Eat, Live, Thrive DietSample

Transformation from the Inside Out 

Making healthier choices is easier said than done. Mustering an extra dose of willpower or motivation is not enough. We need to get to the core of the issue, which quite often is rooted in unhealthy thinking and bad habits. Our underlying perspective is more powerful than most of us realize. In fact, the power of our thoughts influences us in so many ways we cannot begin to fathom, even changing our body chemistry! 

From Bible scholars to motivational speakers, those who have studied human behavior know that how we think drives our choices and behavior. Our actions are the direct results of our mental programming. It is almost impossible for individuals to behave inconsistently with what they believe about themselves. Your mind will naturally go in the direction of your most prevalent thoughts. 

Like computers, our brains do not place judgment on their data. They just store information, true or false, day after day, year after year. Ultimately, we come to believe the strongest messages—those messages that have played the loudest and most frequently throughout our lives. God calls us to be good stewards of what we think about and to dwell on things that are true and beneficial. 

There is no permanent way to change our behavior without first changing our minds. And that’s why diets alone tend to fail. All the change is external. When the diet is over, 95 percent of people revert to old programmed behaviors.  So, it’s essential to change the program! 

If you don’t like who you are, don’t just change your behavior—change your thoughts. It may feel awkward at first, as if you’re lying to yourself, but your brain doesn’t know the difference. At a point, it will respond to that dominant message as if it were true. 

Listen to yourself when you look in the mirror each morning. What words do you express as you resolve to lose that excess weight? How do you describe your body, your fitness, your energy, your self-control? If you keep telling yourself that you are fat and you hate exercise, you’ll continue to believe it. Those beliefs will sabotage your efforts. 

Do you think you can lose weight? Why or why not? If not, how have you seen that thought affect your actions?