2 of 25

Write now Article Tools

If you can get the right mindset, you are 99% of the way to your weight-loss goal. Why? Because changing habits is the secret to permanent weight loss - and habits are all in the mind!

The human brain has an enormous amount of work to do. It has to keep your body running, as well as dealing with all the challenges you throw at it every day. "Habits" are the brain's way of coping with that enormous workload. Think of an airline pilot: when the plane is cruising at altitude in empty sky, he will put the plane on autopilot so he can do other things. Your brain is the same. To your brain, eating seems an obvious thing to put on autopilot - it knows what you like, and it knows you need to shovel the food into your mouth to keep alive. Why waste valuable brainpower on that?

So when you try to put effort into thinking about food, your brain gets annoyed that you're wasting it's time, focussing on what it thinks should be an easy, routine task - so it tries to reinforce your old habit, and make you go back to it. So you see, it's not your fault when you fall off the diet wagon - your own brain is sabotaging you!

The good news is that if you can fight that reaction and stick to your new way of eating for long enough, your brain will give up and accept it as a new habit. Unfortunately I can't tell you how long is long enough - the time differs for each person. You may be able to set up a new habit in two weeks, or it may take a month or so. The trick is to find a way to survive those few weeks, until your new habit has formed - then you will find losing weight miraculously easier.

One trick is to change one small habit at a time - slip it under your brain's radar!

For instance, I broke one bad food habit by going on the Carbohydrate Addict's diet. This diet is a bit like the Atkins diet - it allows you to eat as much as you like during the day (but NO carbohydrate). For dinner, you can eat ANYTHING YOU LIKE, but

(a) you must start with a green salad and
(b) you only have one hour to eat your whole dinner. As soon as the hour is up, you must stop and can't have anything else till tomorrow morning.

So you see, this diet didn't ask me to give up very much - all I had to do was survive the day, and I could pig out in the evening.

I didn't always manage to eat the right things during the day but, because I knew I had the evening to look forward to, I usually came close. I wish I could say the same about dinner: I can't tell you the number of times I "forgot" to make a green salad,

• 1
• 2
• next page >>

Add your voice

Know something about Getting the right mindset to lose weight?
We want to hear your view. Write now!