Get the Skinny - Listen Up!

Received this e.mail today - and thought it was worth sharing. Although I´m posting it under "diet tip" it could go under "inspirational" and maybe even a "fitness tip". May the Lord help each of us to seek His help in the way we think about these wonderful bodies He has given us to care for.
Love,
Joy

"One of the worst patterns a dieter can fall into is negative self-talk — the inner voice that tells you you'll never reach your goal, you deserve a chocolate bar because you've had a hard day, you've already blown your diet so you might as well order the cheesecake, and so on.

If you're a victim of negative thinking, a little cognitive reordering may be just the ticket for you. This type of intervention involves identifying your sabotaging thoughts, questioning their validity, and then taking positive action to change things.

Consider the individual who constantly thinks, "I've always been heavy, I'll always be heavy, diets don't work for me." Rather than using past history as an excuse to do nothing, this person would be far better off questioning why no diet has worked for her and thinking about alternative approaches to weight loss.

First off, she might want to review all the diets she's been on to see if they failed because they were unreasonable to begin with. If it turns out that they were extreme (no carbs, no fat, no sugar) or bizarre (cabbage soup morning, noon, and night), she can respond to the negative voice in her head by saying, "Perhaps if I tried a healthy, sustainable diet for once, I'd actually succeed." If her diet history reveals that she made informed food choices, she might consider focusing on exercise as her primary weight-loss tool along with sound eating. Either way, she's taken a negative and turned it into a positive — and the single most important ingredient for successful weight loss is to believe in yourself and set forth with a positive attitude. Are you ready to do the same?

by: Joy Bauer