Weight loss is in your mind!

After having my third child, I was about 40 pounds overweight and I was just miserable. Oh, people said I looked fine, considering I had three kids. I wasn't satisfied with the belief that I would never be "thin" again just because I had a busy life and three small children. I went to a conference in October 2007 and listened to a professor at Harvard (Shawn Achor) talk about the Psychology of happiness. The information that he gave really startled me, and I realized I could change my reality by simply changing my attitude about how I viewed myself.

First of all, Shawn Achor said that much of what we think about will determine what our outcome will be. He told us of a study that was done where they took hotel maids who did the same amount of work and put them into two groups. The first group they told them to just do their normal work and change nothing. The second group they told that they work much harder and burn more calories during the day than the average person. They were told to change nothing in their everyday lives and six weeks later they checked back with the two groups. The first group was unchanged but in the second group EVERY person in the study had lost weight! Why? Because they were told how many calories they were burning and so the women told their brains that they were working very hard and in return the brain burned calories faster and they lost weight. Can you imagine the impact that could have on your workouts or the things you do during the day? If you work a job that require you to move around a lot I really recommend doing this mind exercise. See if you can duplicate the results. When you are working out instead of grumbling in your head about how hard the workout is, think about instead what you will look like at the end of the workout or how many calories you are burning. If you keep a positive mental attitude about your workouts and your weight loss, I PROMISE your results will be faster and more dramatic.

The second thing that I learned about is how to shortcut your way to a better habit. How many times have you told yourself "I am going to work out today!" only to find yourself sitting on the couch and beating yourself up for not working out? Shawn Achor had some great tips on this. Make the thing you want to do most the easiest thing to do and release some of your mental barriers.
For example, if you come home from work and want to work out, your brain will think of all the reasons it will be "inconvenient" to work out. First, you have to go to your bedroom, get all of your workout attire out, get dressed for your workout, stretch, get your music out or your workout equipment out, and only AFTER you do all these things can you even begin working out! So what is the easiest thing to do instead of working out? Walk to your couch, sit down and use your remote to turn on the TV! So how do you keep yourself from being a couch potato? Make the steps for working out easier than the steps for sitting on the couch! How do you do that? Lay your workout clothes out and place them on the couch in your living room before you start you workday, or before you start your busy day at home. Place everything in a spot that will be sure to catch your attention the moment you are home or the moment you are ready to work out. Now take the remote control and remove the batteries. Place the remote on top of your fridge or cabinet in another room an place the batteries in a drawer in another room. You have now given yourself an advantage to working out! It is easier now to get into your workout clothes and get a good workout than it would be to locate the remote, find the batteries, and then MOVE the workout clothes to sit down on the couch! This action can be used in the mornings too. Just go to bed in your workout clothes and have your shoes on the floor waiting for you and it will take more work to get out of your clothes rather than getting up and just working out!

Just remember that you are worth it! Being well and happy is worth more than any amount of wealth or success in the world. Many millionaires would give up all their riches to just get the quality of their health back! Taking time for you is worth it and getting into the habit can be easier than you thing if you just realize it is a mindset as well as pumping some iron!

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