Moving Forward
Attaining a beautiful figure is the ultimate goal, but getting to that point takes some serious commitment and no small amount of sticking to your guns.
In the previous installment, The Next Step I explained the need to get over your fear of whatever it is that is preventing you from moving forward toward your weight loss goals.
In this article in the mini-series I will talk about moving forward in your journey toward that amazingly gorgeous figure.
Pain and Pleasure Principle
In psychology, there is an aspect of human behaviour known as the pain and pleasure principle. In its simplest terms, it means that we prefer to experience pleasure and avoid experiencing pain wherever possible.
Pretty obvious, I know but it can get deeper when you relate it to our habitual behaviour patterns.
When we relate it to the task of losing weight, there is something of a tug of war going on inside us. This principle is all about finding a balance, so there is a positive and negative side to this.
The obvious positive side is that we really want to look good and attaining that goal is definitely a pleasure! The negative side is that being overweight means we don't look good and therefore don't feel good, giving this aspect the "pain" part of the equation.
But then we look deeper and we can see the journey from looking bad to looking good is what we perceive as being hard work, so is a negative pain area. Since we naturally avoid what is perceived as being a "pain", we (deep down inside) want to avoid that journey.
What is happening here?
The negative pain of going through the process of working toward the pleasure of the end product (great figure) outweighs the pleasure of completing that process and that's why many of us don't see the process through to the pleasurable end. The pain is perceived as being too great and so we prefer to avoid it!
Reframing Our Perception
To get past this problem, we need to reframe our current perception of the relative levels of what is painful and what is pleasurable.
We need to see the end result as the most pleasurable part of the whole process. The result needs to be perceived as being of greater pleasure than the pain of the weight loss process to tip the balance in our favour.
Also, the present situation needs to perceived as being more painful than the process of losing weight, further tipping the balance in our favour. But just exactly how do we do that?
It goes back to the mental preparation stage, where you relaxed yourself and got your mental state into a positive, go get 'em mode. You can take that idea one stage further and mentally convince yourself that it is more painful to remain as you are than it is to take action to change the way you look through a positive change in diet.
The you can convince yourself that the pleasure of being slim and having a n amazing figure is just so pleasurable that it trumps all the perceived pain and clears the way for you to move toward that goal.
Getting On and Doing It
Once your mental state is in the right place, then you can start making serious inroads to changing your diet to cut out so many sugar laden products and head toward eating home cooked meals made from only fresh ingredients.
When you start doing this, you can actually surprise yourself at how tasty real food actually is!
In fact, my own experience when I changed was that home cooked food tasted so far superior to all the additive laden packet stuff I was eating that I couldn't go back to eating it even if I'd wanted to! You'll find a similar thing happens to you. Processed food will take on an artificial taste that you'll find unpleasant yet instantly recognizable!
As you move forward, replacing this or that processed meal with a real one, your weight will naturally drop without you doing much of anything else. You'll start drinking plain water instead of soda or sweet flavored drinks and that will also help reduce your weight.
It's not just the number of calories you will be cutting down on that will make the change happen quite noticeably. It's the whole process of switching your diet to a more natural and healthy one that jumpstarts your body into a more efficient and better digestive process that further cuts your body fat levels and with it all that bloating and flabbiness.
As the pounds start to drop off you, the thrill of getting on the scales and seeing another pound less being registered will be immense!