From the moment you were born your subconscious mind began gathering and storing information that has created your thoughts, habits and beliefs. These deep subconscious programs are constantly running in the background of your mind and will influence the way you act, the way you think and the choices you make.
Sometimes your subconscious programs become so old and outdated that they no longer align with our conscious desires. After all, many of these programs were formed when you were just a child and your needs have changed as you have grown.
Unfortunately your subconscious thoughts can also sabotage your weight loss goals. It may be your conscious choice to eat healthier food and exercise more, but your subconscious mind may be saying “But I like chocolate, chocolate makes me feel soooooo good!” Your subconscious mind drives every choice you make, whether you like it or not.
In fact, our subconscious programs are so powerful that I once saw it take a man's leg.
While working with a diabetic nutrition program, I met a man who was told time and time again that if he didn't start eating a healthier diet he would lose his leg. Despite knowing he had to change the way he ate OR lose his leg—the man wound up losing his leg. Now, do you think he really chose to lose his leg? No! Who in their right mind would? The point here being that despite his conscious desire to keep his leg, his subconscious programs were so powerful that he lost his leg anyway. There was nothing he could do about it—or was there?
As children, we are taught to follow exactly what our parents do or say. Perhaps as a child you were told to always finish everything on your plate. Or maybe by example your mother taught you that constant dieting is normal and that food is scarce. Oh and don't forget about the starving children in Africa.
Perhaps you knew that tonight's dinner might not be as well-proportioned as tomorrow's and you learnt to eat while the eating's good. Maybe you came from a big family where you had to always “fight” for more food.
Did your family make unhealthy food choices that subconsciously carried over into your own eating habits. Or relatives and siblings may have mocked you for being too fat or too skinny and even in jest these things scar your formative self-image, leaving behind subconscious programming that will torment you for the rest of your life.
2. Peers.
On the same token, our friends, schoolmates and peers will all influence our subconscious beliefs. What they think of our body and our weight can seriously impact the way we think, act, feel and eat. Whether we like it or not, we are a product of our environment.
When we experience physical, mental or emotional stress our subconscious survival instincts kick in. This is called our fight or flight response and enables us to confront danger or escape it.
Evolution has designed our bodies for fight or flight. In primal times when food was scarce these instincts helped us survive.
In fact the main concerns for survival in primitive times were ‘are we warm enough and do we need food?’ When faced with a famine our bodies would naturally go into fight or flight mode. This would trigger the release of cortisol into our blood, which tells our body to store fat to help us survive this period of starvation.
In the modern times this mechanism can do more harm than good, especially where our weight is concerned. Our bodies simply cannot differentiate between modern day stress and primitive stress. So when your boss is yelling at you, your body responds by telling you to eat up and store fat for the upcoming bad times.
Acute or chronic stress can activate your subconscious survival programs making your body more prone to storing fat. This is why many people gain weight when they experience loss, trauma or a major life change.