It's amazing. I can make a double batch of chocolate chip cookies and not eat any of the dough and only have 2 cookies with a cup of tea. Do you know there were cookies in my cookie jar for a week and I didn't eat them. I gave them to my daughters yesterday! I usually taste a little of the batter and get on with making them. I just can't be bothered.

Of course the above is an affirmation because today I am baking a double batch of chocolate chip cookies and I used to eat more cookie dough than cookies. I don't do that anymore. I decided not to identify that as part of my thought system anymore and so that's my affirmation. Although the part about the cookie jar is true. I just couldn't be bothered! I think it's important to add proof to the affirmations.

Willpower is a fascinating thing. Someone posted that they didn't have any with regards to food and I'm wondering do we have to have it? The diet industry has sold us, and we have bought into the idea that if we "fail" on a diet it's not the diet's fault or the industry's fault, it's ours because we don't have enough willpower thus deepening the message that there is something wrong with us. There isn't anything wrong with us, we are fine, we've just been programmed wrong.

And I don't buy it anymore. I just don't eat everything in sight anymore, it's not will power, it's the opposite, it's letting go, it's getting in the flow and not worrying about how it will end but just reprogramming my mind along the journey.

Today I walk. It's a sunny day and I'm getting outside and just walking and being alive in the sunshine. I will make the cookies first. I will post them in the recipes if they turn out, it's my sister's recipe and it's very yummy!

Meme: I have no will power.
Truth: I don't need will power, I no longer require will power because my thoughts are now in line with health and wellness and a positive attitude towards food.

Have a happy and satisfying day!

It's not your mother's fault you're fat. Nor is it anyone else's. We've all been set up for this with the same messages from a variety of sources, we've been conditioned to believe we're going to gain weight if we do this or don't do that and we believe them. They've been sown like seeds into our subconscious mind but everything in our culture, even the things that should be helpful such as the diet industry contains a blatant missing property, personal responsibility. They've convinced us we need them to do this.

In recent years a common statement I've heard is "you can't change others, you can only work on changing yourself". I think you can inspire others to change but beyond that I believe this statement is true. And because of that then it follows that only you can make you healthy and well and fit. This is your subconscious and let's face it, the culture and environment you are in aren't going to suddenly change all the messages it's been throwing at you for the past 50 years.

The diet industry can't afford for you to lose weight, for the masses to suddenly discover how to do this by itself so it's not motivated to change.

Your family have received the same messages you have, most of us were raised by parents who were raised by parents who grew up in the great depression and the their truth was eat while you can, eat everything, don't waste food because then it was the truth that it might be your last meal.

Now this is no longer true but the messages remain although they are invalid. Today I threw out a bunch of leftovers. This goes against everything that I've ever been taught. I've eaten the same dinner three days in a row and then let the rest spoil before throwing it out, the belief that wasting food is a terrible thing is so deeply ingrained in my subconscious.

My meme of the day is "don't throw food out, it's wasteful". And I'm changing it to "I always throw food out, because it's very wasteful to put food in a body that's already well nourished". I have no guilt over throwing out food I was sick of eating. I have no guilt over anything about food anymore, those associations have to go.

I'm also taking it easy on the kids. I've already changed the way I speak about food, there is no waste as long as everybody eats until they are satisfied(not stuffed) and then we clean up. I'm hoping to give them a head start that I never got.

Change your thoughts, change your waist size. How? Talk yourself into it! In the last post I talked about deprogramming and reprogramming all of the messages that have gotten into your subconscious mind over the course of your life time. I've started to use the last few minutes before falling asleep to affirm the truths that I now claim as my own in order to cast out the old beliefs of my subconscious and replace them with healthy beliefs, positive truths.

But another thing I've started doing is being aware of the thoughts that come into and out of my mind all day and casting them out and replacing them with new positive thoughts. If I were saying what I was thinking out loud I would be typing this from a secure facility somewhere. Thoughts like "I eat small meals, I always have a little glass of water beside me, I never crave food, I only eat for nourishment, I don't think about food that often". These are the thoughts that I'm consciously trying to encode into my subconscious.

I am considering learning some self-hypnosis techniques. I've heard that this can be a handy tool, putting yourself in a highly suggestive state while repeating the new codes you have to put into your brain.

I'm realistic. I know I will have to practice this, a lot, it's all new and it's all experimental but I know right now I'm starting to believe the new truths consciously. I'm hoping this experiment will mean I will start to believe in subconsciously since that's what controls 95% of what we do in our lives.

So start talking yourself into it. Quietly of course. A simple thing but something I think you have to do in order to succeed with weight loss. Change your mind, change your waist size!

In the work of Bruce Lipton, PhD. he speaks of the two states of consciousness, the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. He differentiates them this way. The conscious mind is what we are aware of, the subconscious mind is all the programming we've received over our lifetime on every topic we've ever been exposed to.

Dr. Wayne Dyer PhD. speaks of memes which are thoughts we have, often that we are unaware of, that have been placed in our minds by others, our families, our friends, our culture, the world around us. A meme is something that many of us accept as truth but under further scrutiny it doesn't hold up as truth.

An example of a weight loss meme would be "I need to drink 6-8 glasses of water a day to lose weight". I know every program I've been on to lose weight insisted this was absolutely vital and necessary.

I do agree with one thing, water is important, in fact it's vital for life. However we've made it into a should and shoulds don't hold up under scrutiny. Once we forget or don't drink our water the thought follows "we won't lose weight now". and then we slip into "well we've messed this up". So is it actually true? No, I've lost weight without drinking that much water or even keeping track of my water. What is true is only that water is vital to life. Living creatures cannot live without water. And we've gotten so far removed from our instincts and so programmed for sugar and flavour I've heard people say they don't like the way water tastes. I wonder if a week without water in a dessert would fix their taste for water. But that's a topic for another day.

So I've decided to let go of that meme. I just don't believe it. I'm drinking water daily, with some nice teas, and I fully expect that's a healthy thing to do. I expect to lose weight over time but not because I drank a requisite amount of water but because I just expect that all these healthy habits and deprogramming will allow me to do so.

So, onward I go, recording any thought that I think has been fed to me and holding it up to scrutiny.

The questions I ask of these thoughts are

1. Is this actually true?
2. Is the opposite also possible?
3. Who told me this?
4. And what would I do if this thought weren't possible?

Seek out your memes and debunk them, then reprogram yourself with the opposite thoughts, the truth that is yours, not the one that's been fed you.