The following words may seem taboo: weight loss is easy! We have just been going about it the wrong way. Almost all of the products and diets on the market today miss key components to achieving permanent weight loss. Almost all of them only focus on the physical body- what we eat, how much we eat, when we eat and how much we exercise. If that is all that is necessary, then why have you not achieved your ideal weight? Why do diets and pills have a success rate of less than 9%? The reason is simple: there is a missing link to permanent weight loss. The physical aspect of weight loss is only one third of the equation.

There are three separate aspects that must addressed for permanent weight loss, and I like to refer to them as the three bodies. The physical body is the first. The other bodies for weight loss are the missing links; the mental body and the emotional body. The mental body includes your eating habits, orientation and perception of food. The emotional body includes the emotional reasons you eat, your attitudes toward food, and the underlying reasons you are overweight. When you work with all three bodies, it makes weight loss easy! Imagine sitting on a stool with only one leg. How long could you balance yourself? That is what it is like attempting to lose weight while only focusing on the physical- it becomes a balancing act and a struggle to stay upright! If you find a stool that is steady with three legs, there is no balancing act at all. It is easy to comfortably sit on a balanced stool! When you have a plan that focuses on the physical, mental and emotional bodies of weight loss, you feel comfortable and secure, and your success rate dramatically increases from that of diets alone.

It is important to understand why the mental and emotional bodies play such a large role in weight loss. If making a change was as easy as simply stating the desire, we would all be ultra-healthy, thin millionaires with the perfect partners. How many times have you made a New Years resolution and had it fall through? Because we are creatures of habit, change can sometimes be difficult. When you want to make a change, sometimes it feels as though you are pushing against something inside of yourself. What you are pushing against is your unconscious (AKA subconscious) mind.

Let’s talk quickly about the unconscious mind. The unconscious works very differently than the conscious mind. For example, when you think about not being allowed to eat cheesecake, it makes the unconscious mind want to eat cheesecake even more because you are thinking about cheesecake! The unconscious does not know that cheesecake is bad because it only understands pictures and emotions, so all it sees is cheesecake! The more you think about not wanting the cheesecake, the more and more appealing it becomes until finally… well you know what happens. In order to easily avoid “bad” foods and cut down on or totally halt cravings, it is important to work with the “language” of the unconscious mind.

While I could go into much more detail, I also want to briefly discuss the emotional body of eating. There are two types of hunger- biological and emotional, and it is easy to tell the difference. Biological hunger comes on gradually and patiently, while emotional hunger comes on suddenly and feels urgent. Underlying feelings such as self-loathing, hopelessness, sadness, or worthlessness are often at the root of emotional hunger. Less intense emotions such as boredom can become a culprit as well. Whatever the underlying emotion is, eating is simply masking what is going on in your life. When you notice that you are experiencing emotional hunger, instead of asking “What should I eat?”, a better question to ask is “What is eating me?” Start keeping a list of those feelings and thoughts and find a way to resolve them! There are so many modalities that can help you let go of negative emotions and beliefs, such as psychotherapy, hypnosis, Emotional Freedom Techniques, Time Empowerment (my personal favorite), and Body Alignment, just to name a few. In my personal practice, I find that having multiple modalities in my toolbox greatly increases the amount of change I can help a client achieve. If you are looking for assistance, you may want to seek someone skilled in many modalities as well.

In summary, when you work with all three bodies of weight loss- the physical, the mental, and the emotional- you greatly increase your chances at achieving permanent weight loss and you feel much better! Weight loss can be totally easy if you approach it in a way that works with you, instead of against you! For continued advice on learning about all three bodies of weight loss, I highly recommend visiting my website at www.YourEmpowermentSource.com. We have also included a free law of attraction meditation download on our site.

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