WeightLossDietSecrets

“The strangest secret in the world is that you become what you think about.”
- Earl Nightingale

This does not mean you will get thin simply thinking about it. You do need to take action, and obviously you have to exercise and eat the right foods. But the first thing you need to do, to set yourself up for success, is to establish a firm, determined state of mind.

Setting weight loss goals, and staying with it, is however probably one of the more difficult things to do when you set out on an exercise and/or diet program. The key to setting weight loss goals is to make sure they’re specific, realistic, measurable and attainable.

The difference between knowing what to do and doing what you know - “Nutrition and exercise can be confusing subjects, so when you first get started, the initial challenge is that you don’t know what to do. Now that you have this program in your hands, knowing what to do will no longer be a problem. However, gaining knowledge is only half the battle. The far greater challenge for most people is applying that knowledge and taking action. There is a big difference between knowing what to do and doing what you know. Goals are the bridges that span this gap.”

Tom Venuto, in Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle

Breaking Out Of Gravity

Stephen R. Covey, in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People draws a powerful image:

“Those of us that watched the lunar voyage of Apollo 11 were transfixed as we saw the first men walk on the moon and return to earth. Superlatives such as ‘incredible’ and ‘fantastic’ were inadequate to describe those eventful days. But to get there, those astronauts literally had to break out of the tremendous gravity pull of the earth. More energy was spent in the first few minutes of lift-off, in the first few miles of travel, than was used over the next several days to travel half a million miles.”

and

“…’Lift off’ takes a tremendous effort, but once we break out of the gravity pull, our freedom takes on a whole new dimension.”

Start Right For Sure Success

Most successful people find that setting goals is one of the most important parts of achieving those goals and this applies to almost everything in life including your ability to be successful with weight loss.

What you do have to realize however is these goals need to be realistic and you need to believe that you can achieve them or you will be starting off on the wrong foot and failure will be imminent.

To make your goal achievable you need to look at it over an extended period of time rather than believing that you can lose 15 pounds in a couple of weeks.

Make Up Your Mind

Even though society takes its toll in terms of demand, you should know that the one thing you have total control over is your thoughts. If you want to be successful in losing body fat, you must be your own master, and take charge of your inner conversation. All of us, at one point or the other, have come into contact with the truths of the power that our subconscious minds hold over our destiny.

Suggestions given under hypnosis, or affirmations repeated during deep relaxation are quick ways to access the subconscious mind.

The bottomline here is that everything you think repeatedly will eventually filter into your subconscious mind, and set the course of your journey - YOU are the master, by constantly programming your brain through conscious self-suggestion.

Set Realistic, Attainable Short Term Goals

Within your major goal you should also have short-term goals and once again these need to be realistic to keep you motivated.

These short-term goals will change from time to time as during the course of your weight loss program you will probably find that progress accelerates after certain stages of your plan.

Keep A Diary

Keeping a diary helps a lot of people to achieve their goals as it helps to enforce the actions that are required to meet those goals on a daily basis.

In your diary you can record your body weight, the foods you’ve been eating, any supplements you have been taking and the results that you have been getting from these actions.

This helps you to readjust your goals and make changes to your fitness and nutrition as things change in the course of your weight loss program.

Sometimes you will also plateau for a while where your weight loss will tend to slow down and by having a diary you will be able to look at those areas that you might be able to change to get over that plateau and continue to progress.

The power of focus - “Because of the way your subconscious works, it’s extremely important for you to focus all your thoughts on what you want to achieve, not on what you want to avoid. This is not mere semantics; it’s a very important distinction. If I ask you to close your eyes and not to think about monkeys, you’ll (mentally) see monkeys everywhere. You can’t NOT think about something! You either think about something or you don’t. And you always move toward what you think about the most, regardless of whether it’s positive or negative…”

Tom Venuto, in Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle