Five Best Ways to Lose Weight - For Good

Change is difficult, but not impossible. Unfortunately, though, when it comes to dieting, we tend to opt for the fastest, easiest ways to lose weight, hoping that some new, miracle, weight loss program will be the one. Not so.

Permanent lifestyle change is the only effective way to lose weight and keep it off. If you want to stop the viscous cycle of weight gain and weight loss, you must start looking at weight management as a long-term (forever), lifestyle change. It's the only means to creating permanent, healthy behaviours that allow you to break from emotional eating and dieting insanity.

If you're looking for permanent, lifestyle change, which I hope you are, then I'll share my five top and very effective steps towards permanent change. When we choose (and it is a choice) to eat healthy, whole foods, and live an active lifestyle, we can easily stay within five pounds of our "happy weight" for life.

I don't diet anymore. I adjust. And, in future posts, I'll teach you the techniques that I've successfully used for years that help me to not only maintain a healthy weight, but to make minor adjustments if things start to slide.So, without further ado, here are your five steps to permanent change:

Five steps to permanent change

1. Make one change a week
   Change can be overwhelming. Make it easy by choosing one thing you want to change, and do it for a week. For instance, you can decide to consciously eat more fresh fruits and vegetables and less processed foods than you normally do. Once you are comfortable with this new behaviour, you can choose another one and try it for a week. Slowly, over time, your new behaviours will become an easy part of your daily routine.
   
   
2. Plan, plan, plan
   You won't succeed unless you have a plan. Planning requires conscious thought. Becoming conscious of what you do and why is a vital part of any process of change. Know what you have coming up for the week and make a rough plan. But remember: life happens. Nothing is ever written in stone. Allow yourself to adjust to unknown circumstances. However, planning groceries and meals and exercise will prevent the inevitable failings that come without have a plan. Besides, when you have a plan, you've already made the decision to follow through.
    
3. Start thinking, acting, and being your dream
   This is vitally important for success. Thinking and acting like the person you eventually want to be creates connections and memories in your brain and body that will eventually become permanent, fixed ways of being. So, when you get up in the morning, you are that thin, active person who makes healthy choices all day. You are in control of your life. And, when things get in the way, which they will, you are training yourself to consciously act upon them, not subconsciously react to them.
   
   
4. "Check yourself"
   When discussing awareness, a very wise Buddhist nun called, Robina Courtin,  often repeats the phrase, "check yourself". I love it, and have adopted this as my own mantra when negative, subconscious reactions creep into my day. I'll remind myself to consciously "check" my reactions to situations and the emotions attached to them. The more we can pull ourselves away from our subconscious thoughts and behaviours, the easier it is for us to change.
   
   And, finally:
   
   
5. Be kind
   Unfortunately, we take better care of others than we do ourselves. We tend to berate, bash, and beat ourselves as we make mistakes, when we easily forgive and encourage others for the same things. We can't move forward until we learn to accept who we are, and to love who we are unconditionally. That means that we allow ourselves the grace to be human. That means that we don't strive for perfection, but that we strive to be the best that we can be. Mistakes an integral part of being human, and they are vital part of growth. Learn to use them as allies, not enemies.

Take these five tips and post them where they can be seen. For me, they are a constant part of daily life, and the reason why permanent change was possible.

Healthy Eating Made Easy

I’ve often heard people complain that buying and preparing whole, healthy foods is hard, expensive, and takes too much time. In truth, healthy eating is no more difficult than what you do now. The way you currently shop, meal plan, and prepare food is a conditioned response to your subconscious beliefs and preferences about food that have been reinforced over the years. In other words, habit.

Any new behaviour that is reinforced over and over again eventually becomes a habit. A new habit takes about twenty-eight days to create. So, in about three weeks time, you can replace your old shopping and eating habits with new behaviours.

Creating Healthy Eating Habits: Start small 

Pick one behaviour to change each week. For example, if you usually purchase frozen, prepared foods for most of your meals through the week, choose one or two days that you think you can comfortably prepare a home cooked meal from scratch. Pick up fresh vegetables, whole grain pasta or brown rice, and boneless, skinless chicken breasts and you’ve got a healthy, low-carb (sugar) meal. Make extra and you have an easy lunch or dinner for the next day. If you currently buy lunch every day, prepare lunch for a couple of days of the week, gradually increasing that number over time.

Each visit to the grocery store is an opportunity to explore unfamiliar territory. If you normally spend more time in the frozen food section, you can switch it up for a week. Ban yourself from frozen, processed foods, and take a look at what’s available in the produce isle.

Practice, practice, practice

Practice makes perfect, but it takes conscious effort. Plan your strategy before you leave the house. Set a goal and have an action plan ready for shopping day. Know the specials of the week ahead of time and plan healthy meals accordingly.

Remember, one step at a time. Before you know it you'll have a handful of new healthy eating behaviours that will enhance your life. Once new behaviours become habit, they require little or no thought and begin to match the old habits in ease and comfort.

To your health.

How Can Understanding Behaviour Change Help You Lose Weight?

Why is change so darn hard?

I suppose if it were easy no one would struggle with weight and food. We'd all stay at our ideal weights, exercise regularly, and not have the horrible, emotional attachments to our bad diets that we do. But change is difficult, and there's a reason.

Every thought and behaviour we have is defined and controlled by biological and neurological connections in our brains and bodies. When we do anything, whether we're brushing our teeth or grocery shopping, we're operating on a subconscious set of connections that were formed when we first took up the behaviour, and they were strengthened and solidified (with repetition) over time.

We've all had the experience of arriving at our destination while driving without consciously remembering how we got there. That's because our brains and bodies were driven (pun intended), subconsciously, by a fixed set of neurological connections while we thought about something else. It's the same with all behaviour--good or bad.

What do emotions have to do with it?

Behaviours come with emotional attachments. When you end up on the couch with a bag of chips, and you don't know how you got there, it's because the simple thought of the chips created an emotion that caused you to react.

When you thought about the chips your body released some feel-good chemicals in anticipation of eating them--a reward. That initial thought and the emotional response to that thought are what drive our behaviours. Eventually the process reverses and the chemicals begin to drive our thoughts, which drive our emotions . . . and we have a viscous, addictive cycle  So, even though we might want something badly (a healthy lifestyle), we're struggling against some pretty, powerful connections that control our thoughts and actions on a subconscious level. Sounds a bit hopeless--but it's not.

Can we change?

The good news is that nothing is written in stone. All behaviours can be changed. I didn't say it was easy. But it can be done, and your life and happiness are worth the effort.

When we attempt to create a new behaviour--deviating from an old routine--we create new connections in our brains that didn't exist before. So, for example, if we go to the grocery store and decide that this week we're going to scrap the white, starchy carbs (that are very bad for us) and buy whole grain bread and pasta, we've literally changed our brains. New neuronal connections are formed based on the new behaviour.

Let's say that making this healthy choice makes you feel good. Now you've attached a positive, emotional response to this new behaviour. (Don't forget, everything we do is emotionally and chemically driven.)
If you performed this new behaviour once and reverted to your old ways, those new connections would quickly fade and die. However, if you kept at it (despite any obstacles), each time you made healthy choices those connections and the emotional chemicals attached to them would grow stronger and stronger, eventually solidifying the new behaviour. The best part is that the connections to the old behaviour grow weak from lack of use, just like our muscles. Eventually the new, healthy behaviour takes over, becoming a subconscious way of life.

Use will power while you've got it.

As I've said before, will power will only get you so far. Eventually it will fade. It does help during the tough beginning stages of change, though, as your brain and body learn the new behaviour. When the behaviour becomes habit, the connections are then fixed and become part of who you are. You no longer think about it. It becomes a way of life, and you don't need will power any more.

This is how permanent change takes place. It takes time, effort, repetition, and consistency. When you begin to understand how change is part of our neurological and biochemical makeup, it's easier to pursue. Can you understand why going on a fad diet doesn't help you make lasting change?

We need to think long-term here. It's not about losing a certain amount of weight in a short period of time, gaining the weight back, and repeating the process. It's about lasting change. Because, the powerful chemical (emotional) and neurological responses that are attached to bad, unhealthy behaviours will always pull us back to our old ways. We can't help it; we're wired that way. However, we have the power to rewire our brains and change our lives forever.

In future posts, I'll help you move through the necessary steps for lasting change .

Let's Talk Jillian Michaels, Shall We?

If you follow "The Biggest Loser", you may know that Jillian Michaels has a new show. In "Losing It With Jillian", she follows families that are struggling with weight and health issues (she actually moves in with them for a week), and turns them around. Kinda like "Biggest Loser", but on a more intimate level.

I like Jillian. I think she's one of those celebrities that you either love or hate. Now, I don't agree with everything she says or does, but then again, I don't agree with everything anyone says or does. However, I respect her for a couple of reasons.

When I was actively working in the fitness industry, I was continually frustrated with the lack of response (from the entire industry--club owners to sales to trainers) to people's emotional reasons for wanting to get healthy. There was no time or structure or training available to get to the real issues. By ignoring the emotional side of the equation, people dropped out of their programs like flies.

Emotions drive our behaviours. Jillian's main focus in all her episodes is to get to the root of the emotional crisis in people's lives. We're so stuck in a dreamy-fog that most of us need either a catastrophe or a Jillian to get us off the couch. Her "in your face" style pushes people beyond the surface until they finally see how they're killing themselves and their families. Everyone has pain. Everyone has something that drives them toward bad behaviours. This is where we begin.

Jillian's tough guy approach in the gym goes way beyond simply getting in shape. When these people accomplish physical feats they believed were impossible, they move to another level of self. It's like a tipping point. They move past the place where they've been stuck for a long time, and they change. The blockage is gone, and a new core belief sets in, allowing them to do what they came to do.

The other reason I like this show is that Jillian leaves these folks on their own for six weeks. They're forced to work together and with themselves to reach the individual goals they've set. This teaches them real-life behaviours, under real circumstances, that will go a long way to solidifying their new habits. Each time we stick with our goals--despite challenges--we're strengthening and solidifying the connections in our brains that will turn our new behaviours into habits, and, eventually, into a way of life. Jillian taught them how to workout, how to eat healthy, whole foods, and then left them alone to handle the day-to-day reality of their lives. This is how we create permanent change.

But in order to move to this place, we always need to get to the root of what drives our behaviours. We must become aware, and learn to point the arrow inward. Only then will we change our core beliefs from "I can't" to "I can".