Diet: Changing Your Focus
Have you ever decided to take a trip somewhere relatively unfamiliar? Suddenly, everywhere you look, there is something about your planned destination. Turn on a television travel channel and it is featured. Pick up a newspaper and there is an article about it. Why this sudden universal interest in somewhere you had never really thought much about?
That is the secret: you were not previously thinking about it. The subject was always out there but you didn’t -attend so you didn’t notice. We are surrounded by so much stimulation and information that we cannot grasp more than a fraction of what comes into our environment. We filter out the vast majority of that stimuli by our own interests and by our lack of interest. Become involved in a new field and what you thought was a rather narrow and under-developed subject is revealed as a worldwide, enormous, fully developed area in which you are a novice surrounded by experts who appear to be widely known and respected — the “gurus” of the new field — but you have never heard of them before.
Changing your interests changes your world because your filters have been reshaped. It frequently happens spontaneously when something you see or hear hits an internal chord, intrigues you, and drags your thoughts in new directions.
It may also happen by necessity when you are forced to explore new areas in order to accomplish a different goal. For example, I wrote for years. I never thought outside the box of traditional publishing which says submit to the commercial publishers and hope that after an unbelievable number of rejections, something will stick. One day on the internet, I found self-publishing and walked into a vast universe I knew nothing about. Once published, I was forced to foray into the world of publicity that I always thought was a small field encompassing celebrities and public personalities. The depth and breadth of information and resources was overwhelming. After many months of trolling, I have still only scraped the surface.
What is this leading to? If we change our world outlook spontaneously or by necessity, WHY NOT CHANGE IT BY DESIGN?
If I often think about food then my world is filled with food-related stimuli. I watch and attend to food commercials, cooking shows, recipe sources, new restaurants, cookware, and “utterly amazing” kitchen gadgets. If I consider myself a gourmet, I scrutinize the appearance of the dish and the sophistication of the ingredients. If I am on a diet, I scan the details of how many carbohydrates, how much fat, how many grams of protein, the total caloric content. If my focus is health, I look for the vitamins, mineral, and free radical scavengers.
Wherever my particular focus lies, it doesn’t really matter: IT’S ALL ABOUT FOOD!
If we want to change that, to remove food from its central role in our lives, we have to stop thinking about it. Not an easy task but it can be done, even if painful. The real question is how can we do it.
Reread the last two pages. We color our world by how we filter its input. We are going to filter out every scrap of food (excuse the pun) that we can and replace it with different input that won’t make us fat.
What kind of stimuli shall we let in?
This is where we go in different directions because each individual has their own likes and dislikes. For one person, thinking about sex may be an excellent substitution, for another football may provide a pleasant diversion while another may prefer to curl up with a great mystery novel.
What is important at this point is to pick something you like to do! You’re going to have plenty of time to work on the painful aspects of losing weight but at this early stage, being comfortable is of utmost importance. Leave your tendencies toward martyrdom for later.
Take your pleasure from any of these items or add your personal selections.
Reading
Sewing
Solitaire
Mah-jongg
Video games
Jigsaw puzzles
Knitting
Quilting
I hesitate to include exercise. While that is obviously a wonderful thing for your health, if it is something you love, you wouldn’t be overweight. We are looking for enjoyable diversions here, not more “shoulds” and “ought-tos.”
Virginia Bola is a licensed psychologist and an admitted diet fanatic. She specializes in therapeutic reframing and the effects of attitudes and motivation on individual goals. The author of The Wolf at the Door: An Unemployment Survival Manual, and a free ezine, The Worker’s Edge, she recently completed a psychologically-based weight control book: Diet with an Attitude:A Weight Loss Workbook. She can be reached at DietWithAnAttitude.com
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The TRUTH About How to Lose Weight
The huge companies stealing your money by promising impossible results if you just drink their shake, take their pill, or do 10 minutes of exercise on their wiz-bang machines are abusing your trust in the name of profits and market share.
The real truth is that most (if not all) the products they’re peddling are worthless – to you, that is. To them, the products are incredibly valuable – because they’re raking in huge profits at your expense.
? Are you sick of the hype and outright deception being fed to you by the weight loss and fitness industries?
? Are you tired of being led to believe it’s your fault when the junk they push on you doesn’t work?
? Do you want someone you can trust to tell you the truth about real, lasting weight loss and fitness, and show you how to quickly and easily adapt your eating and exercising habits so you can achieve the results you want and deserve?
If you answered "YES!" to any of these questions,then this may be the most important article you ever read.
Because what I have to tell you addresses the most important issue you face – your health. From my years of experience as a certified personal trainer and fitness coach, one critical point has been hammered home countless times: our health is the most valuable asset we have? and if it goes south, we will spend everything we have, financially and emotionally, to get it back!
Four Secrets To Finally Achieving The Weight Loss,Health And Fitness Results You Want….
1. The secret to making a simple commitment to your exercise program. The big companies who are stealing your money want you to believe that a pill, fad diet or a special machine will solve all your weight loss and fitness problems. This is counter-intuitive and insults your common sense. But people still want to believe – because there’s so much PAIN. The real "secret" is quite simple and I’ll distill it for you right here: eat 4 to 5 small healthy meals per day and perform a combination of aerobic and resistance training exercise for 40 to 60 minutes 3 times a week. Take out your calendar right now and mark off three days each week for the next 12 weeks when you will commit to exercising. Then do it. Your consistent commitment will bring you the results you want.
2. The secret of having a coach. Almost every self-help book ever written talks about the critical importance of having a coach/mentor. A coach is an experienced and trusted counselor or teacher. It’s inevitable that you will come up against hard times on your path to losing weight and getting fit. A coach will guide, motivate, educate and support you – so you can easily and rapidly overcome these hurdles. A coach is critical to systemizing your exercise program for maximum results and assisting you in heightening your motivation and strengthening your commitment. And a coach becomes your "objective feedback system," helping you see, understand and correct the problems that are interfering with your progress. Exercise and nutrition are bona fide sciences and learning everything you need to know on your own can take years of struggle – but not if you have a coach.
3. The secret of progression. Have you ever met someone who says they exercise week after week, month after month, even year after year and aren’t getting any new results? Believe it or not, doing the same workout over and over without expert guidance to direct your progress will actually decrease your fitness. You must learn how to progressively improve and fine-tune your efforts for maximum weight loss and fitness results.
4. The BIGGEST secret: accountability. In a recent study at Virginia Polytechnic University, researchers divided people starting a walking program into two groups. Every week, each individual in one group got a phone call asking how their exercise program was coming along, the other group got no calls. At the end of 24 weeks, 45% of the individuals who got the phone calls were still walking compared to just 2% who did not receive calls. The results show that weekly accountability increases the likelihood of sticking to your exercise program by 2200%!
What you’ve just read is some of the most valuable information you will ever hear on how to lose weight and get fit. And having the RIGHT information is critical. But intellectually understanding what should be done, and actually doing it, are two very different things.
The truth is most people can’t get a grip on the three essential factors that separate those who achieve real and lasting physique transformations from those who don’t. Most people have difficulty with the commitment; don’t grasp the importance of progression; and lack the personal accountability to achieve their weight loss and fitness goals. Why?
Three reasons:
1. Bad information
2. It’s easy to cheat yourself
3. No guidance.
So what is the ultimate "secret" to successfully and rapidlyachieving your weight loss and fitness goals?
I have discovered that the ultimate secret to getting the results you want is finding a coach who understands you and provides you with an effective weight loss and exercise program and guidance, motivation, support? but most of all, a coach who makes you ACCOUNTABLE.
With the right health and fitness program and a coach to hold you accountable, you can become a goal-achieving machine. The weight will just peel off – and your firm, toned, attractive body will emerge.
Think about it. In your heart you know the truth. There is no quick fix, no magic potion, special pill or wiz-bang exercise equipment that is going to suddenly make you fit. The infomercials and advertisements you are bombarded with daily are produced by multi-million dollar companies that know how to push your emotional buttons.
They know how to get you to pull out your credit card. But once you get their shake or pill or abdominal machine, you realize that you have been misled. Because it’s not the pill, the potion, the fancy gym membership or the expensive equipment that will get you healthy and fit.
The ONLY thing that works is commitment to a healthy diet and regular exercise. You’ve got to burn more calories than you consume – simple as that.
But there is only one way to internalize your commitment and cultivate your motivation:
You must personally experience results!
And the quickest, most foolproof way to experience those results is to have a coach guide you.
The bottom line is this: you will have to engage in a moderate exercise program and you will have to eat a more healthy diet in order to safely, effectively and rapidly lose weight – and keep it off permanently! If you’re not ready to hear that, if you are still in search of some kind of "miracle" – then I can’t help you. Because I promise you, based on years of trial and error, years of study and years of real life application?there is no "miracle" weight loss program out there.
You may not believe it now, but losing weight and getting fit is not as difficult as you think. Anyone can enjoy a lean, toned body if they just understand the basic, fundamental principles I’ve discussed in this report – and then apply them to their daily lives.
But keep in mind that no matter how hard you work – if the underlying "system" is faulty, you’ll never achieve your weight loss and fitness goals. So be sure that, wherever you choose to get your information, it is accurate so that you can create an effective weight loss system.
Marilyn is a successful exercise/nutrition trainer and coach who works with women who are 50+. Her website fitandfabulouswoman.com provides fitness information, fitness products, fitness services, fitness advice and on-line personal training that support mature women in being their best…one-stop shopping for a healthy body, a clear mind and a soaring spirit.
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