I GET IT!!!
You want to lose weight.
Correct?
And if you do lose weight, you “fear” regaining it all.
Right?
How do I know?
I have counseled thousands upon thousands of patients just like you.
While most these patients experience some degree of success……
Only a small percentage achieve what I term permanent weight loss. Simply put, they get to their ideal body weight and stay there.
Permanent weight loss success is not dependent upon diet, exercise or surgery
By working with thousands of weight loss surgery patients on a regular basis, the one absolute truth creating long-term weight loss success becomes clear.
The good news is this truth has nothing to do with learning how to deal with starvation, spending money on a fancy gym membership, or increasing your “Will Power”
Now, don’t misunderstand what I am saying. There is certainly a physical component to weight loss and living a healthy life.
Eating healthy can produce weight loss
In fact, we are dedicated to teaching you the basics of nutrition and how it effects all areas of your life.
From mental function to the motivation you need to achieve your weight loss goals.
And how you can use nutrition to prevent or even cure diseases such as Arthritis, Diabetes, High Cholesterol, along with a host of other chronic diseases of our day.
In addition to our site, I highly recommend you visit the sites of Dr’s. David Perlmutter, William Davis and Ron Rosedale.
Like us – these experts teach the virtues of self-directed health care using healthy weight loss.
Exercise can produce weight loss
As for exercise, I personally enjoy the Beach Body programs for home fitness and have had many patients benefit from programs such as T-tap.
But, you don’t need the wisdom of a Dietitian or Doctor to know
“a dinner consisting of steak salad and sparkling water with sliced lemons and limes is healthier than deep dish pizza with several glasses of alcohol at the trendy corner restaurant that just opened a couple blocks down the street.”
Nor do you need advice from a personal trainer to know any form of exercise for 20-30 minutes per day is beneficial.
The one thing needed to make weight loss permanent
Everyone – no matter their age, background, race, religion or sex — who achieves permanent weight loss changes the way they think about food.
That’s it!
To lose weight and never regain it; you must change how you think about food.
Now, don’t be fooled by the perceived simplicity of this statement and please don’t give in to thoughts like –
“Is this it?”, “ Is this all she has to offer?”
As I am not talking about changing the thoughts you know about.
“why do you want to lose weight?”
“Did you consume too many carbohydrates, too many fats, not enough, the wrong type?”
“Are you having beef or chicken for dinner tonight?”
These are your conscious thoughts and they are not the source of your problems.
Thoughts you are not aware of are the source of your problems
The thoughts I am talking about changing to achieve your weight loss goals are those you are not even aware of.
“Which hand do you use to brush your teeth with?”
“On your way to work do you turn left or right when backing out of the drive way?”
“Why do you stop by the same coffee shop or convenience store on your way to work each morning?”
“Even though you know the food is bad for you, why after a stressful day at work do you end up at the snack machine?”
“After a great week of following your diet – perhaps even exercising a little – why do you always seem to end up at your favorite Mexican restaurant indulging in the free chips and salsa along with a few Margaritas and extra salt?”
Without you consciously being aware, over the course of many years your mind has been programmed to produce THOUGHTS that prompt these autopilot actions to take place.
These are the thought’s you must become aware of to achieve permanent weight loss.
The good news is you can change these thoughts
The great news is you can change these unconscious thoughts and their corresponding autopilot actions including those responsible for creating your weight loss issues.
But, the reality is this type of change doesn’t happen on its own. You must intentionally work at it.
As my patients tell me, the good news is with this type of change:
“You don’t have to experience the frustration of going on another diet only to regain all your weight or spend your hard-earned money on exercise equipment that ends up in a garage sell or you give away.”
The process of changing your autopilot eating thoughts and corresponding behaviors begins by bringing the thoughts generating these actions into awareness. A practice commonly referred to as “MINDFUL EATING.”
Mindsight, the first step in achieving permanent weight loss
The process of “Mindful Eating” can be described as first perceiving thoughts so you can intentionally change them. Dr. Daniel Siegel (a Harvard Educated Psychiatrist) and his colleagues have coined this practice as “Mindsight.”
“The ability to focus your attention in order to see the internal workings of your own mind. By becoming aware of your thoughts, it gets you off the feeling of being overwhelmed by them. And gives you the power to change them. Mindsight allows you to become the Author of our own story”
By intentionally practicing “Mindsight” with your undesirable eating behaviors, you move the thoughts and feelings creating these undesirable actions into awareness (your conscious mind).
Letting go produces permanent weight loss
Once aware of these thoughts you can choose to accept them. By accepting them you can choose to let them go.
“It is through this “letting go” process that you change previous unconscious thoughts and their accompanying AUTOPILOT actions!!!!!!!!!”
Once you let go of old thoughts producing your undesirable eating behaviors, you can replace them with new thoughts producing “healthy” actions.
In the case of your eating habits, when you achieve this letting go process and replace old thoughts with new ones.
Your conscious mind will have no problem with you deciding to walk the couple blocks to the new trendy corner restaurant and choosing the steak salad with sparkling water over pizza and beer.
