Close your eyes and picture your ideal future self . . .  what do you see?

Are you in shape? At your optimal weight?

Do you see a bigger body with less energy?

Or do you see yourself as you are now?

The answer to these questions is important for determining how successful you will be in achieving your weight-loss goals.

Why? Because if you can’t visualize yourself as fit, you cannot expect to be fit.

But this Innercise is about more than creative visualization . . .

Have you ever asked yourself why you have so much resistance to eating healthy and avoiding junk food? Why is it such a struggle to make healthy choices?

The answer has to do with your health set point . . . 

How Does Your Brain See You?

A brain is a remarkable machine. And because it’s so remarkable, it takes up a lot of energy. To protect you, it’s always in “power save mode.”  So, rather than use the slow processes (methodical, rational thinking), your brain automates anything it can.

We don’t have to think about breathing or use deliberate effort each time we tie a pair of shoes.

But in order for your brain to make decisions quickly, it has to have some guidelines. It relies on memories, knowledge, and past experiences, to create habits. Your patterns of habits and preferences then accumulate to form an “identity.”

If you’re in the habit of overeating or eating unhealthy foods, you’ve built those practices into your health identity. To change your results, you have to change your habits and behaviors.

To do that, you have to go a little deeper into your health beliefs and your health set point.

This Innercise was designed to help you figure out what your health beliefs are. Once you know what your limiting beliefs are in regards to your health, you can start overcoming them. This will lead to behavior, and indeed weight changes—without the tears and guilt.

So get to a quiet spot, and when you’re ready, do the Innercise.

Innercise: Discover Your Hidden Health Identity

1. Take six long, slow, deep breaths. Get yourself into a comfortable, relaxed state. (You’ll be more receptive to new ideas when you’re nice and comfortable.)

2. Go down the following list of affirmations, and read each one out loud slowly and deliberately. Notice how each affirmation makes you feel . . . pay special attention to the ones that evoke the most resistance.

1. • I love focusing on my health and how it makes me feel.
   • I deserve to be healthy and in shape.
   • I have an abundance of energy throughout the day.
   • I love myself and give myself permission to release the weight that’s no longer serving me.
   • Food is fuel, and I give my body the best sources of fuel available to me.
   • I am so happy and grateful that I am becoming the healthiest version of myself.
   • I am confident in my abilities to reach my goal weight.
   • Moving my body is so much fun for me.
   • I feel so good when I know I’m eating foods that are healthy for me.
   • I have all the power within me, right now, to reach my ideal body.

3. Once you’ve gone through the list, note which affirmations did, and did NOT resonate with you—that’s a big clue into your non-conscious health identity.

Did you feel yourself agreeing that you deserve it? Resisting the idea that you have the necessary knowledge and skills? Once you illuminate those limiting background beliefs, you can start to question them. 

The path to a healthy body and reaching weight loss goals starts with a healthy self-image and a healthy relationship with food.

You can sign up for a Zumba class and drink all the healthy smoothies you want, but until you respect your body and treat food as medicine and fuel, you’ll still feel some resistance along your weight loss goal achievement journey. 

An Innercise like this gets to the source of the problem, instead of just treating the symptoms. Once you have a healthy beliefs about your body, you’ll find it much easier to accomplish your weight loss goals and other dreams. 

What’s next? 

We can use our willpower and persistence, go on a diet, start exercising every morning, sign-up for a gym membership . . .  but if we don’t reprogram the subconscious implicit beliefs and self-image, they will override any goals or desires that we have.

To achieve your ideal body and lifestyle, you have to retrain the subconscious pattern to match the new belief that you have. Are you ready and willing to do that?

Ready to upgrade your mindset and break through to the next level of your potential? Register for the free 3-day Love Your Body Jumpstart training with John Assaraf.

We’d love to hear from you!

Did this brain-building exercise, Innercise, give you some clarity. Let us know in the space below what your biggest obstacle is and how you plan to overcome it.