As I have perused many of the threads in this forum, there is one thing that seems to be minimal. This area is in the area of the mind, will, and emotions. Losing weight is 98% mental. I didn't include the other 2% so I could leave a margin for error.

Once you decide to begin your plan of attack, no matter what it is that you are doing, your mind is in control at all times. Your body will give you cravings and desires for things that you have no business entertaining. You have to train your mind to overcome these cravings and desires. It is a slow process and it can't be accomplished overnight.

Your body tries to outsmart you. You have to learn your body and realize that sometimes it gives you a hunger pang when it reality it is a thirst trigger.

Battle the war of the mind and win it. When you do, you have won the battle over weight loss. All you have to do then is to wait for the results of your battle.

Just my $.02

Thanks for your .02.

Yeah, whenever I feel a craving for something I take a few drinks of water and the craving goes away almost instantly its amazing really.

It is mostly mental. But I think people are aware of this which is why people come here and post in their diaries, and post in challenges, etc. We are all trying not to let our bodies overrule our minds.

there are new people that start their weight loss journeys over and over and over because they focus on the mechanics and when the mechanics fail, people think it is the mechanics that broke. The thought that the mind comes into play doesn't ever enter the equation.

Another $.02, that makes $.04.

Yeah i agree about the mindset thing - but its not entirely mindset. Mindset is all good but if you dont follow through then its pointless. I had the mindset right for about a year to 18 months before i did anything. But getting the mindset right is absolutly crucial!

I agree, we have to kill the fleshly desires and let the holy spirit guide our emotions and decisions.

You're absolutely right. You just got to keep with it and have the mindset you're going to lose weight and excerise. My motivation was I wanted to be skinny/average again especially at my age 19. I never wanted something like this so bad. So I've been working my heart out

Mindset is 100% of the success.

Mindset controls:

exercise when you don't want to
shopping at the grocery store
passing on going to the fast food joints
day-to-day awareness to past mistakes
day-to-day awareness to future goals
saying no to yourself and beating down temptation/overindulgence
allows you to develop your new day-to-day lifestyle through memorization until it becomes habit

you can pick atkins, xenical, lipo, med diet and on and on and on but if you don't have the mindset to succeed with it/at it and develop a long lasting plan mentally, nothing else in the above-mentioned list will amount to a hill of beans.

Mindset is truly the first most important aspect of weightloss. This not only includes commitment, but knowledge. If you don't first research healthy ways to manage weight--willpower can either be useless or even destructive (IOW-you may give up easily as you gain all the weight back or develop an eating disorder).

It's important to know which diets are actually healthy and have long-term effectiveness, and it's also important to view weight management as a lifetime commitment. There are a lot of so-called "articles" in magazines (especially ones geared to women) that advocate very dangerous ways to lose weight (frequently followed up by glossies of recipes for high-calorie desserts).

I totally agree. Although the weight-loss itself is a physical thing it only happens if you live right -with excercise and diet -and yeh that does take a HUGE amount of will power sometimes. You really do have to want it a LOT.

I agree with that,

I've experienced burning it out in the gym only to find a 6 weeks later that I really didn't want to work out any more. As a results, i was out for 4 months...inactive and a lazy slob.

Working out and losing weight does heavily tax your CNS ... there is DEFINITELY a mental side to it.

Absolutely! You have to talk to yourself and tell yourself that you're going to loose this weight and that your body is going to listen to you! But you should be careful to listen sometimes, too....for instance, your body will tell you if it's not getting enough vegetables or starches....even fats! If you don't get enough fats, your hair falls out and that's never fun....

Me and my body have an understanding...as long as I start taking care of it, it will take care of me! I love me!

Yep, I agree T2. This is absolutely true in my case. Weight loss has been much more of a mental challange than a physical one for me.

I agree with all in that it's mindset. I think for a lot of us..well me anyway I should say, it's getting my mind SET. We do a lot of self sabatoge, not sure why, guess it's different for all of us and some of us still don't know why we are self defeating. I guess me included.
What does everyone do to keep the mindset including the after care of when the weight is finally lost we don't want to gain it again? any suggestions?

I really like these threads that talk about the mental aspects of weight loss. Looks like I got in on this one late.

I agree. I think the first step towards serious weight loss for me was just having a good enough reason. Many times I thought that just looking better and being able to be more active should be a good enough reason fo me, but over and over it failed to motivate me in the long term. It wasn't until health risk entered the picture that I knew I had to get serious and stay that way. After I got some weight off, it sort of acted like it's own positive reinforcement. I saw that I could have control over this if it was important enough to me. I always sort of knew what would be required, but felt overwhelmed by the amount of time and sacrifice it might take to lose over 100 lbs. There were days I felt like I was at the bottom of a well I could never climb out of.

The mind-set that keeps me maintaining my fitness everyday is that with every decision I make, I remember I want to live a longer and better life. That's my reason. Everybody's bound to have their own button to press.

John

its all in the brain