I remember when I would start my week eating healthy and exercising. I would pumped and motivated focusing on what mattered most to me. As the weekend would unfold it wouldn't be too long before I would justify to myself eating a really unhealthy meal. The pleasure of the moment distracted me from focusing on what really mattered most...and that was my fitness and weight loss goals. As you are enjoying the moment you justify to yourself that you will work out harder at the gym tomorrow. Afterwards, the feelings of guilt and contempt start to set in. To make matters worse, you don't even go to the gym because you don't feel good about yourself. You feel fat and you think that you are fat and veer off your goals. This type of sabotage happens all to often. There are steps that you can take to avoid this type of behavior so that you stay on top of your goals but most importantly you feel good about yourself.

What kind of glasses are you using?

Imagine that you are viewing yourself and the prescription of glasses that you are using are not the right kind. How distorted is your vision of yourself going to be? Do you really think that you will be viewing yourself with the most accuracy? Weight loss has more to do with feelings than anything else. What is important is to get the right prescription glasses so that you are viewing yourself with objectivity and not negativity. What you do is question your feelings about yourself. If you don't like how you feel about yourself then start questioning those feelings. Are you really a bad person? Are you really a loser? Are you really that overweight? Whatever the questions may be the point is to create enough doubt about your feelings that are bringing you down that you create an eagerness within to feel better, more positive about yourself. The goal is to have a positive self reflection.

Who do you think you are: Judge Judy?

Your thoughts determine the words you're going to say. Are you using words that are encouraging you or holding you down? When you use words that are not very encouraging you begin to judge yourself. When you label food 'bad' and 'good' when you eat 'bad' food then you judge yourself as a 'bad' person. When you label yourself as such what do you think that does to your self perception? I can tell you that it doesn't make you feel better. Plus, it's true that you are not a 'bad' person. Start believing that and it can change your outcome. Use encouraging words such as I can, I will, I am. Start saying that you are a powerful person. Start saying to yourself that you are an amazing person. Avoid words that insinuate judgment like good and bad, would, could, and should. The point is to eliminate words that bring you down and that judge you and others. Replace those words that will encourage you and increase your self perception.

It took me awhile for these words to integrate into my daily vocabulary. But by doing so, I was focusing on keeping what mattered to me most and that was feeling good about myself. As a former binge eater, I had to battle with the temptation of indulging in unhealthy foods because they taste great and bring instant pleasure. However, by delaying the gratification I was able to put away those temptations. The feeling after was so empowering because you no longer surrender to those temptations that bring you down. Food is not the enemy. There are no enemies. There are only adjustments to be made. You are in control of your emotions. It's your responsibility to practice your choice that you have. Because you always have a choice as to how you want to experience any situation.