Chocolate Cupcake? Sure… Why Not?

I have my one-on-one clients send me their food journal.  In that journal they write what they ate that day and what thought triggered them to overeat.

The journal asks, “Why are you going to eat?”
The answer I’m hearing a lot this week is, “Eh… Why not?”

What the Wha!?!  You have hired a weight loss coach.  You have told me on your pre-work that on a scale of 1 – 10 that losing weight is a 10.  And your thought is why not?

I could ramble off a long list of why they shouldn’t over eat, but frankly that’s not what they are really thinking.
That’s not the real problem.

Here’s what’s really going on:

“Why not” is just a cover thought.

It’s a thought we tell ourselves when we’re ashamed of what the underlying thought really is.  These are thoughts we don’t even want to admit to ourselves.
The underlying thought might be, “I don’t think I can really lose weight.”  Or, “I don’t want to feel this feeling.  It’s too uncomfortable.”  (That’s a big hairy thought.)

“Why not” comes from a mind that thinks that losing weight is done with grand gestures.

I want to tell you that it is the little actions that make the long-term impact.
It’s putting on your running shoes in the morning so you at least walk out to get the paper.  (Yes, some of us still get the newspaper.)
A little action like planning what you are going to eat rather than reacting to your environment changes your path.
Taking a moment to breathe deeply and calm yourself before you blindly reach for the chips on the table can make the difference.

You don’t have to go on a crash diet or a cleanse to lose the weight.  (Although that’s okay too.)

When you make small changes, and when you change the way you think, you will change the trajectory of your entire life.

What’s one small change you can make today?