I’ve been on more diets than I can shake a stick-thin model at and every one of them failed.

The definition of insanity is to repeat the same mistakes while expecting a different outcome, so I’m doing something new.

I’ve been losing weight steadily, with little effort, using some tricks I’ve learned from becoming a Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

Want to share my secrets?

Here are 3 top tips to help you achieve the weight you want.

Ban the negatives.

Your mind cannot scan negatives, that’s why in an emergency, trained personnel will always say ‘remain calm’, rather than ‘don’t panic’.

I used to tell myself ‘I’m not going to eat this cake’ and my mind heard ‘I’m going to eat this cake’. I’d say ‘don’t eat the rest of those HobNobs!’…guess what I did?

Now I tell myself, ‘I’m choosing healthy food’, and my mind behaves better.

The same is true of the words ‘loss’ and ‘lose’. Your mind hates the idea that you might ‘lose’ something, as its job is to keep you safe. It thinks ‘lose? Lose what? My life?’

So ditch the word ‘weight loss’ and use phrases like ‘shedding excess fat’ and ‘letting go of extra pounds’. In this way, I’m working with my mind, instead of freaking it out and in turn, my mind is working with me to create the shape I want.

Make your ‘problem’ into a ‘project’.

When you have a problem, it means something is wrong.

You feel uneasy like something needs fixing as quickly as possible.

These feelings drive us towards fad diets as a quick solution, so we don’t have to feel bad anymore.

After a while, the ‘bad’ will go away, and we let the regime slip until we regain weight, make it a problem again and so on. A ‘project’, as opposed to a ‘problem’, is a way of working steadily towards a positive goal.

You expect progression towards something positive, which is a more comfortable proposition for your mind than wanting to run away from a problem.

Feeling comfortable about re-shaping your body is important because studies show that shedding weight needs to happen incrementally, over time, for lasting results. So having a project helps you stay patient as you progress through the milestones.

Substitute ‘pain’ words for ‘pleasure’ words.

There’s increasing evidence that ‘denial’ diets that restrict how you eat don’t work.

This is to do with the way your mind works. It wants you to survive and thrive, and that means avoiding pain and pursuing pleasure.

A denial is a form of pain to the body. Children used to get sent to bed without any supper, so any phrases like ‘restrict carbs’ or ‘say no to sugar’ feel painful, and your body will rebel.

Use pleasure language instead. The word ‘choosing’ is great. We prefer to make a choice than have no choice at all. You can amp up your adjectives too, ‘I am choosing this delicious chicken salad’, ‘I love gorgeous, juicy strawberries!’

Positive pleasure language around these healthier choices will help those choices stay If you find you’re getting some painful self-talk from your mind like ‘you’re useless at dieting’, or ‘you’re always going to be fat, you may as well accept it’, then direct that pain at the real culprits!

I look at a Bounty bar in the supermarket, and I say to it ‘you’re just a disgusting blend of chemicals and sugar, designed to make me addicted and ill – shame on you!’

‘You want me to eat you, get fat and then feel bad about myself and I have to pay for that?

On yer bike!’ It’s my new fave hobby, the public shaming of junk-food! This fun activity will help your mind realise that the junk-food is pain and to be avoided.

I do hope these tips will help you enjoy a gentler and more positive body re-shaping experience.

You can use these ideas to reinforce a plan you are on or use them on their own.

Let’s make creating the body we want a pleasure instead of a pain!

Why Coaching is my passion www.oneandonlyyoucoaching.com/