WEIGHT OFF

YOUR

MIND?

BURNING more calories than you eat is a guaranteed method for losing weight. However, the vast majority of attempts to lose weight this way end in failure.

Why? It turns out that the most formidable opponents to weight loss are within you: body and mind.

Body. The human body has evolved to keep you alive. When the body is losing weight it often responds by reducing metabolism and increasing hunger. As a result you may find it difficult if not impossible to continue the diet. The body's drive to eat is just as strong as drives for sex and self-preservation.

While most of us in modern societies live in a time of abundance, you evolved to live in situations just the opposite. Weight loss always was a danger sign of impending death, while overeating and weight gain were a rare bit of good fortune.

So you are adapted for living where food is scarce but live where it is nearly unlimited. Like a penguin in the blazing desert, or a kangaroo on a polar ice cap, you are living in an environment for which you are not properly adapted!

But don't despair.. there is cause for optimism. For instance your body will often allow slow weight loss over long periods of time. And there are also mechanisms that cause your body to accept weight loss and these can be regulated with exercise frequency and intensity.

Food choices can also influence your ability to lose weight without your body turning against you. Most importantly remember that eating fewer calories than you burn still works every time. Your body cannot defy the laws of physics!

Mind. Your mind can work against you, and like the body it often sabotages your attempts to lose weight as a result of defensive adaptations.

Self-esteem and self-image. Your subconscious mind works very hard to maintain positive thoughts , and when something goes wrong it will choose the explanation that makes you feel the best about yourself.

Generally this means blaming something external or beyond your control. So you'll blame time constraints ,or your metabolism. Maybe you will convince yourself that all you need to succeed is better exercise equipment or a new diet plan, or that you are lacking in willpower or self-control.

But while the real reason you aren't losing weight is because you are making poor CHOICES, your mind rejects this idea completely because this means you have chosen to be overweight and have nothing to blame but yourself.

Self-deception. Focusing on explanations beyond your control may make you feel better, but the problem with self-deception is that you also seek the wrong approaches to weight loss. Without addressing the real problem - your CHOICES - your new exercise equipment is destined to collect dust in the corner of a room, and you are certain to quit your weight loss diet program just like you always do.

So, as Henry Ford said, if you think you can you can; if you think you can't you wont!