Can a Positive Attitude Help You Lose Weight?

A positive attitude alone won't get you to lose weight, but it can certainly help. If you have a positive attitude you will be less inclined to fail, because even on those occasions when you slip-up, you are able to recognise that weight management is a long-term project. With a positive attitude, you are less likely to give in at the first sign of difficulty, which is important when you're trying to lose weight. Losing weight is difficult enough as it is, without you trying to sabotage your efforts with a negative attitude.

The trouble is that if you fail to adopt a positive attitude when trying to lose weight, you may struggle to stick to a calorie-controlled diet, because you automatically assume that your efforts will come to nothing. You believe that you will fail and so you do. Instead of calorie counting and making time for exercise, you may simply go back to your usual way of eating and stop going to the gym, even though doing this doesn't make you particularly happy. With a positive attitude, you are more likely to have the determination to succeed.

This is clearly important when your aim is to lose weight, because losing weight can take time, especially if you have a lot of weight to lose and you're only losing a pound or two a week. However, with a positive attitude you should be able to focus on the fact that you're losing weight, rather than the fact that you're losing weight so slowly. It might be frustrating to not be able to lose weight as quickly as you'd like, but at least there is a good chance you will be able to keep the weight off, since you won't be alternating between near-starvation and gorging yourself on food.

Unfortunately, it isn't always easy to adopt a positive attitude when trying to lose weight, especially when you know it is going to take so long to reach your goal and will require you to make changes to your usual habits. However, in the long run you will feel much better in terms of both health and self-worth if you tackle your weight, rather than making excuses about why you are unable to. You will no doubt have days where you're not feeling particularly positive and just want to give up, but it is at these moments when you have to take a minute to appreciate how far you've come, so that you don't slide backwards. Overall, a positive attitude certainly won't hurt your weight-loss efforts.