In your quest to lose weight and get healthy, you’re likely to devote a majority of your focus to common tasks like changing your diet and adding exercise to your daily routine. While that’s great, you also need to alter how you think about food, yourself and your weight loss goals. Know that losing weight and successfully keeping it off is just as mental as it is physical, maybe even more so. So how do you do that?

Change How You View Food and Exercise

Instead of looking at food as a type of reward for the punishing endeavor of exercising, look at them both as tools for bringing out the best in your body. Once you start to regularly engage in exercise, you’re sure to notice how much better your mood becomes as you start to improve your health, which is a great form of self-care.

Retool Your Goals

Instead of making losing a specific number of pounds your goal, change things up. Instead, make eating a specific number of servings of vegetables and fruits one of your daily goals. Try exercising for an extra 10 minutes a goal rather than losing an extra pound. Know that ThinCo sells nautral weight loss tablets that you can take to supplement your goals as well as your new mental and physical lifestyle. By making this mental shift and including health supplements, losing weight becomes a result of your goals rather than the goal itself.

Think Long Term Rather Than Short Term

Rather than feel you need to lose a specific number of pounds in the coming weeks or months, you’re better off setting long-term goals so you don’t have to deal with the stress of being pressed for time. That stress can actually jeopardize your weight-loss goals and make your mission that much harder. Give yourself a long-term goal, such as losing weight and keeping it off to avoid the diabetes that runs in your family, or maybe you’d like to climb a flight of stairs without running out of breath. If you only want to lose weight for an upcoming class reunion or special event, you may gain it right back once the event has passed.

Spend Time With the Right People

Another step to take is to surround yourself with people who are positive and will uplift you during your transformation rather than pull you down with their negativity. You may be reluctant to cut ties with some of your friends and family if they only have negative things to say, but you have to do so for the good of your physical and mental health. Additionally, don’t be afraid to be honest with people if they ask why you don’t spend as much time with them anymore; they may not even realize that they, too, need to change their mindset.

Connect With Your Body

Rather than look at your body as something to change the appearance of, learn to truly connect with it. This can be as simple as stopping to close your eyes and breathe before each workout. By taking time to connect with your body, you allow yourself to truly align with your intentions of improving your health and noticing your muscles, blood flow, heartbeat, breath and how they’re all connected. Forging a deeper connection can also lead to a deeper appreciation of what the human body is capable of when you give it what it truly needs.

Be Kind to Yourself

Pushing yourself to eat better and do your best during your workouts is great, but you’ve got to be sure you don’t go overboard. Identify unkind thoughts and doubts you have about yourself and challenge them. Verbally say “stop” when such thoughts bubble up, which acts as a powerful trigger. Think of what you would tell a close friend who was having these thoughts and apply that message to yourself.

Developing a new and healthy mindset is a powerful tool when it comes to changing your life. See how these tips work for you as you focus on losing weight, and see if they can help with similar goals in your life.