Did you know that gratitude can have a dramatic effect on your weight loss success?

Do you feel that you’re doing everything you should be doing to lose weight but it’s not shifting? You’re following your eating plan 100% and attending your exercise sessions, but it just isn’t shifting.

Well consider that there are external and internal weight loss factors. External factors include the food you bring into your body and the exercise you get your body to do. But an internal factor might be what is happening in your mind and your thoughts.

There’s a good saying “Thoughts become things.” Specifically, if you have stress in your life, and naturally you are drawn to thinking about this stress, then this will create a chronic stress that elevates your stress hormone cortisol to an unhealthy level.

Excess cortisol is associated with excess weight, especially around the midsection – our tummies. Excess cortisol can also interfere with sleep, which is bad for weight control.

The stress reaction is not so much about the cause of the stress but our reaction to it. Sometimes we can do little about the cause of the stress but we can change how we react to it. In doing so, we can reduce the excess cortisol we generate.

So here’s a practical tip. Get a journal or notepad. Use your Healthy Inspirations Daily Planner. Each day, at least once a day, physically write down 1, 2 or 3 things for which you are really grateful. You can repeat the same things or come up with new things. Make this journalling a daily ritual, perhaps every night before you fall asleep.

Here’s a starter.

• Are you really grateful that you, your husband and your children do not live in Aleppo, where a bomb might fall out of the sky at any moment and kill or permanently maim those you love?
• Are you grateful that we live in a free democratic society where you feel safe walking down the streets.

Just give this a go. By consciously contemplating things for which you are grateful, you suppress the things that create a stress response.

What do you have to lose?  Share the idea with others. You never have to share your journal with others, but you can if you wish, even on social media.

Remember that “thoughts become things”. By practicing gratitude you can exercise quite a lot of control over what your mind thinks about and, in doing so, your body’s response to those thoughts.

Let us know your thoughts!