Fri, Jun-08-07, 07:51
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Attitude is a Choice
Posts: 30,111
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Plan: No sugar, flour, wheat
Stats: 228.4/209.0/170
BF:stl/too/mch
Progress: 33%
Location: NYC
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Quote:
The 5 best secrets to permanent weight loss
Christine Jary
Ideal weight is achieved by living a relatively healthy lifestyle, i.e. eating well most of time and moving our bodies. While there are several weight loss tips that help us drop a few pounds here and there – green tea and weight training to aid metabolism, hormonal supplements to minimize cravings and control mood, etc; the true secrets to permanent weight loss lie in your mind. There are mountains of scientific evidence indicating that the subconscious rules! It, not the conscious mind, is driving us. Understanding how much what we think and how we feel affect how we approach permanent weight loss and whether we’re successful at it, is essential. Here are my five top weight loss secrets—which are backed by science—to help you harness the power of your mind to lose the weight for good!
1. Focus on what you’re getting, not what you’re giving up
Your parents may have had a much harder time getting you out of the house and off to college if all you focused on were the difficulties of college life. Sure there are the sucky aspects to it. Exams and finals; having to move away from most of your friends and make new ones; and having to take care of your own laundry, eating, and household chores; to name a few. However, the value we place on a college education and the opportunity to finally get away from our parents are just stronger influences. These are what we consciously and unconsciously focus on and we end up leaving the house. Find something deeply compelling for why you want to eat healthy and exercise, then focus on that. Whether it’s finally having that monkey off your back and enjoying a “non-weight obsessed” existence. Knowing that by viewing and treating your body well you’re setting a great example for your kids, your nieces and nephews, or someone in your life that is young and impressionable. Having more energy or enjoying better sex. Aging better. Developing friendships/camaraderie through your workouts when you join a sports team, a dance or tai chi class, or with your neighbors as you cycle around the hood. Feeling good about yourself. Focus on how you’ll benefit, not the fries, the ½ hour of your day you devote to working out, or anything else you will be giving up.
2. Accept that you have to change
Denial is one of the biggest hindrances to permanent weight loss. It keeps us perpetually stuck…going around in circles or avoiding the problem all together. When healthy eating and moving our bodies is an “on and off” thing, we can’t expect to see permanent results. That’s just a given. When we don’t accept that we have to change and do the things that work, we may let ourselves be seduced by late night infomercials that energetically push the latest FAST and EASY way to lose weight. Denial keeps us confused and easily distracted. But here’s the beauty of acceptance – it releases us from the tug of war of the subconscious mind and focuses it on one path. Recently, after doing an assignment I gave her to help identify her mental block, it clicked for one of my clients. She told me, “I realized that deep down why I was beating myself up was because I was disappointed in myself.” While I gave my husband and mom all sorts of excuses (unsolicited ones), I knew the real truth was that I could have done better and didn’t. I was really “off and on” with my program (and was cutting corners in a lot of other areas of my life as well) and trying to deny it. Turns out, giving her husband and mom unsolicited excuses was a way to try to convince herself of it consciously. However, on the subconscious, deeper level she knew the truth; and was disappointed in herself.
3. Have successful relapses…lots of them if you have to!!
Every person who has successfully kept the weight off has relapsed. Everyone. Relapse is part of the process of change. That’s because habits are easy to fall back into. We may be doing great for a while, and bam! Something happens. Life throws us a curve. We move or change jobs, have a baby, family illness, you name it. You lose your focus and don’t eat as well for a while or stop your exercise routine. The secret is to adjust as soon as possible, not give up and toss away your smart lifestyle that was working for you. Remember, you don’t have to eat well 100% of the time, 80% will do; and the gym is not the only place to workout.
4. Educate yourself
There’s a lot we could learn that would help us make a more lasting commitment to a healthy, balanced lifestyle. New and long-known information about physiology, nutrients that help the human body run well, brain chemicals, stress and female hormones, our emotions, the negative effects of too little sleep and exercise on our immune system and weight loss, etc. Consider that many vegetarians -- informal research tells me it's most -- make the choice to stop eating meat when they learned how animals are bred and brought to market, or because of some new information they learned. They describe the inner change as a “switch” that turned off their desire for meat. They weren’t born vegetarians and it is not as easy as one might think to just become one. When most patients learn they’re at high risk or have developed a health condition such as diabetes, a similar switch goes off inside. This switch we’re talking about also has to do with the mind / brain. Scientists have discovered that our desires (including hunger, our desire for power, sex, and sleep) are controlled by an area of the brain called the hypothalamus. As you can imagine, they are busy developing a pill to help people lose weight by controlling the hypothalamus. Unfortunately, it won’t be the magic bullet and we will still have to eat well and exercise. With new knowledge and information we can override some of the old beliefs and false expectations that drive our desires. With new information we can begin to see cause and effect, and decide to make another choice.
5. Manage your thoughts and you’ll mange your emotions / weight
Why? Because our thoughts and emotions are intertwined and affect all our choices. Think about it. When we’re feeling good, we do better. Right? How thoughts work: If I think I deserve to treat myself well, see exercise as a gift I give to myself, don’t believe I have a fat gene and is doomed to struggle with my weight, don’t entertain the thought that there’s a shortcut to health, understand the connection between what I eat and how I feel, sleep, and age; these thoughts and beliefs will be what drives me. Likewise, if I beat myself up or starve myself trying to thin. I will be driven by those unhealthy thoughts, be moody more often; and my choices will reflect that.
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I really like what this lady has to say about permanent weight loss. 
I hope that you find some good thoughts here too.  |
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It's probably just water from the shock to your system! (For some reason, I always gain while traveling, even when I eat on plan!) You'll be back to where you were in no time. 
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