When I tell you that your mouth and your weight are directly linked I bet you probably think I am stating the obvious. In fact, you may even feel a little offended. Either way, my guess is that you have assumed that I am referring to the impact of the food you are eating.

While it’s true that there is a direct link between your food and your weight, that’s not what I am talking about. I am actually more interested in your words. How often have you taken the time to stop and listen to the words you use when you talk about your weight?

Talking comes so naturally, it just rolls off the tongue. The truth is that while our talk runs pretty continuously, we rarely if ever stop and give conscious thought to the bulk of what we are saying. Yet, the words we choose are not lost on ourselves. While our conscious mind may choose to ignore, disregard or downplay the words it chooses, our subconscious mind is paying very close attention and takes every word very literally.

Let’s imagine for a moment that our mind is a ship. The conscious part is the captain and the subconscious part the crew. The captain is at the helm barking commands to the crew in the hold of the ship. The crew is not in a position to ‘see’ what is going on outside the ship so it relies on the Captain’s commands without question or judgment. The crew has a duty to very precisely carry out the “orders” given to it by the captain.

What we choose to say to ourselves or how we choose to describe ourselves, matters. When we repeatedly say things like, ‘My relationship is falling apart’, ‘I don’t remember names’ or ‘I can’t lose weight’ we are giving specific instructions to the subconscious, which is then duty bound to work tirelessly to bring those instructions to reality. Like a ship’s crew, the subconscious doesn’t question whether these are “good” or “bad” instructions. It simply carries out what it has been instructed to do.

Unfortunately, when we don’t pay attention to our words we can end up tripping ourselves up. For example, do you ever say, ‘I don’t have time to exercise’ or ‘I am too tired to work out’? When you say this, your subconscious mind takes this instruction and focuses on making sure you stay too busy or too tired to exercise. Or what about when you tell yourself, ‘I need to lose weight’? Your subconscious is hearing the instruction ‘I need to lose… WAIT!’ With an instruction like that, is it any wonder you put off taking action toward weight loss goal till a later date?

When a person talks to me about a problem or a desired outcome such as weight loss, I listen very carefully to the language they use. Most often the words they choose give clues as to what is really going on for them and reasons why they may not be getting the outcomes they are really looking for. Simply changing what they say about themselves can bring real and lasting change.

Watching your mouth really may be the key reaching your weight loss goal. Pay attention to what you are saying today and decide if that is actually the instruction you want to give your subconscious. What could you choose to say that would give you the outcome you really want?