The bottom line is that you gain weight because you consume more calories than your body is able to use and no diet is a substitute for good eating habits.

Your body requires a certain number of calories in order to function properly. If you truly wish to lose weight, you must burn off more calories than your body requires.

It is important that you fill your arsenal with every possible tool available to insure your success. The most important tool in your weight loss program does not include diet or exercise.

There is no special equipment you need to purchase. You do not need to join a gym or health club. And, you already have every component you need to put this tool to work for you and begin a successful weight loss program. What is it? It is your mind.

If you have tried every diet on the planet, every exercise program from the latest fitness guru and repeatedly failed to achieve your weight loss goals you probably need a check up from the neck up.

Successful weight loss does not just happen. It took more than a few days to reach the point where you are at right now. Give yourself a break and expect it to take awhile before you see measurable results. Take a leap of faith and follow some basic principles.

Begin with your self talk. This is the conversation that runs through your brain continuously. What kind of conversation do you have with your self talk? What type of negative self talk has kept you from reaching your goals in the past?

If you had a chance to do it over again, would you change the dialogue? That is a no brainer is it not?

Well, the good news is that you can turn the tide of negative self talk beginning right now. It is never too late to begin and you start by reprogramming your self talk.

A good starting point is to begin with positive affirmations. Positive affirmations spoken aloud with authority and belief, positively affect your attitude, focus your thinking and lead to a course of action that will help you become the person you want to be and have the things that you want to have.

Begin by writing your affirmations on paper. You need to take some time for this exercise. You can begin with something like, I want to lose 25 pounds before Spring. That is a worthy goal and attainable, but we need to put some work into structuring the afirmation.

First of all, I want gives the impression that what you desire is always in the future. In order to re-program your self talk, you need to trick your mind into believing that you have already achieved success. This is how your subconscious mind functions.

Your subconscious mind has no capacity for understanding the concept of time. Everything is in the moment here and now. When you tell your subconscious mind you want that is exactly what you will get want. You will get want, without ever achieving fulfillment. Unless you change your mental tape recorder, you will achieve exactly what you are telling your subconscious, that you want to lose 25 pounds. You will want to lose 25 pounds for the rest of your days unless you change your self talk.

If your weight is 150 pounds and you desire is to weight 125 pounds, then you need to be 125 pounds from the moment you make the decision to change your self talk.

What if you write your affirmation to read something like this: I am healthy and fit, weighing 125 pounds.

What are you telling your subconscious now? It is extremely important that you phrase your affirmation as if you have already accomplished what you desire. Work on writing it out until you have it precisely as you wish to become.

It is particularly important that your affirmation is crystal clear because what you affirm is exactly what your subconscious mind will bring you.

You need not limit yourself to one affirmation either. Write another one that reflects your new exercise program. I enjoy my healthy new exercise program, or, I love the healthy foods I eat.

Write and rewrite until you are absolutely certain that you have written your goals in the here and now AND to represent precisely what you desire. Then, and only then, begin to speak it aloud and do so several times a day.

Remember to use the present tense. I acknowledge achievement in all my weight loss goals. I have the skill and talent to exercise every day. I am a winner. I am grateful for all of my accomplishments no matter how small.

At first you will feel awkward and uncomfortable and you may not feel or believe what you are saying. You may feel silly saying them out loud. It does not matter. Continue to speak the affirmations aloud with as much conviction as you can muster. Try using driving time in your car for firm, strong voiced self talk. It has taken a long time to train your subconscious to use negative self talk. If you will persevere with speaking your affirmations aloud, firmly and confidently, you will be amazed at how quickly you can turn your thoughts around.

You did not hop on a bicycle the first time and just take off down the street. It took practice to train your body to balance on those two wheels. This will take some practice as well. Continue to repeat your affirmations aloud, several times a day for the next 30 days and you will be amazed at how much you change your thinking and attitude.

Lets investigate how words affect you in your everyday life. Take a trip down memory lane and recall some real life experiences that made you happy, proud, and successful or any combination of the three.

Spend some time recalling how you felt. Maybe you won a spelling bee as a child, or hit a home run. Who was there? This will help you remember. You had those feelings once and you can achieve them again. What words did others use while you were experiencing those feelings of joy and happiness?

Recall those words, and write them down. Then, put them to work in your daily conversations. They are words that are already proven to have a positive affect on your well being. Recalling and including them in your day will trigger those feelings again because your subconscious already has an association with those words and their results.

Above all, take action. If you have become a slave of procrastination, decide to rid your life of it once and for all. Yes, you can create affirmations to help you there as well. I have the attitude and skills to take action today. I am winning in my life by turning my attitude into action.

Do nothing and nothing gets done. Do something and many things are placed in motion. Regardless of what you are doing in life, you need to take action. Do something every day to put your plan in motion.

How is your attitude? What are your first thoughts when you awake in the morning? You have got quite a lot to choose from.

Do you begin the day by dragging out of bed bemoaning the fact that you have to get to work? Or, do you embrace the morning as another great opportunity to do great things?

Put the universal law of reciprocity to work in your life every single day. Did you know as much as ninety nine percent of our conversation is negative? There are some folks who can hardly wait to get their mouths open so they can one up another person's current negative situation.

Hmmm, think back to that self talk. If what you hear every day is negative, it is no wonder your self talk brings you down and prevents you from being, doing and having everything you desire. Try this exercise. Make a decision today, right now, from this moment to spend the rest of the day contributing to conversation in a positive way.

Impossible, you say? Not so. Say that somebody complains about another rainy day. Your response might be, yes, is it not great? See that beautiful rainbow! Try and create the habit of saying something positive to everyone.

If you are learning to say something positive to everybody about everything every time, you are disciplining your subconscious for positive results in everything that happens to you.