By overriding your mental conditioning, you can reprogram yourself and better manage your emotional life. Ask yourself:

• Are my thoughts true?
• Do they serve my best interests?
• Do they advance and protect my health?
• Do they help me achieve my weight-management goals?

When you do this reality check, your beliefs, attitudes and evaluations of yourself will begin to change, no matter how long-standing they are.

To be liberated from the control of negative emotions, you'll need to see the truth in the fact that you're responsible for upsetting yourself. It's wrong to continue in the belief that something or someone is causing you to feel emotions you don't want to feel. I know I keep knocking this into your head: You can't change other people or conditions; you can change only your reactions to them.

Rethink Weight Loss  
Regaining control of your feelings is not only the key to losing weight, but also to your overall well-being. These seven steps will show you how to do it!

• The Ultimate Weight-Loss Solution
• Step 2: Resolve Life's Problems
• Step 4: Challenge Your Thoughts
• Step 5: Gain Closure
• Step 6: Learn to Forgive
• Step 7: Cope Without Food

From the October 2003 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine