes the information as “I want to be fat” and that’s what you get. Or “I don’t want to eat the cake…” becomes “I want to eat the cake.”

“Here’s the problem. Most people are thinking about what theydon’t want, and they’re wondering why it shows up over and over again.” John Assaraf

Flip It 

Activity: In order to focus your mind on achieving your goal, play ‘Flip It’. Spend a few minutes listing all the things you commonly say you don’t want.  Then “Flip It” into a statement of what it is you do want. This is the most vital step to achieving the right mind-set.

Uncovering our unconscious beliefs

Remember last week’s blog about ‘The Power to Create What we Want’ (Monday, February 20). We learnt about how our beliefs become a source of creation in our lives. We literally get what we expect.

If you believe weight-loss is difficult, then you will only have difficult experiences trying to lose weight. Alternatively if you believe that weight-loss occurs for you easily as you focus on listening to and trusting your body, you'll see it gradually and continually shift.

Our beliefs are the unconscious accumulation of a lifetime of idea’s taught to us by the behavior modeled around us. Most people don’t realize they can change the unsupportive beliefs they no-longer want creating their reality.

Our beliefs reside in our unconscious mind; you could go a whole life-time and never learn what they are, if you’re not willing to pay attention. Pay attention to what? 

Well, our lives, our body, our relationships, our income… our whole reality is a by-product of our belief system. Learn from your life what ideas/ beliefs must have been present in order to allow you to create your specific reality. (This could be a great weekly action item to observe your life, and find what kind of beliefs you must have in order to have the life you do…)

Fast forward one week, and you probably have a good list of beliefs you have identified by following their trail (in the current reality that you've created). Now the fun part is sorting them into two piles; write down in one list all the beliefs that help you get what you want… the ones that support you, and help you feel good (supportive Beliefs). The other pile are the beliefs that have created things you don’t want in your life, they are the beliefs that hold you back from what you want, and leave you feeling down, low and unhappy (unsupportive Beliefs).

Write them down into two lists now…. E.g.

Supportive Beliefs:                                                           

I can have a fulfilling career                                                

I live in peace                                                                      

I am surrounded by people who love me      

Unsupportive Beliefs
 
I never have enough…                     

People aren’t trust-worthy
I’ll always struggle with my weight

If there are any beliefs where you don’t know whether they are supportive or not, say them out loud to yourself, and notice how you feel when you say them. Supportive beliefs are encouraging; they feel positive, joyful, strengthening and helpful. The unsupportive beliefs make you feel unsure, scared, sad, down or low. Pay attention to your feelings to know if they are supportive or unsupportive. Trust yourself.

Now that you’ve divided them into two piles, you know what ones you want to keep and what ones you are ready to change. Next week’s blog will go into more detail teaching you how to change your unsupportive beliefs.

The Power to Create What we Want

We’ve all heard the new age adage that we are the creators of our own lives. What is this power of creation, how does it sculpt our lives and how can we use this knowledge to make the changes we want?

The Change Model visually describes how our beliefs (the idea’s we individually believe to be true) influence our thoughts, and likewise our thinking influences our feelings. Our feelings or emotional responses are what make the biggest impact on our choices. Continuing on from there our choices influence our actions and our actions create our reality. 

This Change Model contains powerful information about how we can create the life/ body we want. If our reality is merely a representation of our accumulated beliefs; then our life, our body,  and our current reality provides the most powerful feed-back system there is. Whatever we are happy with in our reality is a testament to the supportive beliefs that created them. Likewise, if there is something we don’t like in our life, then we can use this as feed-back to trace it to the unsupportive beliefs behind them.

Gina and I have used this information to create the figures and relationship with food we always wanted, as well as the career of our dreams, ideal partners, an ideal lifestyle and so on. 

Nevertheless  there are two main reasons why people can reject the idea that we create our reality:

1)      There are too many variables to consider ones self the sole creator of our own life.

2)      It can be too unappealing to consider ourselves responsible for our current life.

We both once struggled to comprehend how we are the creators of our world. Here are some of the idea’s that supported us. If we don’t consider ourselves the most powerful factor in creating the life we want, then we unconsciously choose to allow our community, family, church, government and or society at large to create our lives for us. Gina and I treasure our freedom, we love knowing that if there is something in our lives that we’d like to improve then we have absolute power to be able to make that change. Likewise, not accepting our power forces us to remain trapped in blaming others for our circumstances and rendering ourselves powerless to change. 

So, when we first tasted the pain of realising we had unconsciously created a lot of the circumstances that we didn’t like in our lives it was quite difficult. A large part of us wanted to reject that idea because it hurt us so much at the time... after it had simmered for a little while, our feelings began to change… It dawned on us with hopeful clarity that if we had created what we didn’t like in the past… we also had the power to create what we do want in the future. That’s when things really started to improve for us.

We now actively use our lives as a feed-back system. Seeing what we do like confirms the supportive beliefs we used to create it, and likewise when we see anything we don’t like we’re able to use our awareness to trace it back to an unsupportive belief. Spotting unsupportive beliefs and changing them is now a way of life for us both and is a powerful creating journey. If you'd like to know more about how to change unsupportive beliefs, go to http://www.lysaandgina.co.nz/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=80&Itemid=90 and get our FREE Book excerpts. Louise L. Hay puts it beautifully: "Life is very simple. We create our experiences by our thinking and feeling patterns. What believe about ourselves and our Life becomes true for us."