​Health Inspires: Your Way to Sustainable Weight Loss (Excerpt from Chapter 1 Power of Belief: Your Reality)

"Consider the last time you lost weight. Once the number on the scale started to decline, you felt good and were motivated by your achievement; then those feelings inspired more weight loss. When you feel strong, you act strong. That is how humans are wired. 
 
In the world of psychology, this power of belief is called “self-efficacy.” Albert Bandura coined Self-efficacy Theory in a 1977 Psychological Review article, “Self Efficacy: Toward a Unifying Theory of Behavior Change.” Bandura developed his theory within the framework of Social Cognitive Theory, originally a clinical treatment for anxiety. What clinicians found, however, is that Bandura’s theory applied to just about anything requiring psychosocial functioning, including health and exercise behavior.   
 
Self-efficacy, as Bandura explained, means that “people’s beliefs in their capabilities produce desired effects by their own actions.”12 These beliefs are about what individuals think and know they can do, regardless of their skills. 
 
To apply self-efficacy theory in your weight loss context, your ability to lose weight and keep it off may be limited only by your thought processes and your view of yourself. 
 
Your beliefs have been reinforced by past performance, experiences, verbal persuasion and physiological states, which all fuel your emotions and the meanings and associations that drive those emotions. Believing in yourself gives you the power to take action in the direction of your desires and to overcome the things that are holding you back. 
 
Decide
If you want to accomplish something, then you must first expect it of yourself.
 
Essentially, it is all in your head. The stories you replay over and over again make them real, whether they are or not. We want to be right. We distort our truth with generalizations, we label ourselves and take an all or nothing approach.13 We fabricate some really good stories that we tell ourselves and believe, and this is called rationalization.  
 
Instead, believe that you can have good health, be your ideal and happy weight, and feel and look amazing. If you are reading this book, then you most likely have struggled with your weight in the past. You are reading this book because you want to lose weight and keep it off. You want to match the picture you have of yourself in your mind. You want to learn to enjoy healthy foods, stop your unhealthy food cravings and enjoy your life.
 
You can. You can start now. 
 
Presuming that one of your obstacles is that you are waiting for the perfect time to “start a diet,” then I say the perfect time is now. “Starting a diet” is not what you think it is, and it certainly is not what it has been in your past. This is not a “diet.” This is making healthy choices in all things, and treating yourself with the great respect that you deserve. This is wellbeing." p.8-9 
 
©Health Inspires™: Your Way to Sustainable Weight Loss
Kathryn Scoblick
available on Amazon http://amzn.to/2x9ZqUW
www.healthinspires.com
 
Kathryn Scoblick is a certified health and wellness coach with Health Inspires, LLC  (www.healthinspires.com) and the author of Health Inspires™: Your Way to Sustainable Weight Loss (Health Inspires, June 2017). She uses a holistic approach to inspire each person to reach their full potential and master their wellbeing. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Austin Mayor’s Health and Fitness Council, working on community and organizational health and wellness initiatives, from obesity prevention to mindfulness and stress reduction techniques. Kathryn is VP of Business Development for AblePay Health-helping people with their put of pocket medical expenses, and previously served as Director of Employer Health and Wellness for a large healthcare conglomerate, working with employers on wellness strategies and employee engagement. She is a health education expert on Sharecare (owned in part by Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Oz), and has co-created nutrition education tools for Baylor College of Medicine.
 
 

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