I’ve been trying to lose weight for a long time. I started gaining excess weight about 15 years ago and ever since I’ve been trying to reach the ideal weight for my age and height. I’ve tried lots of diets. Tried purely exercising it off. Thought about surgery. Stopped trying to lose weight all together. Started trying again. Lost weight. Gained it back.

I stayed on this cycle until my counselor said something that totally shifted my life in a new direction.

Advice from a Counselor

When I came off the semester with straight F’s, I went to see a college counselor for depression and she told me something that would impact me for the rest of my life.

She asked me what I thought was causing my depression. I told her it was all the extra weight. I went on and on about different weight loss programs and diets that I had tried and told her that nothing I did was working.

After I was done rambling on and on about weight loss, she gave me some advice. She said, “How bout we take the focus off of weight loss and focus more on being healthy”.

As soon as she said that it really got me thinking.

Shifting Focus

This was such a simple sentence but I can see now it was absolutely necessary. Living a truly healthy lifestyle would take a lot more work in the beginning than just trying to lose weight, but it would be a long-term solution. A focus on health and wellness would take into account my environment, thoughts, emotions, eating habits, exercise habits, sleeping habits, energy level, stress level, awareness level, etc. It would force me to take time and truly evaluate what’s healthy and what’s not. It would be a change to who I am on the inside and shifting focus might even force me to address the reasons why I started gaining excess weight in the first place and why it’s been so difficult to get off this weight loss roller coaster.

Where “Weight Loss” Can Take You

If you’re trying to lose weight focusing on weight loss alone can take you to many different places you might not want to go – especially if you watch television. When I watched TV, I noticed that there were tons of commercials and ads trying to cash in on weight loss. Seemed like every news station, commercial, or sitcom had something to say about weight loss. I didn’t really see that much on holistic health (maybe because I wasn’t really looking for it). “Lose that 20 pounds you’ve been trying to lose for years!” or “We’ll guarantee weight loss!” with this pill, that new diet, this new program, that surgery.

I am not saying that those won’t help you lose weight. I lost weight on the Atkins Diet. I’ve heard of several other different diets and people having weight loss success while on them. I lost weight in Weight Watchers. I lost 40 pounds by just walking 2 or 3 hours a day and eating whatever I wanted and I’ve learned a lot from all those attempts. However, when I got clear and detailed about what I really wanted, it didn’t end at weight loss. I wanted to be more energetic. I wanted to be a more positive and productive person. I wanted to not have to worry and feel guilty over what I was eating, but I still wanted the food to taste good. I wanted to decrease my stress level as much as possible. I wanted to be muscular. I wanted weight loss to happen naturally as a result of living a healthy lifestyle. I wanted change that would work for the long run.

A Focus on Health

Focusing on health has already led me down a different path. It’s crazy to think how that one sentence changed the whole direction of my life. When I was focused on weight loss I found the Atkins Diet (and other diets), tried purely exercising all the calories off I ate, Weight Watchers, different doctors, possible surgeries. When I was focused on good health I found books that got to the heart of issues and I found articles on blogs with practical advice. I found the truth about processed carbs, refined sugar, and fast food. I joined a gym and hired a personal trainer. I found out that there are people that actually eat 100% raw foods. I bought books on productivity, cash flow, spirituality, achievement and success. I found authors like Deepak Chopra, Stephen Covey, Tony Robbins, Eckhart Tolle – all authors who paint holistic pictures of life in their work. It’s like a whole new world has opened up.

If you think about it, it makes sense. If you’re overweight and you want different results you would have to take different actions. Many people already know that so there next move is to “go on a diet”. But when you “go on a diet” that’s a signal for a temporary change. After I lost the 40 pounds I gained it right back when my environment changed because I had not changed on the inside. That’s why there wasn’t any long-term success. You could say I didn’t lay the foundation so whenever I built something on top if it I might have some success, but eventually things came crashing down every time. This could be a possible reason people go up and down with weight. They change something about the way they eat or their exercise habits but can’t sustain it because it wasn’t meant to be a permanent change in the first place, so they go back to their comfort zone and lose all the progress they made OR they spend a lot of time and stress trying to “keep the weight off”.

Health and The Law of Attraction

It also makes sense if you’re using the Law of Attraction. When using the Law of Attraction, the first step is to ask for what you want and to be clear and precise about it and focus on that. If you constantly focusing on weight loss, “weight” is constantly being run over and over again in your mind and you will attract it. You attract more of what you don’t want because your thoughts are on weight.

If you’ve been trying to lose weight and you’re frustrated with the weight loss see-saw, I would encourage you to take your focus off of losing weight or weight loss and focus on being healthy. It doesn’t seem like that much of a change, but the results can be tremendous.

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