Imagination is the Key

Albert Einstein once said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create".
As I sat and listened to my group of Biggest Loser Challengers last Saturday, I heard a very common theme amongst the group. Not a theme of; I want to look good in my bikini, I want to look a certain way. Instead it was a theme of the way they imagined themselves to feel and to be once they had reached their goals. It was a common theme of "If I lost the weight, I imagine myself happy, sexy, vibrant, and fulfilled". I asked them to write down four things that they could do this week to attain the body image they imagined. The themes of the four goals were again very common. They were about moving their bodies, taking better care of themselves, taking time to do something for them. All to make them feel good on the inside, thus making them look the way they imagined themselves to look on the outside.

I want YOU to take a minuet, close your eyes, and imagine what your "ideal" body would look like. Pretend you are standing in front of a mirror. Start at the bottom and work your way up, what does every part of your body look like? Take a minute. Really imagine this. Create everything you want about your body. Imagine every little curve to be exactly what you want.

Now, how do you feel?
What's changed in your world? Or is it not what has changed in your world, but how you feel on the inside.

What if I told you that you could look like that? And, what If I told you I could help you to get that way?

Recently I've come to accept something I've known for a very long time, but have never fully acknowledged. Weight loss is 90% mental. If you think fat, you are fat. If you believe you are worth the effort, you will reach your goals. Reaching your health and fitness goals can not be as simple as writing down everything you eat, hitting the gym 5 days per week, and keeping snacks out of the house. There is an emotional healing that coincides with it. What happened in your physical or emotional life that led to the weight gain is a crucial factor in achieving and maintaining success with your goals. What made you eat that chocolate cookie at 4pm after you hung up the phone? Why did you eat the entire pizza?

"Stuffing". This is a huge one. When I first heard the term, I thought it was "hokey". What "stuffing" means is that instead of tackling the events in your life, or your feelings of anxiousness, sadness, regret, loneliness, or any other self destructing feeling, you turn to food as your comfort, and in a sense, "stuff" your feelings way down deep inside. Another way to refer to this is, "emotional eating". However, for the sake of weight gain/weight loss efforts, I think "stuffing" is a more visual way of thinking it. I feel that we place allot of blame on emotional eating. "It's okay that I ate four ding dongs....I was stressed...and I'm an emotional eater!"

Emotional eaters, or "stuffers" look to food on the subconscious level as the ultimate comfort. The reality is, food will always be there. Food will never let you down. Food will always be available. And most times, after an "emotional eating" session, you feel comforted, less stressed, euphoric, and more at ease. That is, until you step on the scale.
---I had an acquaintance, fellow trainer, once say to me "If you ever want to eat junk food. Strip down naked, walk in front of the mirror with the junk in your hand, and then see if you still want to eat it!"--- I tried it...it works....

After this brief discussion on "Stuffing", one of the challengers said, "This is something that is so hard for most of us because we NEED food to live. It's almost like we have a food addiction. But it's harder for us than someone who has a smoking, gambling, or alcohol addiction, because they can eliminate those things from their life. We need to eat to live."

EAT TO LIVE, DON'T LIVE TO EAT.

However, we want to enjoy our life, and food is a part of enjoyment/life. That's where we turned to the discussion on reading labels/all foods are not created equal. You should be shopping around the outer isles of the grocery store, picking meat that is organic and grass fed, and only eating things you can "pick, gather, or hunt". In today's world, this is doable. Food companies are competing for you, the consumer, to buy their "organic", "free range", "farm fresh", food. You have the power to make better food choices. Convenience is not the way to go if you want to be ahead of the game. It's going to take time and effort. Walking down the grocery isles, reading and comparing labels should be on your agenda. On that note, when reading food labels, when looking at the ingredients, if you can't pronounce it, you can't eat it! Food prep is in your future. Not only is it on the road to success, it will save you cash and inches.

To imagine having reached your health and fitness goals, and feeling the way your world would be changed, what the reflection in the mirror would look like, how your jeans would fit, and how you would feel on the inside, is creating a path to success to your achievements.

Albert Einstein said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge".

You now know you shouldn't stuff your feelings. You now know you should shop the outer isles of the grocery store, identify your feelings with food, exercise, and take care of your body. Imagining your self doing them and attaining success is the hard part. The easy part is following your program. The easy part is showing up for your class/trainer/treadmill session. The easy part is following the healthy recipes. The hard part is making your mind believe that you are going to achieve success in doing so. The hard part is holding onto that mental picture you had when you first started on your path to achieving your goals. The hard part is accepting that this isn't really hard at all.

The easy part is, that it's not really that hard.