Transcript
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Reprogramming Your Reprogramming Your Reprogramming Your Reprogramming Your Mind for Mind for Mind for Mind for the the the the
Trim Healthy Body Trim Healthy Body Trim Healthy Body Trim Healthy Body You Have Always Wanted You Have Always Wanted You Have Always Wanted You Have Always Wanted
by Bill Cashell by Bill Cashell by Bill Cashell by Bill Cashell
www.EmotionalDiet.com
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The Law of Attraction
for Weight Loss
Reprogramming Your Mind for the Trim Healthy Body
You Have Always Wanted
© Bill Cashell 2006
E-Book Version 1.1
Published by Better Life News
861 S. 156 Ave.
Omaha, Nebraska 68118
United States of America
http://www.betterlife-hypnosis.com
All Rights Reserved In All Media, Including Future Media.
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Introduction Introduction Introduction Introduction
We have heard that America is facing an epidemic. And the rest of the world is
probably not far behind. For the first time in modern history, life expectancy may
begin to shorten. After years of medical research and marvelous advances, we
have become our own victims. It has been estimated that over two-thirds of all
Americans are overweight. Children are showing signs of adult onset diabetes in
their early teens.
At any one time, more than 50 percent of women and 25 percent of men in
America consider themselves on a diet. It seems like every day a new diet is
hyped as the best way to lose weight. Television is bombarded with infomercials
about exercise equipment that is guaranteed to make you look like a body builder
or super model. Are any of these products really working? Every year we see
more diets and products, and every year the population of America gets fatter.
Almost every magazine has an article about the magic solution to weight loss.
We all talk about it, think about it, and keep looking for that magic pill that will
allow us to eat all of the pasta and pie we want and still be slim and healthy.
We are all looking for the easy way to have our cake and eat it too. If you bought
this book looking for another fad diet, you will not find it here. This is not a quick
fix that will allow you to lose 10 pounds in one week.
If you really want to make a permanent change in your weight, you have to make
a permanent change in the way you eat. There is no solution for turning
cheesecake into rock-hard muscles. The key to making permanent change in
the way you eat is to change the way you think about food. That is what this
book is all about. Helping you change your whole attitude about how you eat,
when you eat and especially why you eat. If you want to change your body, it
starts with changing your mind.
I wish you all the best,
Bill Cashell
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Why diets don’t work
I always start off my seminars by asking if anyone has ever been on a diet. Of
course, every hand goes up. Then I ask if anyone has been on more than one
diet. Again, every hand goes up. The reason they are here is because they
have tried diet after diet without the long-term success that they want. Then I
ask, “Would you like to have a diet that I guarantee will work as long as you don’t
have a problem with your metabolism?” I can see the excitement in their eyes
as they prepare to receive the magic formula that will transform their lives. “OK”,
I respond, “Here it is………exercise more, eat less!”
This brings a few groans and a lot of smiles because they realize that it really is
that simple. So why is it so hard to do? If all we need to do is put less food in
our mouths and move more, why don’t we do it? The reason is simple. We are
not driven by logic we are driven by emotion.
We are not driven by logic - we are driven by emotion.
When an obese person has weight loss surgery, it does one thing. It restricts the
amount of food they can put in their stomach by reducing the size of the
stomach. That means anyone who has success with surgery can achieve the
same result by reducing the amount of food they take in. It is as simple as that.
We all have the ability to limit what we put in our body.
For most of my adult life, I intentionally gained two or three pounds every year
until I was almost 250 pounds. I say I was intentionally overweight because I
have never accidentally eaten anything. Everything I have put in my mouth had
been to fill a need. Unfortunately, that need is usually emotional and not
physical.
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That is why surgery is not the answer. Recently on a television documentary, the
feature was about a teenage girl from Houston who weighed 368 pounds. The
point of the program was that teenage obesity is becoming a big problem and the
diseases associated with being overweight are showing up at a younger age.
The surgery they were performing called gastric bypass, had only been
performed on a few teenagers before. The concern was that they didn’t know
what effect this could have on a body that had not finished growing. The greater
concern was that the poor girl would not live to see twenty if her weight was not
reduced.
They followed her before, during and after the surgery to record how she was
handling each step. She was anxious to have the surgery because she had
been unable to control her eating on her own. There was also some fear of
creating change in her life.
The surgery went well with no complications. I should mention that his is
considered major surgery, and there are some risks involved. This is not a
foolproof procedure, and you should be aware that the results are not always as
good as they appear. The results are also not always as permanent as people
would believe. The stomach has the ability to stretch, and often the people who
have this procedure will reach a certain point and start gaining weight back. In
fact, it is not unusual for them to gain most or all of the weight they has lost from
the surgery. This will certainly make many people think twice about rushing into
it.
A few weeks after the surgery, the young girl was interviewed to see how she
was faring. On the scale, the news was good. She had lost 38 pounds already.
You would think that she would be thrilled, but it was just the opposite. In her
own words, she felt like she had lost her best friend. She went into a period of
deep depression and stopped taking her vitamins. These were essential
because the small amount of food that she was able to consume could not
supply enough nutrients. She had to be hospitalized until she was stable enough
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to resume her normal life. She still continued to struggle with the emotional need
that food had given her and was now missing.
One of her doctors was interviewed about this factor and he said, “This is the
problem that she will probably struggle with all of her life”. Not a very bright
future. They were trying to fix the result without addressing the cause. Perhaps
if they had resolved her emotional needs, she wouldn’t have needed the surgery.
Is this how you feel about food? Do you have some emotional connections that
you are afraid to let go of? Most of us do. That is why I feel the doctors really
missed the mark on this. They were trying to fix the problem by treating the
condition. Unfortunately, they didn’t address the cause of the problem, which will
cause it to return if not resolved.
That is what his book is all about. It is about helping you find out what is causing
the emotional eating and giving you the tools to have a happier, more fulfilling life
without the need for food as a constant companion.
The easiest way to gain weight is yo-yo dieting.
This book is not going to give you another diet. I really don’t believe in diets. In
fact, the easiest way to gain weight is yo-yo dieting. Studies show that most
people who go on a diet will gain back all of the weight they loose plus an
additional two pounds. To make matters worse, this usually results in adding to
the fat content in your body. When you loose weight quickly, you body will often
start by burning the glucose that is immediately available and then start burning
the fat reserves. Unfortunately, your body may also start breaking down protein
as well, reducing your muscle mass. When you gain weight back quickly, it is
usually stored as fat. That means that the combination of fast weight loss and
fast weight gain can increase the fat ratio in your body.
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Lose 7 Pounds in 7 Days
One problem is that most people are impatient when it comes to weight loss. We
all want to lose 20 pounds by tomorrow. That is why it is so easy to get sucked
into the advertisements that promise to help you “lose 7 pounds in 7 days”. Let’s
take just a minute and look at that, because it is really easy to loose 7 pounds in
7 days.
We know that it takes about 3500 calories to make a pound of body weight. To
gain another pound, they would have to take in 3500 more calories than they
burn off. To lose one pound, they would have to burn off 3500 more calories
than they consume.
Let’s say that a person needs 2500 calories to maintain their current body weight.
They go on a diet that reduces their intake by 1000 calories so they are now
taking in 1500 calories. The first thing that often happens is your body retains
less water, so you may loose two pounds of water weight the first week. Most
people have somewhere between 5 and 15 pounds of undigested food in their
intestines at any given time, especially if you eat a lot of meat. When you cut
back drastically, you body will eliminate more waste than you put in. That may
give you another three pounds. By cutting back 1000 calories per day, you are
burning an extra 7000 calories per week, which is the equivalent of two pounds
of actual body mass.
On the scale, you have “lost” seven pounds. You could gain five of those back
the first day you resume normal eating.
What I’m going to ask you to consider now is the idea of losing the weight slowly
at the rate of about one pound per week. The problem most people have with
that is that they want instant results. No, here is the good news. You can have
those instant results. If you change the type of food you are eating to healthy
diet, you will feel the difference in 24 hours. That’s right! By this time tomorrow
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you can have more energy, more vitality and just feel better all around. How
does that sound?
I know what you are thinking. You want to feel good but you also want to loose
the weight quickly. The truth is, you can do that without having to drop a pound
every day. Let me use the example I use in my seminars. I bring a pound of
bacon and pass it around for everyone to see and feel. If you have a pound of
bacon in your house, go look at it now. If not, look at it the next time you go to
the store. What you will notice is that most bacon is 75 to 80 percent fat.
Now, before we go any further, let me say a few words about bacon. This is
positively one of the worst foods you can put into your body. As I mentioned,
bacon is about ¾ pure fat. For some odd reason, we seem to have this illusion
that if we fry it up until it turns brown, it will become meat. It is not meat. It is
brown fat! To make it worse, bacon contains a preservative called sodium nitrite,
which has been linked to cancer. When you fry it in it’s own grease, it releases
cancer-causing nitrates. So you are eating fried fat that causes cancer. Let me
ask you this: would you take a slab of fat and just start eating it? Probably not.
Would you take a slab of fat and fry it and then eat it? Probably not. Then why
would you eat a slab of fried fat that has just a little bit of meat running through it?
What is really interesting is that most people who eat bacon will be very careful to
cut all of the excess fat off the steak they eat. Does that make sense? Of course
not when you think about it. It is just one of those things we have been
conditioned to eat. Perhaps a better substitute for bacon would be plain ham or
Canadian bacon. Even the turkey bacon is much healthier. We’ll get more into
that later.
Let’s get back to our visual of the pound of bacon. By the way, the pound of
bacon I use for demonstrations is particularly high in fat and it looks like it is
almost pure fat. When people pass it around, they get the experience of actually
seeing and feeling a pound of fat. Then I ask if they would like to peel that much
fat off of their bodies by this time next week. The answer is always yes. A pound
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of thick sliced bacon usually has about 14 slices in it. If you cut back only 250
calories per day, that is equal to peeling a thick slice of bacon from your body.
When you think of a pat of butter having 100 calories, it is pretty easy to cut back
250 calories per day. If you increase your activity level by only 250 calories per
day, that is equal to pulling another strip of bacon from your body.
If you are looking for quick results, you can have it. By this time tomorrow, you
can have more energy, more vitality and have two strips of fat the size of thick
bacon gone from your body. That should be your goal every day. To cut back
enough calories to peel off one strip of bacon and increase your physical activity
enough to peel off another strip of bacon. Every time you look at some cake or
pie or other unhealthy fattening food, imagine that eating it will put two strips of
bacon back on your body. Because that is what really happens. Any unhealthy
food you eat will probably end up as excess fat on your body. If you feel you
must have it to feed an emotional urge, have a smaller piece and only put one
strip of bacon on your body. That way, if you peel off two strips, you are still
reducing your body fat. That is you new goal – to reduce your body fat. Forget
about your weight and focus on the fat. That is what you really want to get rid of.
Why is it so easy to eat this food that you know is unhealthy and you know will
make you fat? The reason is, we respond to what is most immediate. When the
phone rings, we stop important tasks to answer it because it is immediate. We
don’t know if it is important, but it is right there ringing at this very minute. This is
what happens in your mind when you see the food in front of you; it is there right
now. When you think of being trim and healthy, it is somewhere in the future.
That food is here right now. You will usually go for what is most immediate.
Then you tell yourself (and everyone around you) I’ll get back to healthy eating
tomorrow (or that line we have all used – I’ll start my diet Monday).
Imagine that there are two doors in front of you leading to your immediate future.
If you walk through the one on the left, you will eat the unhealthy food you desire.
If you walk through the one on the right, you will have the body you desire. You
already know you can’t have both, so you have to make a choice. When both
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choices are immediate, it makes the decision pretty easy. That is why it is so
important to remember that your body is changing today, not next year, or next
month or even next week. You will either peel off that strip of fat today or put it
back on. Keep that image of the fat strips of bacon in your mind every time you
eat. Whatever you feel is most immediate is what will draw you toward it. You
future is right now. Every thing you eat today will determine how you look and
feel today.
Hide Your Scale
Some people have an obsession with their weight. They will weight themselves
every day and sometimes several times each day. There are three things that
can happen when you get on the scale, and usually they cause problems. The
first is, your weight has gone down. This can get you really excited. You may
even jump up and down screaming, “Yes! I did it!” Then you feel this rush of
excitement and this wonder feeling that you should reward yourself. You decide
that since you have done so well, you can now have ice cream and pizza. There
goes your diet.
The second result is that your weight is still the same. After depriving yourself all
day, nothing has changed. You know in your mind that it sometimes takes a little
time for our weight to adjust, but right now that doesn’t matter. You were good all
day and you ant to see the results of your struggle right now. You get
discouraged and go right for the ice cream. So much for the diet!
The third result is that your weight actually went up. How can that be? You were
so good all day and you want that scale to tell you that it was worth it. But now, it
sits there laughing at you, teasing you like this is some cruel joke. You through
up you hands and say, “What the use” and head right for the cookie jar. You
completely ignore the fact that your body may be retaining water. The next day
you jump on the scale expecting the worst from those cookies and you are down
a pound. “That it!”, you scream, “I just need to eat more cookies!”
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What you really need to change is not your weight
What if I could wave a magic wand over you and you would be at your perfect
weigh? Would that make you happy? Sure you would. Now, here’s the rest of
the question. If you kept the same behavior you have now, where would you be
in six months? Most people will say they would be right back were they are now.
This leads us to the single most important point in this book. What you really
need to change is not your weight. What you really need to change is your
behavior.
Your current weight is a result of your current behavior. Unfortunately, most diets
are aimed at changing the result. That makes dieting a short-term goal. When
you reach you goal weight, you can’t wait to go out and eat all of those foods you
have been craving. Before long, you weight is creeping up so……back on the
diet. And this becomes a never-ending battle because you are focused on
changing the result and you haven’t changed the cause. Since you’re current
weight is a result of your current behavior, all you have to do is change your
behavior and you weight will automatically change. And this way it will become a
permanent change so that you never have to diet again.
From now on, you are going to focus on changing your behavior. No more diets.
Diets are self-defeating and they are a temporary goal. Forget your scale and
forget your weight. For the next thirty days, you are going to ignore any thought
of dieting and work on you mind and your emotions. Say good-bye to diets
because you are now taking control of your behavior. Once you learn to do this,
you will see changes happening in every part of your life. You are going to be
awesome!
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Your mind does not respond well to a negative goal
One of the reasons people fail on diets is because a diet is a negative goal. Let
me give you an example by asking a few questions.
Would you like to lose some money? Of course not.
Would you like to lose some time? Heck no.
Would you like to lose some of your close friends? No, you love your friends.
Would you like to lose weight? Hmmm…well, yes I would!
Do you see what is happening? At a conscious level, we say we want to “lose
weight”. At a subconscious level, we have been programmed through out our
lives to not “lose” anything. We don’t want to lose any possessions, we don’t
want to lose our minds, and we don’t even want to lose at card games. In sports,
there are winners and losers. We don’t want to be a loser.
Since this is happening at a subconscious level, we have this internal battle
going on between what we think we want and what is really driving us.
Remember, we are driven by our emotions, and those are stored in our
subconscious mind. The whole idea of losing weight and depriving yourself goes
against your internal programming. Your mind does not respond well to a
negative goal.
Now it is time to redirect your thoughts and create a goal that will pull you to
success.
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We are drawn toward what ever we focus on.
When you go on a diet, what do you think about? Food, of course! Since we are
drawn toward what ever we think about, you have just created a stronger desire
for what you are trying to avoid. Now you are trying to use will power to control
your behavior, but you have directed you subconscious mind toward food. If you
hold on to your will power, you feel like you have deprived yourself. If the desire
wins out, you feel like a failure because you don’t have enough will power.
Remember this: we are drawn toward what ever we focus on. When you focus
on what you don’t want, you get more of it. You can’t become thin by thinking
about how fat you are. Most of the time we focus on what we don’t want. That is
a recipe for automatic failure.
The word “don’t is really kind of a funny word. It is made of up two opposing
words. The first part “do” means that something will happen. The second part
“not” means that something won’t happen. Our minds actually think in images,
even if you think you are not a visual person. Since there is no way to create an
image of “don’t”, our minds tend to bypass it. Let me give you an example. Right
now, don’t think of a pizza. What are you thinking of? I know, you are thinking of
a pizza. The reason is, to not think of a pizza you have to first think of what you
don’t want to think of.
Confusing? Let’s take an example. If you have children or have been around
children, you have probably had something like this happen. You tell the kids,
“Don’t eat the cookies until after dinner”. Five minutes later they are covered in
cookie crumbs. You get angry and tell them they didn’t listen to you. The fact is,
they listened perfectly. When you said, “Don’t eat the cookies before dinner”,
what kind of image does that create? That’s right, it creates an image of eating
the cookies before dinner. Since we are drawn toward what ever we focus on,
you have just created a desire to eat the cookies before dinner.
If you want to have success, you have to give yourself a positive goal of what you
want instead of what you don’t want. In the case of the cookies, you might say
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“Save the cookies until after dinner”. Notice the new thought it creates? Another
problem with negative goals is, when you tell yourself when you don’t want, you
have no direction of what you do want. Let me give you an example. Suppose
you want to go on a vacation and you said “I don’t want to go to Milwaukee on
my vacation”. Where will you end up? You have said where you don’t want to
go, but there is no direction to guide you to where you do want to go. Since you
have said where you “don’t” want to go, where are you thinking of? Probably
Milwaukee. Because we are drawn toward what ever we think of.
Now, let’s put that in terms of our weight. If you said, “I don’t want to be fat any
more”, what are you setting your self up to be? You know the answer to that
one. You will never become thin by thinking about how fat you are. You need to
give your mind the direction of what you really want. And what you really want is
to be trim and healthy. Notice I didn’t just say trim or thin. You could be at the
ideal weight you want to be by eating junk food if you ate a small amount, but
would you be healthy? I’m sure you’ve seen people like that who are thin but
look like they could drop over at any minute. So your new focus is to be trim and
healthy.
Every thing you want to achieve in life goes through stages. You start with a
dream of what you want to have or be. The more you think about that dream, the
stronger your desire becomes. If you really hold on to that desire with passion
and belief, it becomes an intention. You’ve dreamed about being trim and
healthy for a long time. You have at least a strong enough desire to read this
book.
Now we want to make that desire even stronger. We will also create the
necessary beliefs to make your dream come true. It is time for that dream to
become an intention. You are now going to become the person you intend to be.
The key to doing all of this is to identify with clarity, what you will look like, feel
like, act like and believe. Once you do all of that, you are on the journey to
becoming that person.
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Let’s get started programming that computer in you head right now. You can do
this with you eyes open or closed, whatever works best for you. Right now,
imagine the perfect you are you are becoming. Notice how you look and feel.
Notice how much energy and vitality you have. Notice how people compliment
you on how good you look. Notice how good you feel about yourself. Notice
how you walk with a feeling of confidence and joy. Notice how you enjoy healthy
foods and pass up those unhealthy foods. Notice how you look forward to
exercise because it makes you feel so energized. The more you focus on the
person you want to become, the more your subconscious mind will direct your
behavior to match that image.
After awhile, you will find that you avoid unhealthy food and large quantities
because your subconscious minds says, “That does not match that internal
image and feeling I have of myself”. Everything you want to create in your life
starts in your mind. Start every day with this exercise of imaging the perfect you
that you intend to be. Make it as vivid and real as you can. Repeat it several
times throughout the day, and you will begin to notice that your behavior will start
to change. You will be drawn toward what you focus on, which is being trim and
healthy.
Create a blueprint for your future
You now have a way to direct your mind toward your new goal every morning.
Now it is time to really get crystal clear on what you want. Right now, write down
exactly what your life is going to be like. Be sure to write your life script as
though it has already happened. Describe how you look and feel in detail. Write
down how you act and react to every situation you can think of. Forget about
how you might have acted in the past. This is your blueprint for your new
actions.
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If you don’t want to write in the book, take out a sheet of paper and write
everything that comes to mind. Keep writing until you have a clear vision of how
you have chosen to live. Please take the time to do this exercise. Studies have
shown that when you write down what you want and make it crystal clear, you
will achieve 80% of what you write. Write with passion and feeling to bring it to
life.
Identify your new beliefs. Now you have a clear picture of the person you intend
to be. This is obviously different from the person you have been in the past.
One of the things that is different between your behavior and the behavior of
people that are trim and healthy are your beliefs about what you can and can’t
do, and the forces that drive your behavior. To become the person you intend to
be, you have to change your limiting beliefs to empowering beliefs. Think about
what you would have to believe about yourself, your associations with food, the
things that drive your behavior and anything else that you would have to believe
to be this person.
If these beliefs seem foreign to you right now, that is great. That means you are
starting to see what you need to change to draw you toward your goals. If you
need to think about his a little bit, that is all right. You may even want to talk to
some people that are trim and healthy and find our what they believe. Please be
sure to complete these exercises.
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My Blueprint for Success
Describe in detail the new you. What do you look like? What do you wear?
What size are your clothes?
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Describe your behavior. What do you do? What do you eat? How do you feel?
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Now, mark this page or save the paper you wrote this exercise on. Every
morning you are going imagine being the person you have chosen to become.
Start by reading the description you just finished writing. This will make it
consistent and create the same experience every time. After you read your
script, close you eyes and imagine going through your day this way. The more
you repeat it; the more it becomes a part of you.
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Identify your new beliefs. Now you have a clear picture of the person you intend
to be. This is obviously different from the person you have been in the past.
One of the things that is different between your behavior and the behavior of
people that are trim and healthy are your beliefs about what you can and can’t
do, and the forces that drive your behavior. To become the person you intend to
be, you have to change your limiting beliefs to empowering beliefs. Think about
what you would have to believe about yourself, your associations with food, the
things that drive your behavior and anything else that you would have to believe
to be this person.
To be this person, I must believe --
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If these beliefs seem foreign to you right now, that is great. That means you are
starting to see what you need to change to draw you toward your goals. If you
need to think about his a little bit, that is all right. You may even want to talk to
some people that are trim and healthy and find our what they believe. Please be
sure to complete these exercises. In a later chapter we will cover how you can
integrate these beliefs into your nervous system.
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Identify your virtues. What virtues do you need to be this person? (courage,
determination, etc)
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Shift your thinking
Just before the start of one of my seminars, a woman came up to me and asked,
“Are you going to make me not like cookies?” I looked back at her and replied,
“I’m not going to make you do anything, but it sounds like you have an issue with
cookies. What’s going on?”
“Well”, she said, “I will buy a package of cookies and open them and then I eat
the whole package”.
“What do you want to do?” I asked.
“I want to be able to open the package and just eat a few”, she said.
“Alright”, I answered, “We can probably do that, but let me ask you one question.
How would it be if you lost your desire for cookies?”
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Suddenly her face got this blank stare and she didn’t say a word. The idea of
giving up cookies had never crossed her mind. I think that is one problem that
most of us face. We have associated please with certain foods, and we don’t
want to give them up. Everyone is looking for that magic pill that will let us eat all
of the junk food and comfort we want, and still be trim and healthy. It’s time to
shift you thinking on that. It will not happen. Science may come up with a pill
that will suppress our appetites or block the fat or even let us eat junk food and
stay thin. But you will never be healthy eating junk food. Eating cookies and
taking a vitamin does not give you good nutrition. Your body needs good
nutrition to stay healthy and to have the energy and vitality to really enjoy life on
your terms.
Right now, start thinking about the possibility of enjoying healthy foods and
breaking the emotional ties to the unhealthy foods. You are going to learn how to
release those associations to unhealthy foods and create a desire for the foods
that nourish your body and bring good health. The key word is freedom. You will
be free of the bonds that hold you back from being the person you were meant to
be. It is time to shift your thinking and get excited.
The vicious cycle of emotional eating
One problem we create is the vicious cycle of emotional eating. Imagine that you
are about to go home from work and your boss comes in and says, “I’m sorry,
some emergency has come up and you are going to have to work late to tonight”.
You tell your boss that you have plans to go out with friends tonight to see a
show and you already have the tickets. Unfortunately, you are the only one that
can handle this matter, so you are stuck. All kinds of emotions run through your
mind. You are angry because you can’t join you friends and you had plans. You
are frustrated because you have to work late. You look over at your coworker’s
desk and you see a big bowl of M&Ms. Even though you have stuck to your diet
all day, you reach over and grab a big handful. Of course, you can’t eat only
one. That would just be an M. They come in groups. That’s why they call them
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M&Ms. One handful leads to another until you have finished the entire bowl.
Now you really feel bad because you are still stuck at work and you have just
blown your diet.
What do you say to yourself? You know what you say. You ask yourself, “Why
did I do that?” Then you beat yourself up for your behavior and you feel like a
failure. This really puts a dent in your self-esteem. To make it worse, it starts a
new behavior of conditioned response. You now have a trigger that says the
next time you feel that feeling of frustration, you now reach for M&Ms or some
other type of chocolate.
The next time you are in this situation, you are very likely to resort to the same
behavior without even thinking. The more you repeat this behavior; the more it
becomes a habit. You beat yourself more each time as your self-esteem
continues to go down as you tell yourself how weak you are. Every time you are
reinforcing the same behavior and feeling bad about it.
The Power of How - Asking Better Questions
Back to our example. Imagine that you have been eating healthy all day.
Suddenly something happens to raise you anxiety level. You look over on your
coworker’s desk and you see a big bowl of M&M’s. Your anxiety goes higher and
you reach for a handful of M&M’s. The candy momentarily distracts you, but then
you think about your diet and what you just ate. Then you get angry and
mentally beat yourself up. What do you ask yourself at this point? That’s right.
You ask, “Why did I do that?”
That is the worst thing you can do. There is a part of your mind that has a need
to rationalize everything you do. When you ask, “Why did I do that?” your mind
starts searching for an answer. It will usually come up with answers like
“Because you have no willpower, because you can’t control yourself, because
you’re weak, because you’re a loser”, and the list goes on and on. When your
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mind comes up with these answers, do they empower you? No! They just
reinforce the belief that you can’t change. Every time you ask yourself questions
like that you reinforce those same beliefs, which trap you in the same behavior.
So, what can you do? The first step is to stop beating yourself up. Eating
excess food does not make you a bad person. You’re a good person with
behavior that you would like to change. Next, ask yourself empowering
questions. These usually start with “How”. For example, “How can I do that
differently next time?” The first thing that happens with a question like this is that
it creates a presupposition that you can do it differently. That makes you feel
more resourceful.
Since your mind has a need to find an answer, it searches until you find a way to
do things differently next time. You may decide that when you feel stressed,
instead of eating M&M’s, you’ll go for a walk, or take 3 deep breaths, or hum a
song that makes you feel happy. You have the resources to find the answer.
When you talk about negative behavior, always ask empowering questions.
“Why” questions will find problems and “How” questions will find answers. You
can even set yourself up for success by asking yourself, “How can I do this
differently next time and enjoy it even more that food?”
The empowering thought is that you will find a different way and you will enjoy it
more than food. With a solution like that, why would you turn to food? Once you
decide on a new behavior, you have to program yourself for the future. Just
imagine that you are in the same situation again and imagine yourself using your
new behavior. Make it as real as possible. Then congratulate yourself for your
new behavior and allow yourself to feel really proud.
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New Behavior Exercise
Think back to a previous time you ate too much food or unhealthy food. Where
were you? What emotions were you feeling? Were you alone or with someone?
Now, write down the new behavior you will use the next time you are in this
situation. It is important to write it because it clarifies your thoughts and gives
them life. There is amazing power in writing down what you want.
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
Now, imagine that you are in the same situation again and notice how you use
your new behavior so easily and powerfully. Make the experience as real as
possible.
Make your happiness unconditional
One mistake that so many people make is that they make their happiness
conditional, and they usually don’t even know they are doing it. You hear people
all the time saying things like, “When I lose 30 pounds, then I’ll be happy” or
“When I get a better job, then I’ll be happy” or “When I get into a great
relationship, then I’ll be happy”. The list goes on and on.
The problem is that when you make a statement like that, you are basically telling
yourself that you will have to be unhappy until that happens. You probably don’t
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mean it that way, but that is how the subconscious part of your mind is hearing it.
And what happens if you never lose those 30 pounds, or get into that great
relationship? Does that mean you can never be happy? It’s really up to you.
Have you ever been driving on a busy street and had someone cut right in front
of you? Doesn’t that make you mad? And if you don’t drive, think of some
similar experience when someone else makes you angry. Maybe it’s because
they forgot your birthday or didn’t do what you expected them to do. I think we
have all had experiences like that.
Now, let me ask this question. Do you have to get mad? Is it required? The
reality is, it is choice we make. If someone cuts you off in traffic and you say they
made you mad, you are letting them pus your buttons. You are giving them
control of your emotions. It’s like saying that you don’t have any choice in the
matter. This leads to an even bigger problem. When you say that someone
made you mad, you are now giving him or her the responsibility to make you
happy. If it’s the driver that cut in front of you, the only way you will be happy is if
they get a ticket. If it’s the person that missed your birthday, they are going to
have to apologize to you and make it up to you before you are happy.
When your happiness depends on someone or something else, you have no
control of when or even if you will be happy. The truth is, you don’t have to let
someone else dictate your happiness. How you feel about every experience in
your life is based on how you react to it. If someone cuts in front of you, can you
choose to be happy? Of course you can. You could even laugh about it if you
want. You could be happy that you are not riding with them, or be happy that you
didn’t have an accident. How about the friend that forgot your birthday? You
could be happy that you have a friend that you feel that close to. You could be
happy that you had another birthday. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “Most
people are about as happy as they make up their mind to be”. Choose to be
happy.
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So what does that have to do with your weight and eating habits? One of the
most common triggers for eating is a negative emotion. Have you ever turned to
food when you were angry or frustrated or stressed? Remember the vicious
cycle of emotional eating? Think how much better you would act if you were
happy all of the time. No need to turn to food to make you feel good because
you already feel good. Studies show that it is easier for people to lose weight
when they are happy. There is also an added health benefit to this. When you
feel happy, you body releases chemicals called endorphins that make you feel
good. These also add in helping your body recover from illness and improve
your general health.
You can be happy right now
The idea of choosing to be happy may be a foreign idea at first, so we are going
to do some exercises that will help you be happy at any time. As I just
mentioned, it’s not what happens to you that creates a feeling, it is how you
choose to respond to it. Right now, think about something in your life that makes
you happy. It may be a person that you know or have known, it could be a place
you’ve been that inspires you or brings back great memories, or it could be the
memory of a happy time that you experienced. Now, close your eyes and really
connect with that experience. See the sights, hear the sounds and really allow
yourself to connect with that feeling. Any time you want to feel happy, all you
have to do is come back to this experience and feeling. We all have the ability to
focus on something that makes us happy if we choose. Remember this
experience because we will use it again later to anchor these great feelings and
bring them back instantly.
Let’s look at another way to feel happy. Your mind and body are both are
connected to your nervous system. That means if you change what your mind is
focused on, it will affect your body. By focusing on a pleasant experience like
you just did will cause your body to release “feel good” chemicals called
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endorphins. These help your body heal and boost your immune system. You
also find that you are much more likely to avoid emotional eating when you feel
good. If you did this exercise effectively, you have already experienced how
good it feels. You can also do it in reverse. Right now, think of something that
makes you feel sad or depressed. You probably don’t want to make it too
serious, just something that might bother you a little bit. Think about how your
posture would normally be if you felt bad. You would probably be slouched
down, eyes down with shallow breathing.
Now, as you are thinking of what makes you feel bad, stand up straight with a
strong posture, look up toward the ceiling and smile as big as you can. If
someone is watching, it will just make him or her wonder what you are up to.
Notice how you are not able to keep feeling bad when you do this? The reason
is because your body is sending messages to your nervous system that you feel
good. Since your mind is also connected to your nervous system, it receives the
same message that you feel good.
Now, lets see how you can use this to help you move toward your goal. You
already have a blueprint for your future that describes the person you have
chosen to become. Every morning you are going to read this and imagine it has
already happened and that you are that person. You will find it is much easier to
create a resource attitude if you feel positive about your life. Start every morning
by thinking about what is good in your life. Think of what you are grateful for.
Remember the experiences that have shaped you and helped you learn. Do this
before you use your use your blueprint to put you in that positive emotional state.
Program yourself for success every day
Every morning, take a few minutes to just relax your mind and your body. Let all
of the tension drift out of your body as you allow yourself to go into a meditative
state. When thoughts come into your mind, just let them go and focus on your
breathing. You may want to just repeat the word “relax” to yourself silently, over
and over until your mind is clear of other thoughts. Now, think of what you are
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grateful for. It can be anything. It may just be the fact that you are alive. If you
say you don’t have anything to be grateful for, you are using your mind to focus
on what is wrong instead of what is right. Realize that this is a choice and that
you can choose to think of what is good in your life. Then, think of what you have
to be happy about. It may be past experiences or people you have known. Take
as long as you need to really feel good about your life.
Now, pick up your blueprint for your future and read it slowly aloud. As you do,
allow the meaning of the words to come to life. Then, close your eyes and
imagine that you have already achieved your desires. Notice how your behavior
has changed to match the person you have chosen to be. Notice how good it
feels to be that person. Imagine yourself going through the day eating only
healthy foods and enjoying high energy. Notice how you pass up unhealthy
foods without any desire for them. Notice how good you feel about your self.
Notice how people admire you for the way you look and your self-control. Feel
how strong your body has become by eating the foods that nourish it. Imagine
yourself putting more exercise in your day by walking more and even taking a
few minutes to give yourself the gift of regular exercise. Notice how you actually
look forward to exercise because it is part of your life now and it makes you feel
good.
Now, feel how great it feels to be the person you always wanted to be. Connect
those good feeling to your new behavior because you deserve to have those
good feelings and this wonderful life you have chosen. Hold on to that feeling for
as long as you like. Slowly open your eyes and smile, knowing that you are now
creating your own life the way you want it to be.
Also, we said we are drawn toward what ever we focus on. If you focus on food,
you create a desire for food. If you focus on being trim and healthy, you create a
desire to be trim and healthy. Several times during the day, bring back that
image and the feelings of the perfect you; the person you have chosen to
become. The more you reinforce this image, the more it becomes part of who
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you are. After a short time you will notice that eating junk food does not match
the image you have given your mind. Before long, your subconscious will start
rejecting junk food because it does not match the image you have created for
your self. You don’t have to use will power because you will be drawn toward
what ever you focus on and your desire to be trim and healthy will guide your
behavior.
Daily Assignment
Every morning, take 5 minutes and program yourself for success. Use your
powerful imagination to create your new behavior and become the person you
choose to be. The life you create in your mind becomes the life you live.
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This E-book is from the first chapter of the new Emotional Diet Program. This
unique program includes an interactive manual with audio files that accompany
every chapter. Also included in the program is a morning visualization session in
mp3, Self-Hypnosis with a complete hypnosis audio session in mp3 format, NLP
and EFT techniques.
Table of Contents
Getting the Most From This Book
Chapter 1 – Why Diets Don’t Work
Chapter 2 – Your Emotional Self
Chapter 3 – Create New Conditioned Responses
Chapter 4 – Creating Change Now
Chapter 5 – Making Changes with NLP
Chapter 6 – Power Affirmations
Chapter 7 – Emotional Freedom Technique
Chapter 8 – Using Self Hypnosis
Chapter 9 – Food Made Easy
Chapter 10 – Your Healthy Body
Chapter 11 – The Dreaded “E” Word - Exercise
Chapter 12 – Making Every Day Special
25 Simple Steps to Keep Yourself Trim & Health
Daily Checklist
If you would like to read the rest, visit www.EmotionalDiet.com