One thing that has become very apparent to me is that the way our body currently looks and feels is purely feedback about the input it is getting. Some of it relates to how we eat and how we move (exercise and activities), but more of it has to do with how we think. Your body is a reflection of how you think because of all the actions we do (including eating) are a result of the information your body is receiving from the outside world–and it receives that information through interpretive thoughts.
What you choose to eat and what you crave to eat are usually products of what you are programming your body to want and need. How much you move and are inspired to move is also a result of the programming your body has received.
This programming happens from how we interpret our bodies and our other physical plane experiences. Every time you have an experience in your physical environment, you have a conscious interpretation of that event. The way you interpret those events leads to emotional responses: some big, some small, and some that feel pretty neutral (usually from those mundane things you do on a daily basis–brushing your teeth, putting your shoes on, etc.). Every time you have a reaction to an observation in your experience and create an emotional response, you cause a chemical cascade to happen in your body that your body then responds to based on the feedback. This is of particular interest when your body is receiving messages of stress.
The part of your brain that responds to signals of stress does not know the difference between emotional stress and physical stress. So if you have extra body fat, there is a very good chance that you are programming your body, via negative emotions, to store fat. You may very well be creating a chemical blueprint from an emotional response that is the same blueprint that tells your body that you are physically starving or in a state of famine. That is one reason why your body would not only crave more food but also store what you eat, because it thinks that you will go long periods without food. Your cravings also might be driven by the need for your body to refuel itself with calorie-dense foods–this need coming from the signal that there is not enough, which was created by the emotional starvation. And since your brain knows what your likes and dislikes are, it will help you go after food by creating a craving for the foods it knows you like. Your desire to move, or not to move, can come from this programming as well. If your body is getting the signal that it is starving, then moving less would be essential for survival. (Again, this is all based on the signals that the body is getting.) So not liking to exercise or move around may have more to do with your body´s needs than it does your willpower. This may be especially true for you if you were a kid who ran around a lot and did a lot of physical activities. Your body was getting different programming then. Just imagine how energy a happy child has. They want to move and jump around constantly. This is our natural state of being. It isn´t until we add in all the stresses of life that we lose the desire to be active like a child does.
What are the thoughts that could create this false signaling that is causing your body to crave foods, want to store fat, and not move as much? Remember, these things are just indicators of something else–that something else being thoughts and emotions. Feeling bad about your body is the biggest reason I can think of. Judging yourself for where you are or where you are not can create the same chemical blueprint as actual starvation. Also think of the fact that when you know what you don´t want you create a desire for an improvement–a desire for what you do want (even if you are not consciously aware of it). You now have two points of relativity–what you don´t want and what you do want. If you continue to focus on what you don´t want you are keeping yourself away from what the situation has helped you to determine you do want, which could create another sensation of deprivation. You can then imagine that this sense of emotional lack and deprivation (by not moving toward your new desire) creates a similar chemical blueprint as real-life starvation. And every time you are thinking something negative about your body, you reactivate this signal, and your body responds to this even if you are eating an abundance of food.
Another situation that can cause this same chemical blueprint would be neglecting your craving because you are on a diet. If your body feels it is in a chronic starvation state because you are bombarding it with negative signals, and you don´t eat because you don´t want to go off your calorie restricted diet, you create another sense of deprivation–both emotionally and physically. And if you did eat, one of two situations could arise. One would be that your body, being in starvation mode, would store this food as fat. The other situation would be that you felt guilty for eating the food you did (especially if you ate at the level of your body´s asking). This sense of guilt can create the same chemical response that tells your body it is starving or that there is big trouble.
However you look at it, your body is an indicator of how you have been thinking. It is also an indicator of what you have been eating and how you have been moving, but both of those could be indicators of how you are thinking as well. What you desire to do and to eat as well as not to do and not to eat comes more from a primal instinct to survive.
If you don´t like where you are and are forcing yourself to do things you aren´t inspired to do in the realm of diet and exercise, then you might want to take a look at how you are thinking about your body and your eating as well as other things in your life.
One way to tend to this, to see if in fact you have a negative chemical response that is going on, is to sit for a few moments with your eyes closed. Think about something you really enjoy (love, appreciate, etc.) and while you do that, pay attention to how you feel. Once you notice the sensation that comes along with your positive focus, turn your attention to how your body looks now. Notice where you feel the negative emotion. Most people feel their negative emotion in their abdomen area. This, to me, could be a false sense of hunger. It may or may not feel like hunger to you, but it could be the beginning of a hunger signal. If you feel any negative emotion, regardless of where you feel it, you want to use that negative emotion as another indicator. It is indicating a thought that is working against you. Do your best to challenge that thought so you feel better. Once you remove the negative (limited) perspectives that surround your subject you will be de-activating the fat storage mode your body is in. Not to mention, you will also stop your body from producing all the extra calories that comes with the release of cortisol (mobilized blood sugar), which is the result of stress–both physical and mental.
