How to Finally Succeed with Weight Loss
At the age of 38, I was a powerful career success: I had won an Emmy for NBC News, worked as Executive Producer of a Travel Network, run my own production company and achieved financial freedom.But I was miserably unhappy. My headlong push to career success came at the expense of my body. I carried it behind me like heavy luggage.
My 38th birthday fell on me hard. I realized that nothing was going to change if I didn’t make some changes, so I dedicated all of myself to a breakthrough with my body. All the skills that I had been using to dominate my career, I used them for weight loss. It worked really well, I became a winning Figure competitor at 39 years old, beating girls half my age.
My success came down to 20 game-changing tools, which I describe in detail in my book, “Loving Your Weight Off.”
Here are some of the keys:
1. Stop Saying “No”
One of the biggest mistakes people make is promising themselves they won’t do a certain behavior. For example, people will often say to themselves, “Until I’m back into my smaller pants, no more chocolate.” What happens? They head straight for the chocolate. The subconscious mind cannot hear no. Therefore you just told yourself “more chocolate.” It is much more powerful to speak and promise new behaviors using “yes” language, such as, “I will bump up my water intake to help myself feel full on less food.”
2. Play the Nutrition Game
A great way to turn around poor eating habits is to play a game. Rather than attempting to cut back on what you eat, try changing your food goal. My favorite game to play is: “How Much Nutrition Can I Take In Today?”
See how well you can feed your body in terms of taking in a wide variety of vitamins, minerals, enzymes and probiotics. When your focus is depriving, you will want more. When your focus is upgrading choices, overeating naturally loses its appeal.
3. Listen
In traditional fitness, a popular approach has been “no pain, no gain.” We have the idea that we should override our natural instincts and push hard toward our goals. That only created yo-yo dieting and exercise for me. Things began to shift dramatically when I began to listen to my body and honor my needs.
For example, rather than depriving myself of my craven foods and white-knuckling the discomfort, I now take a pause and listen inside. I ask myself, “Why do I want that so much?” I find out what I truly need then reach for whatever it is I truly need in that moment. Usually it’s as simple as a rejuvenating nap.
