Secret 8: Retrain Your Brain
Interestingly, most people who have lost and kept
off the most weight tend to be “lower left” brained,
meaning they are organized, controlled, methodical and disciplined. This is
not to say that those of us who thrive on spontaneity or embrace clutter
are doomed- it’s just a matter of retraining our brains. Encourage yourself to
become better organized by writing a grocery shopping list and sticking to it!
Try to plan a workout schedule for the next week and make a promise to stick
to it. These efforts will help solidify your lifestyle change and make permanent
weight loss more of a reality.
Secret 9: Start Today and Don’t Cheat
It’s easy to put off starting a serious lifestyle change to a later date. Likewise,
it’s easy to “cheat” and eat an extra piece of cake here, a pizza there. It’s
important to be diligent when attempting to lose weight, because people who
don’t cheat on a regular basis are 150% more likely to maintain their weight
loss. Try to adopt a “do-able” healthy lifestyle you can stick with; this will
reduce those compelling urges to unwittingly sabotage your weight
management success.
Secret 10: Know that Birds of a Feather stick together
A study of 12,067 people followed over 32 years concluded that obesity
spreads through social ties. That is, obese people tend to have obese friends.
Pairs of friends and siblings of the same sex seem to have the most profound
effect on each other’s weight loss. Some researchers suspect that the spread
of obesity has a lot to do with an individual’s general perception of the social
norms regarding the acceptability of obesity. The logic works like this: If my
best friend and my sister are both obese and I love and admire
them all the same, then maybe it’s not so bad that I gain a few pounds.
To reverse this psychological phenomenon try inviting pals to work out at the
gym or go for a bike ride with you to stay or get fit.
Copyright 1997 - 2008 Lifestyles Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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