Maximizing Performance Through Applied Common Sense*

Do you ever notice yourself returning to the fridge?  You have just finished eating something and you go back to the fridge to see what else is in there.  You looked in there for the last three minutes; on the other hand, maybe something else magically appeared.  The deal is that you return to the fridge out of sheer habit, and often because you are bored or have little to do.  The way to change that behavior is to do something different.  Instead of saying that you are going to stop going to the fridge, you say that you are going to start doing something else; take a walk around the house, take a walk around the neighborhood, or read a magazine.  When you do something other than return to the fridge, you are going to break the habit.

Do you ever notice when food is in front of you it just starts automatically getting stuffed into your face?  A lot of people with weight problems unconsciously eat.  The food is there and they start grazing and they are talking or watching television and they automatically shovel it in on automatic pilot.  Start noticing how you eat.  Start keeping a journal.  This will point out what you are eating, how much, and when you are eating.  Do this for two weeks and you’ll start noticing how automatic it is.  When you keep a food journal you become more conscious of what you are doing and you now have control.

Do you feel deprived?  If you are like most people who are on crash diets, you feel deprived and what happens, right on schedule, you sabotage your diet.  The reason why diets fail, in addition to you feeling powerless to control your lifestyle, is because diets are so restrictive.  You might lose weight and then you gain it right back because you felt deprived for so long.  Then you want to reward yourself.  So, avoid feeling deprived by eating smaller amounts of what you want as opposed to huge amounts of everything.  Then when you do, you feel much less deprived and much more in control.  The idea is to change your lifestyle on a permanent basis, so eat in little bits as opposed to huge amounts at which point you will avoid feeling deprived.

Are you eating too much sugar?  If you are like most Americans… you are.  You are ingesting huge amounts of cookies, candy, ice cream, cakes, and on and on.  Think about how much sugar you are ingesting.  You are creating problems with potential diabetes.  You are over weight and you are addicted to the sugar.  So what do you do?  Give yourself three weeks to detox from the sugar.  It is very difficult at first because the cravings are huge.  When you take three weeks and you stay away from the refined sugar you will begin to feel better and have more power.  You will finally begin to lose weight.  The whole notion is to off-load the addiction to sugar and when you do, you will have more control.  Try it!  Three weeks! 

Most experts say that you need to drink about eight glasses of water a day.  If you drink more water, you have by far better digestion, you are going to sleep better, you are going to flush your system better and you’re going to feel full.  So, instead of over-eating, drink a large glass of water and you will feel less likely to want to over-eat.  The idea is that if you spend more time drinking water, you’ll notice that you actually feel better, you lose weight sooner, and you are more alert and conscious.  All the way around, it is better. So, take more water, eight a day and you will see more results.

If you’ve decided to improve your health, lose some weight, and get in shape you are going to have starts and stops.  You are going to have trouble; you are going to fail... everyone does.  When you fail, you quit.  Get back in the saddle.  So instead of just quitting, ask yourself, “What am I noticing?  Did I over-stuff?  What do I do now?”   Think in terms of recovery as opposed to quitting.    Most people set unreasonable goals for themselves then when they are unable to complete them they just quit.  So if you think about recovery, you are going to get back in the saddle. 

Do you lie to yourself to justify and rationalize about everything when it comes to being over-weight?  Do you say things like “I don’t over-eat.”  You know you over-eat!  You sneak it at night.  “Well, these cookies are small. I think I’ll have about three dozen,” or “I can eat this now and I won’t eat dinner.”  You know you are going to eat dinner.  “I can eat more because it says “light” on it.”  Oh, please!  “I’m big boned.”  When was the last time you checked how big your bones were?  If you spend more time telling the truth, you’re going to have more power.  It’s time to take more action as opposed to just rationalizing, when you do, you now are beginning to lose weight. 

Do you notice how often you’re reluctant to lose weight because it’s hard to picture yourself slim and healthy?  Perhaps you’ve been overweight for so long that the idea of imagining yourself slim is just unthinkable.  Start rehearsing in your mind what you would look like and how you would feel if you were slim.  Imagine yourself slim and healthy and do it on a regular basis.  What are you wearing?  Who are you hanging around?  What are you doing?  The more you imagine and rehearse yourself being slim and healthy the more you are going to begin to believe that it’s actually possible.  So, rehearse and duplicate and you will begin to see results. 

How often do you eat when what you really want is connection?  How often is eating over a social event like lunch or time with the family?  Most of the time when people are eating for connection purposes, they are mindlessly eating because what they really want is to be connected with other people.  So start paying attention to how often you are using connection as an excuse to eat.  You will notice that you really do want to spend more time connecting with people and it is really unnecessary to overeat.  So spend more time on connection and less time on over-stuffing, you’ll start noticing more control.  

Most people who have trouble losing weight and more important, keeping it off, generally feel pessimistic.  So how do you overcome your pessimism?  You have to reprogram your state of mind to be one of more optimistic and powerful because most people when they feel pessimistic generally give up, feel defeated, and sabotage their diet.  You want to learn how to change your state of mind by changing your language from what it is not to what it is.  So instead of saying “diets never work,” you would say “sticking to a diet is a challenge.”  Instead of saying, “I can’t eat that,” say, “I can eat this.”  Concentrate on changing your language.  Talk about what it is instead of what it is not and then you will see by far better results.  

If you are like more than half the population out there, you are over-weight.  One in three is obese in this country; two out of three is seriously over-weight.  This means that if you are slim and in shape, then you are the exception!  Well, that has changed in the last 30 years.  Now, virtually everybody is over-weight.  What do you do about it?  The first thing you need to do is take responsibility for the way you are living your life.  Your health is at risk and you generally avoid doing the things you really like to do because you are over-weight.  So take more responsibility for now deciding to do something about it and start anew!