How I Stay Fit While Eating Anything I Want

In the fitness realm you hear the phrase “Mind Over Matter,” a lot.

When I was younger, my weight was always something of a struggle. I was insecure about my appearance, had poor physical performance, and was constantly uncomfortable in my body. I was obsessed with weight loss but, for several years, seemed incapable of losing any weight.

It was a constant source of self-loathing for me. I attached too much meaning to food, and felt bad about most of what I ate. I beat myself up for not exercising exactly enough. When I saw a fitter person, especially women, I had an incredibly toxic surge of bitterness, judgment, and hostility. I would feel so much shame at family gatherings where my cousins were slim and confident. And, every day, I told myself silently that I had so much potential for worth if only I wasn’t so fat.

In hindsight, it’s obvious that my external appearance came from within me, but I didn’t understand at the time.

I’d started gaining weight when I was about nine or ten years old, when another little girl called me fat. She’d only said it to be mean, as children often do, but I took it to heart. Within a year, the prophecy fulfilled itself.

A pattern that persisted when I tried to lose weight was that the more I dieted, the more I seemed to gain weight. When I didn’t mind or thought less about what I ate, my weight usually stalled and remained the same. I could go on a highly restrictive diet and lose a few pounds, only to gain it back with interest.

The moment I finally began really losing weight was when I went to college and went away from my family to be on my own. I built a little confidence, and some of the weight came off.

A second round of weight loss happened when I found a career I enjoyed that got me out of the house on a daily basis. My confidence jumped up again, and another good chunk of weight came off quite effortlessly. For a few years after that, I started exercising and getting more serious about my health. This change happened naturally and did bring results, but it wasn’t the pivotal moment in my health journey.

I hadn’t changed my self-concept, or my relationship with my body, enough.

The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100 percent.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mr. Olympia 1970-1075, 1980

The real moment that everything changed was reading the Neville Goddard collection, and fully grasping that it wasn’t my body that was working against my desire: it was my own mind.

For a decade or more I’d had the belief within me that being fit was difficult. I’d thought I needed to live a very restrictive lifestyle to get what I wanted, and even then might still not get it. I thought that I was predisposed to be sensitive to food, put on weight easily, and that I had to choose between enjoying food and that activities I enjoyed (like writing) and having the health and aesthetics I wanted.

I knew I had to change this.

When I started affirming that my body was naturally lean, I started leaning out like crazy. I started eating what I wanted, as much as I wanted, and telling myself that food didn’t have an effect on my body composition. I started enjoying food instead of feeling guilty about it. I visualized my ideal body as if I were already occupying it. I went to the gym and got physical activity exclusively for enjoyment. I started being grateful for my strong, lean, beautiful body, and for being able to have it while also enjoying food and liesure.

My new rule was simple: I was entitled to the body I wanted, and it was natural, a given.

I became the leanest I’d ever been after implementing this rule. I had a hard time hiding the satisfaction when I would see my partner and hear him say, “Wow, you leaned out more, you look different every week.” People would ask me what I’m doing different, and I would always rejoice at the opportunity to exclaim, “Nothing! My body just knows what to do!”

Our physical bodies are only a reflection of our minds. They reflect not our worth, but our beliefs.