From Fat to Thin Thinking Read online

  “I am glad you mentioned that,” I said. “There are upsides to the struggle, like hiding out. We don’t have to live up to others’ expectations. We can be invisible.”

  I asked Mike, “Do you have ‘bad’ students who have become accustomed to bad grades and are afraid to change, even though they know that better grades would make their future so much brighter?”

  “Sure,” he said smiling. “I see what you are getting at. These kids are like me, hiding out because they are afraid of the extra work it takes to be a good student. I can literally see their minds freaking out at the idea of the homework and studying they would have to do to get a good grade just as I am freaking out at the idea of working for weight mastery.”

  “So with your students who struggle, do you just let them keep failing?”

  “Of course not. I try to help them by teaching in a fun way. Giving them new material a little bit at a time, so they aren’t overwhelmed. If they can fall in love with learning the subject rather than being a good student and getting an A, then they usually do start enjoying themselves. If they improve, it builds their confidence, and they can turn themselves around.”

  “So, Mike, what if weight mastery wasn’t about getting an A, but it was about learning about managing your weight in a way you could enjoy and do, bit by bit? What if you could make mistakes but keep moving forward and improving? Suppose you then began to lose weight and feel better physically and emotionally? Wouldn’t you be more confident? Could you look at it that way?”

  Mike smiled. “Okay, if I expect my students to do it, I can do it, too.”

  Mike made the decision to become a Weight Master and committed to first being an apprentice. He dropped by my office, while riding home on his bike, a few months after hitting his goal weight. He looked happy and completely transformed.

  “I finally was able to become a learner rather than a struggler. I took it slow and didn’t go for the A. I kept learning and making mistakes, but instead of starting over, I kept learning. I learned how to live in a way that keeps me eighty pounds lighter than I was before. That was a pretty good lesson that I know I can’t unlearn.” Mike J. (Released 80 pounds, maintaining 3 years.)

  Make the Decision Exercise

  Okay! Now it’s time for you to decide on the path of the life you want to live.

  Weight Struggler

  Victim mentality

  Stuck in yo-yo Weight Struggle Cycle

  Run by fear and shame

  Seeing mistakes as failure

  Weight Mastery

  Apprentice mentality

  Consistent weight release and maintenance in the Weight Mastery Journey

  Run by self-support and self-respect

  Seeing mistakes as opportunities to learn and improve

  Remember either choice is valid. You know which one I am hoping you will choose, but make the decision from your heart.

  Take a deep breath and drum roll, please…what path do you decide on? Circle your choice!

  THE WEIGHT STRUGGLE JOURNEY The journey of Weight Struggler stuck in the perpetual Weight Struggle Cycle.

  THE WEIGHT MASTERY JOURNEY The journey of an “apprentice” of weight mastery living a slimmer life, full of learning, adventure, confidence, health, and freedom.

  If you chose The Weight Struggle Journey, I understand and no hard feelings.

  If you chose The Weight Mastery Journey, congratulations! You are now an apprentice of weight mastery and are ready to move to the next step.

  When you begin your life, you get a birth certificate. When you graduate from school or training, you get a diploma. When you begin your life as an apprentice of weight mastery, you need to make it official with yourself. How many diets have you started as a knee-jerk reaction to feeling fat and then you forgot you were on a diet the second the brownies were presented?

  This contract represents a powerful decision. No matter what, you are now an apprentice on a lifelong journey to release weight and master the skills and mindset that will keep you at your ideal weight for the rest of your life.

  ***

  APPRENTICE OF WEIGHT MASTERY CONTRACT

  I, (name) am now an apprentice of weight mastery.

  By being an apprentice, I commit to learning, evolving, and improving my relationship with food and exercise, my body and myself.

  I am shutting the door on the prison of my weight struggle, choosing the path of weight mastery instead. I am ready to begin my journey, and by signing this contract, it means that I will never turn back or start over.

  I will participate fully, keep an open mind (and heart), stretch, and push myself past where I normally stop, because where I stopped kept me in the struggle and living the same predicable outcome over and over again. I also promise to have fun and enjoy the journey as I release weight and achieve weight mastery!

  Sign here: Weight Mastery Apprentice:

  Date:

  ***

  Good work, Apprentice. Take a deep Shift Breath and seal the deal. If it’s okay, I will call you “Apprentice” from now on? Being an apprentice of weight mastery gives me such joy and a wonderful daily attitude. I am glad you are now initiated into this powerful club. Move forward now with confidence to Shift 3—CREATE YOUR VISION OF LONG-TERM WEIGHT MASTERY.

  CHAPTER 17

  CREATE YOUR VISION OF LONG-TERM WEIGHT MASTERY

  Create Your Path To Success

  Now that you have decided to be a Weight Master, it’s as if you are standing right outside the prison door of your weight struggle and are facing your pathway to weight mastery. You are now going to light the entire path ahead with different visions for each part of your journey. Say the two following statements to yourself in your head:

  ***

  Fat Thinking Statement. “I am going to try to lose some weight for my beach trip next month. I hope I can be good, because I don’t want to be the fat whale beached on the sand.”

  Thin Thinking Statement. “I have a vision of standing in the waves 30 days from now in my red bathing suit. I feel strong and lean, having released eight pounds. My arms are firm and my tummy feels tighter. I enjoy running on the beach feeling free and confident in my slimmer body. I jump in the water and play with my kids. I feel good in my skin.”

  Can you see how the first statement turned off your mind, while the second one engaged it? That is because the fat thinking statement is filled with negative imagery. In contrast, the thin thinking statement subconsciously creates a detailed vision of you in a positive light. It’s a vision that prompts a good feeling.

  A Well-Lit Path to Your Destination

  A 2013 study funded by the National Institutes of Health concluded that overweight and obese women ate less when they imagined themselves as slimmer in enjoyable future scenarios before they ate.

  What is a vision? It’s like a big billboard in your mind of where you want to be. By creating a vision of how you ultimately want to see yourself look and feel, you direct your unconscious mind to be like a map—a step-by-step guide from your location today to tomorrow. If you don’t have an end point, the application in your mind can’t do its job properly.

  When you envision your life at your ideal weight, both your conscious mind (“I wish to create this outcome.”) and your subconscious mind (“I can feel what achieving this goal is going to be like.”) engage with each other. With 100 percent of your mind working in synchrony, you begin to figure out how to achieve your vision.

  Having a vision creates excitement, too. Your subconscious experiences a reward, so your brain gets a little hit of dopamine, which prompts a strong sense of pleasure, which it wants to obtain again.

  When you are stuck in fat thinking, you don’t have an appealing vision, and there is no reward. You not only don’t imagine what you want, but most of the time you also are defensively living lif
e, “hoping” and “trying” to lose weight, armed only with willpower. Remember willpower is only 12 percent of your mind’s power. The fat thinking approach to weight release is like trying to make your way through thick brush without a path and only a very dim flashlight.

  What Is Ideal?

  What weight would you like to live at for the rest of your healthy life?

  The words “ideal weight” sound nice and dreamy, don’t they? It may be a few pounds away or two hundred pounds away. Wherever you are, give your mind the opportunity to figure out what your ideal weight is.

  I’ve heard many people in my clinical practice tell me goal weights that are extreme or unrealistic. I ask them, “Why did you choose that weight?” They often reply, “Well, it seems like a good number.” I can tell they haven’t thought about what it might take to sustain that lower weight. Some clients in their 50’s tell me an ideal weight that was what they weighed at 16!

  I like to use the term “loving and reasonable ideal weight.” What I mean by that is a weight that you can comfortably maintain with the amount of food you feel comfortable eating on a daily basis and the amount of physical activity you can realistically sustain.

  Ideal doesn’t necessarily mean stick thin. For many men and women, the ideal weight is going to be a slimmer, healthier, more toned version of themselves. Understand, though, that your basic body shape is not going to change when you release weight. If you have wide hips, you will still have wide hips.

  I think it is important to be clear that a Weight Master embraces reality and loves his or her body for what it is. Having a loving and reasonable ideal weight releases you from unrealistic expectations that will only set you up for disappointment down the road.

  I had a client who at 70 said that it was hard to make the shift because she would start saying “Who cares? No one is looking at me anyway. I might as well eat those brownies.”

  Who cares? You care! Don’t you want to live in a body you appreciate and love and care for? More importantly, don’t you want to live in a mind free of the frustration of a weight struggle?

  My ideal weight—the weight I have maintained for 20 years is about ten pounds above some of my more extreme goal weights of the past. However, I find this weight allows me to keep myself out of the health risk zone and feel light and slender, toned, healthy, and strong. I’m not stick thin or emaciated.

  My current shifted weight is the natural by-product of the amount of exercise I do and my eating healthy and nutritious meals for the most part. It allows for the fact that I have a husband, kids, and an active social life and I love to cook and entertain. My weight supports my life, and my life supports my weight. That is what I call my loving, reasonable ideal weight. I urge you to think about this as well, when you think of your ideal weight.

  If you are feeling challenged because you have no idea what your ideal weight might be then you might Google “Body Mass Index (BMI) chart.” There are many programs that help you figure it out. You input your height and weight, and an online calculator gives you a good estimate of a healthy weight range for your height and age.

  Also, the American Diabetes Association defines “Ideal Body Weight” as:

  MEN: 105 pounds for the first five feet plus six pounds for every additional inch above.

  WOMEN: 100 pounds for the first five feet plus five pounds for each additional inch above.

  Research shows that even if you release only ten percent of your current weight, you will be improving your health immensely. So set a goal that inspires you rather than scares you and work with that. You can always adjust later.

  Ideal Weight Exercise

  Close your eyes and imagine being at a weight that feels healthy, stepping on the scale, and seeing that number. How does that feel? Good, comforting, unbelievable? How does your lighter, slimmer body feel standing on the scale? Take a deep Shift Breath and open your eyes. You can adjust your ideal weight goal at any time if that first number feels unrealistic.

  My ideal weight goal is:_______

  Now that you have your ideal weight in place, you can engage your mind in very specific visions of yourself at various points along your weight release journey and beyond. In forming a vision for yourself, you’re also etching new neural pathways in your brain that begin making thin thinking circuits to the desired outcome.

  Three Visions, One Journey

  These three visions work together to create a mental pathway to your slender, healthy, and long life.

  Short-Term VisionThis vision is a definable milestone that is possible to reach in the near future. I recommend setting a short-term vision milestone no further out than three months. Your milestone could be a date, an amount of weight release, or a certain fitness goal (e.g., walking your first 5K.) However, your first milestone, my dear apprentice, will be finishing your 30-Day Thin Thinking Practice!

  Ideal Weight VisionHave you ever thought about the actual difference in the “you” that supports your fat thinking weight and the “you” that is living the life of your thin thinking, slender self? Your ideal weight vision is the future “you” when you achieve your ideal weight.

  I know it may be hard to imagine that image right now, especially if your ideal weight seems like a faraway goal. But by beginning to create a vision in your mind, you also begin to make it real. It’s not some far-off goal in the back of your mind that is easily dismissed.

  Lifelong Mastery VisionI like to think of this particular vision as the stuff heroes are made of. By making this journey to permanent weight mastery, you are becoming a hero. This is a vision of you having sustained your loving and reasonable ideal weight over a long period of time.

  Imagine how impactful achieving your ideal weight and sustaining that weight release over five years (for example) will be not only to you but your family, friends, and community. This vision is really exciting because it changes how you perceive yourself not only in the area of weight but in the area of leadership as well. When you release weight and keep it off long-term, you become a source of inspiration for others around you.

  Case Study: Sandy’s Salsa Story

  Sandy was stuck in a place that you may have experienced. She was focusing on what she didn’t want. “I don’t want to be fat. I haven’t thought about what my thin life will look like. I can’t do anything until I get out of this suit of blubber I am wearing. I can’t look for a better job. Who would hire me looking like this? I can’t date right now. Who would want me?” Others at the seminar nodded with understanding of Sandy’s frustration.

  I explained to Sandy and the group that not wanting to be fat was not an effective way to use the mind. “The mind doesn’t process negatives. So by concentrating on what you don’t want, you are creating more of it.”

  “When you say ‘I don’t want to be fat,’ your mind is attending to the words “want” and “fat.” Instead, I explained, “You want to concentrate on what you do want. That way the mind can see it and start to move you in that direction.”

  I asked Sandy to close her eyes and take a deep Shift Breath. As she did, I said, “Imagine you have achieved your ideal weight. Tell me what you see. Where are you? What do you look like?”

  Sandy replied with her eyes still closed, “I see myself at a club dancing. I am wearing a cool red dress. I’m confident and enjoying salsa dancing on the dance floor. I am even dancing with someone!” She opened her eyes and asked, “Is that a good vision?”

  “Dancing is a great vision because your dancing will also be a great way of maintaining your ideal weight once you achieve it. How does that vision make you feel now?” I asked.

  “I’m excited and determined. I love to wear beautiful dresses, to be feminine and to dance. I don’t let myself do any of those things, because I am ashamed and mad at myself. I don’t think I can have fun until I get skinny,” she said.

  “Really? That’s too bad. Here is my invitation. Start d
ancing now.”

  “What?” she cried. “No way! I can’t go out when I have 40 pounds to lose.”

  I argued, “Dancing is a great way to burn calories, and guess what? You don’t have to go out to a club, start dancing at home. Don’t wait until that magical day when you get on the scale at your ideal weight to move your body in the free and fabulous way you described. You have to love yourself down the scale. Give yourself permission to live today. The more you enjoy the journey, the more you will want to keep going.”

  Sandy took my advice and during her 30-Day Thin Thinking Practice began dancing at home as her daily exercise. As she danced around her apartment, she was releasing weight in a fun way that was in line with her vision. She released ten pounds during her 30 days and kept going toward her ideal weight vision. Eventually, she ventured out to dance at clubs on the weekends.

  On one of those weekends, Sandy went with her girlfriends to a local club. She was 20 pounds from her goal on that Saturday night when she met Roger at the free salsa lesson. Both beginners, Sandy and Roger became friends and would meet to dance twice a month to practice their moves. Then they started dating officially. By the time Sandy reached her ideal weight vision, she and Roger had been dating for three months. She celebrated fulfilling her ideal weight by buying a red dress and dancing with Roger at their favorite club. Sandy has continued dancing into her long-term weight mastery for almost three years now.

  “Until I saw and felt what life could be like, there was never really any joy in losing weight. My vision opened my eyes to the fact that my weight release journey wasn’t just about losing pounds. It was about bringing my dreams to life, which helped me sustain my ideal weight. It has been the most creative endeavor in my life!” Sandy G. (Released 38 pounds, maintaining 4 years.)

  What would it be like if you made your ideal weight so real in your mind that when you achieved your goal, it seemed like a natural part of who you are. You were practicing being this ideal weight all along? Let’s get started.