There are so many reasons why people gain weight. Don’t get wrong, I’m a strong believer in maintaining an active lifestyle and healthy eating, but what the health and fitness industry have forgotten to inform us about is that rather it being 70% diet and 30% exercise it is most probably more 90-100% all in your head.

Look at excess body fat or over-eating as the symptom, NOT the problem. There is always a deeper reason why people crave junk food or can’t stop putting food in their mouth or struggle to lose weight and while changing diet and beginning exercise seem like the place to start, it never works out until a change in thoughts and beliefs about oneself is accomplished. That is why all good intentions and gym memberships fail.

Common causes of holding onto excess body fat range from oversensitivity, fear, the need for protection, insecurity and self rejection. They sound like fairly broad terms but a fear of life or the future or something in a person’s past may lead to a self sabotaging thought pattern or belief. Even just believing if the rest of your family is fat, then you will be the same can cause weight gain. I had one client who believed that she was always sick with a problem that made her fat, and guess what, her belief always came true. Unfortunately for her, she was too stubborn to realise that it was her internal self holding her back, so regardless of her naturopathic appointments and our training sessions, she never lost weight even though she claimed to be a positive person.

I have had clients who did have serious health problems but they listened and were willing to change. I gave them exercises to change their internal thought patterns and beliefs about themselves and against all odds, the weight just fell off them, not from changing their diet, not from rigorous exercise but from looking themselves in the mirror every day, smiling and saying ‘I love you’.

Over-eating falls into the same category, common causes are fear, needing protection and judging emotions. I have also found that it can come from being very stressed, depressed and/or anxious. I personally used to over-eat when these emotions became so strong that I couldn’t stand them any longer. So I would eat and eat in an attempt to stuff them back down and as a way of distracting myself from them. As a health and fitness coach, I knew what I should be eating and how much but as there is no such thing as discipline, I had to look within and change. This is also why goals don’t tend to work on their own, you must change yourself internally first to achieve any goal.

Everybody is different and so the cause of excess body fat and over eating can be a whole array of things, however somewhere down the line they come from a lack of self love, worth and acceptance or in other words, a low self esteem. The most straight forward and direct way to begin tackling these problems is to start with the affirmation ‘I love and approve of myself unconditionally.’ You say this while looking in the mirror about ten times every day. It is so sad that we have never been taught to do this through our lives, even sadder that many people feel that they are so disgusting that they could never love themselves. If you say this affirmation and find an internal uneasiness or rejection say ‘I release all resistance’ ten times then go back to the love affirmation. The key here is to actually believe what you are saying!

If you can remember that everything in your life has been created by your self beliefs and thoughts, you really can harness the power to achieve anything and everything that you have always wanted. We were not bought here to suffer, only to grow and self pity and self hatred will only hold you back, regardless of your situation. A great book to read is You can heal your life, by Louise Hay.

Described as the poster girl for positive affirmations by one of her clients, health and fitness coach Lauren Chandler is a shining and leading light in the health, fitness and sports industry, showing others how to live life’s adventure. Lauren, an athlete and author, now focuses on the emotions and thought patterns that stop us from achieving the health and fitness or sporting achievements we desire and how to create new beliefs that are in alignment with our goals. In her desire to spread her message of health and fitness to greater communities, Lauren writes for magazines and has been a regular presenter online and on-air.

Email: http://laurenkchandler.com

Blog: laurenkchandler.wordpress.com