The Life-Changing Prayer to Help You Lose Weight

“I feel disgusting. I’m so fat.”

“I hate myself for eating all those cookies.”

“I’m a hopeless case. I’ll never lose this weight.”

Sound familiar?

If you can relate, I want to tell you about a life-changing book that will help you release those negative and self-sabotaging thoughts. The thoughts that prevent you from releasing weight.

The Only Little Prayer You Need, by Debra Landwehr Engle, is a gem. Rooted in the teachings of A Course in Miracles, which is a form of spiritual psychotherapy, this book teaches you a simple process to heal your thinking on a deep level. While not specifically about weight loss, The Only Little Prayer You Need helps you create a peaceful mind so you stay strong and confident on your journey.

Now, I read a lot of books and highlight a lot of text. I don’t typically feature them in my blog. But this one is different. This process is one that stuck with me—and has already made a huge difference in my life and my clients’ lives. I hope the same for you.

Engle explains how all our thoughts are rooted in either fear or love. For example, when you criticize yourself for being overweight, you may not consciously feel afraid, but that kind of negativity is rooted in fear: Of not being good enough, worthy or loveable. The Only Little Prayer You Need helps guide you back to your natural state: love.

You’ve probably spent years berating yourself for being overweight, binge eating, and yo-yo dieting. You’ve struggled with this for so long that speaking to yourself with love and compassion may feel impossible.

Changing your self-talk is a hard pattern to break on your own. Your inner critic loves to trick you into believing you’re not worthy of having what you want, including a thinner body. When success feels hard to achieve, it’s easy to buy into your inner critic’s lies.

In The Only Little Prayer You Need, Engle gives you a quick prayer to help you release these painful lies:

“Dear God, Please heal my fear-based thoughts.”



So, you may be wondering how this will help you release weight.

Well, it’s simple. Your thoughts and beliefs influence everything about your weight-release journey. For example, when you beat yourself up for overeating, being overweight or not exercising, negativity and shame drain your spirit. You feel defeated. You think, “What’s the use?”

That bag of donuts begins to look real tempting.

Imagine, though, if instead of using punishing self-talk, you feed yourself words of love and compassion. I promise you that when you learn to do this your weight-release journey becomes much easier.

Now here’s the rub: When you feel disappointed and demoralized, it’s hard to switch gears and talk to yourself with love and encouragement. It’s a tough thing to do on your own. That’s where the prayer comes in.

When you say the prayer—“Dear God, Please heal my fear-based thoughts”—you reach out to a power greater than yourself to help you do what you cannot do alone.

As Engle writes, “By asking your fear-based thoughts to be healed, a new space is created within your mind.” And as that space opens, you become open to hear Divine guidance—your inner wisdom—speak to you.

After I read The Only Little Prayer You Need, this prayer became my mantra and I began recommending it to my clients. Here’s what Danielle says about how it helped her with emotional eating:

“After an upsetting phone call with my boyfriend, I felt angry and rejected. I grabbed Rocky Road ice cream from the freezer and began eating, straight from the container! I then remembered what you told me about the prayer. I put the ice cream down, knowing I could keep eating if I wanted to, and repeated out loud, ‘Dear God, Please heal my fear-based thoughts, please heal my fear-based thoughts’ over and over and over. 



After a while, I started to calm down. I kept repeating the prayer. The thought then entered my mind, ‘Put the ice cream away. You don’t need it. Make a green smoothie.’ After I heard that, I felt even calmer. I put the ice cream away and made the smoothie. I was still upset about the phone call but instead of binge eating on ice cream and beating myself up afterwards, I made something healthy and it helped me feel strong.”

Everyone’s mind is filled with thousands of fear-based thoughts every day. You’re not alone. You, too, can use the prayer to find inner peace when confronted with body image and emotional eating challenges.

Here are some ways to do that:

• When you pass a mirror and criticize yourself… say the prayer.

• When you feel the urge to binge on cookies and chips… say the prayer.

• When you berate yourself for how much you weigh… say the prayer.

• When you feel impatient with how long it’s taking to release weight… say the prayer.

“Dear God, Please heal my fear-based thoughts.”

I’d love to hear what happens for you. Please share your thoughts below…