Mental Clutter=Weight Loss

Mental Clutter

I started to blog about mental clutter=weight loss, but my enthusiasm fizzled. Why? Because I feel fat!

Image courtesy of Okolaa at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

My scale is being Sheila (the name I give it when I don’t like what she says). Sheila says I’m several pounds heavier than I want to be. To add insult to injury, my loose jeans feel tight today, and that’s all I can focused on! No matter what I’m doing these thoughts are in the back of my mind circling like a pack of rabid dogs taunting me, tormenting me.

It makes me want to jump on the old diet wheel and get rid of that excess weight before I can pile more on. And that’s when I reached this point in the blog and realized mental clutter was exactly what I needed to blog about.

Banishing Mental Clutter

Diane Carbonell, author of 150 Pounds Gone Forever, recently blogged about banishing mental clutter and how it prevented her from losing weight. Spring cleaning the brain=weight loss—a novel idea and one I felt was worth exploring with all the mental clutter I’m fighting today.

What is mental clutter? According to Diane, it is thoughts and beliefs that fill your mind with negativity.

Today’s mental clutter goes like this:

Why am I eating that when I’m not hungry
Why aren’t I kinder to others
I’m worthless
I’m unlovable
I’m unlikeable
I worry about things I can’t change

And with all that buzzing in my brain, all I want to do is eat, which would only compound the problem by making me feel more bloated, and ultimately I would feel worse about myself.

Combating Mental Clutter
image courtesy of (c) Jason Stitt/123RF

Diane said it takes effort to combat the mental clutter in your mind, and she developed some techniques to stop the mental clutter.

Identify negative thoughts and shut them down when they become vocal
Write down the good things you’ve accomplished in weight loss and in life on post it notes and read them when negative thoughts start (I paused here to write down my positive accomplishments)
Force yourself to say positive things about yourself even if you don’t believe them yet, i.e., I am a good person, I’m not worthless
Focus on doing rather than wishing, i.e., I will cook a healthy meal tonight and savor every bite.

As I thought about all this, I realized I needed to get away from the computer and do something for my body, which turned out to be yoga. I also realized I’d been working a lot of hours and not making time to do the things I wanted to do like cooking, so I finished my yoga, put on some music, and cooked for an hour.

As I relaxed, I stopped feeling fat and felt good about what I was doing for my body, had a lovely meal, and a relaxing evening. After all this struggle, I realized mental clutter matters, whether it’s about being in charge of my weight or good mental health.

How do you keep mental clutter at bay?

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