Dieting Is All In Your Brain

Some people eat to live, all 6 of them and then there are the rest of us.  One of the things about doing this challenge is I have become the “diet whisper” to so many.  Now I certainly don’t mind sharing my 40 plus years of dieting knowledge, since I have lost multiple hundreds of pounds over my lifetime.  What most people and I really need is a “weight maintenance whisperer.”

Losing weight is exciting and maintaining that loss is dull boring and really a life’s work.  It is certainly not something I have mastered and am clearly a long way off from worrying about right now.  First, lose the weight.

So if you are looking for the real secret about losing weight, here it is…your brain has decide to do it and then your body will follow.  So if you are struggling with trying to lose weight stop trying.  Ask yourself if you really want to do it.  Once your brain says it’s in then your body will join.  Why?  Because changing your habits takes every bit of strength your brain has.

I heard an interesting bit of information the other day.  You don’t just make a couple of decisions about what to eat everyday, but more like two thousand decisions.  Do I have the turkey?  If I do, should I have cheese with it?  What kind of cheese? How much cheese?  I probably should not have the cheese, but now that the idea of cheese has entered my brain I really want the cheese.  I could just forget the turkey and eat the cheese.  But one little piece of cheese won’t fill me up and I will still be hungry.  Making the right decision 2000 times a day is practically impossible.

The exhaustive fight to do the right thing begins to take up all your brains computing power.  No wonder most of us give up the fight because we actually have to do something else, like go to work, the laundry or remember to pick your kid up at school.  The headmaster does not accept the excuse, “sorry I was late, my brain was fighting over the apple versus cookie decision.”

So find a way to get your mind in the game first and then do everything possible so your brain can’t get you out of it.  My way is publicly announcing I am doing this, but I know that way is more than a little crazy.  It is my crazy brain I have to work with.