Watch Five Musts for Weight Loss to enhance your learning Watch How to Introduce Lifestyle Change to enhance your learning

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1 Watch Five Musts for Weight Loss to enhance your learning Watch How to Introduce Lifestyle Change to enhance your learning Week 6 STEP 11 - HOW DO YOU BECOME THE PERSON YOU DESIRE TO BE? Or - How do I let the thin person out of this fat suit? What are the first six things you must know? 1. You must know what you want. And you must know why you want it. That is, you must know that what you want is to lose body fat and you must know why you want to lose it. You will not reach your end result if you do not have a strong emotional reason for achieving that result. If you have continued to read through these pages without completing the assigned tasks then now is a good time to go back and complete the section on finding your reason. I know it is easier to skip over these tasks but I cannot tell you how important it is to have a strong reason for wanting to lose body fat. I have spent many years talking to weight loss groups and have run the groups through the questionnaire for finding their reason. I discovered the people who were losing weight could complete the questionnaire and had identified their real reason for wanting to lose weight. How did I know they had discovered their real reason? When I asked them to read it out they either had tears in their eyes or they were angry with me. The point is they had an emotional attachment to their reason and that created strong motivation and they were losing weight! 2. You must make what you want a priority in your life. A priority is something important, and being important it must occupy your mind, in a healthy manner, most of the time. Healthy thinking is not obsessive thinking, but it is focused thinking. It is becoming passionate about the person you desire to be. 3. You must know what you are willing to give up when achieving what you want. Our lives are full so cramming a new project will just add to your time poor crisis. We are talking about changing lifestyles to improve your life, or even save it so don t try to fob it off with I don t have the time. You must create the time before it is too late, and by that, I mean before your first major heart attack or another cardiovascular incident. Think about this, if you have been diagnosed with diabetes, or your doctor has said you are in the high-risk group then take that as your warning sign! You must give up some of the unnecessary clutter in your life to make room for this important life project. You will also have to give up those high fat, kilojoules laden, nutritionally depleted foods that have contributed to you being over-weight. Are you willing to give them up? You will have to give up those habits that contribute to weight gain and replace them with habits that contribute to weight loss. What are some of those habits? Well sitting on the couch watching television instead of going out for an evening walk is a habit that contributes to weight gain. The habit of inertia is such an easy habit to maintain. 4. You will have to know when you expect to get what you want. If you do not put a time frame on it you will continue to put off the weight reduction project until tomorrow. Putting a time frame on it allows you to create a plan for hitting goals to achieve your result.

2 5. You will need to associate with people who are already achieving what you want to achieve. This is what weight reduction organisations are all about associating with people who are already losing weight. You associate with people who have the same dream as you because: this is where the knowledge is found; this is where your mentor is found; and, this is where the people who will help you are found. 6. Finally, you have got to have a plan. A plan is nothing more than the action you are going to take to achieve your result. Most weight reduction organisations have a plan.

3 Watch The Only 2 Things You Can Do to Lose Weight to enhance your learning Watch Exercise, Snacking and Dieting to enhance your learning Week 6 CREATING A PLAN FOR WEIGHT LOSS AND MANAGEMENT This may appear to be a repetition of subject matter earlier in the book, and it is, but I will be giving you some extra information not covered previously. You see, learning is a gradual process. I will not dump all the information onto you at once. You would not remember it. I want you to remember it and then use the information to help someone else. I talked about you finding a mentor to help you, it does not stop there. I would hope that you achieve your results to inspire someone else close to you and you may then mentor them. Consider it as passing on the baton in a healthy lifestyle relay. You must choose a plan to achieve a result You will not lose weight on a mere wish or whim. A plan of attack must be chosen from one of the following kilojoule reducing methods. A plan is nothing more than the action you will do to achieve your end result. When it comes to weight reduction you can only do two things reduce kilojoules going in, or increase the kilojoules that you use (kilojoules going out). Reduce kilojoules in by control and monitoring (eating less) Increase kilojoules going out by: Meal replacement supplement Pre-packaged meals from supermarkets and companies Diet plan Kilojoule & Fat Counting Increased activity the way you do things; e.g. walking to the shops instead of taking the car; walking between floors instead of taking the elevator; mowing the lawn instead of paying someone. Introduce exercise (particularly aerobic) We ll take a few moments to look at the pros and cons of each method for reducing kilojoules going into the body. Meal Replacement Supplements (MRS) I have been in the fitness and weight loss industry long enough to see doctors and dieticians dump on MRS as being ineffective and a waste of money to the present day when now they bring out their own brands of these products. Does this mean MRS have improved to the standard acceptable to those professionals or have the professionals admitted they were initially wrong and changed their opinion? I know the formulas for MRS have changed little over the past twenty plus years so I guess It does not matter. You cannot live off meal replacement supplements and they were not designed to be used as such. They are incredibly useful in helping to break up dietary habits that may be contributing to you being over-weight. Remember how I told you about me walking into the bakery. Well MRS helped to break that habit; it stopped me from walking into the bakery. Sometimes the only change required in a person s lifestyle is to swap buying take away foods at lunch with a MRS. Not all MRS programs are the same. Some will be low in nutrients and fibre. Now I am a big one on fibre consumption, it is so vital to good health. Don t just pick up any MRS, take a good look and compare. Look for the best because you deserve it. What to look for in a MRS program: Kilojoules controlled check that the Kilojoules per serve are not excessive. Diet plan does it come with a reasonable and sensible diet plan. Strategy to help replace the MRS from your diet does the diet plan include a strategy that is not dependent upon the MRS product and includes an education system to help you learn new eating

4 patterns. High fibre content only the good MRS products contain fibre as it may be an expensive ingredient to include which means you should probably steer away from the cheapies. Vitamins, minerals and other factors if it does not include good quality vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients then it is just flavouring for your milk. Exercise. Yep, does your MRS supplier help you with exercise? Supplying you with a book or DVD and saying, This is your trainer is not good enough these days. You will only watch the DVD (probably never read the book) and it will be doing nothing much for you. It will make you feel you have received value for money, but even this is debatable. You will receive value for money when you have achieved your goal weight with the program. You are the customer so you control the market. Step forward and demand that when it includes exercise it includes a trainer, in person, helping you. Demand nothing less because you deserve it. Downside to meal replacement supplements is they can be expensive the good ones are expensive. Requires little effort on your part this can be pro or a con depending upon your view point. With weight loss projects the less money you spend the more effort is required on your part. The more effort required on your part the greater chance of taking the weight off and keeping it off, mainly because the more effort was focused on learning new information. Convenient. MRS are very convenient. They fit into your handbag or pocket and can be added to low fat milk or plain water. Prepared Meals Prepared meals are not confined to the frozen dinner from the supermarket. A prepared meal is any meal that is not prepared by you. These meals include: Take away meals Restaurants Cafes Frozen Meals Meals prepared and supplied to you They can be considered as expensive when compared to a meal you may cook yourself but they require little effort on your part. The greatest effort required is also the downfall of this type of meal. That effort is one of decision. It is very easy to walk into a café with the intention to order a salad but be whisked away on the aroma of temptation from the hamburger, or fish and chips (or that damned pie again). I was in Japan a few years ago and was blown away by the presentation of foods at restaurants and similar outlets. Their food was presented on photographs and there was little or no food smells in the precinct. You chose by how the food looked, and it all looked wonderful. Why were there no any food aromas? It wasn t till I arrived back into Australia that I realised that the food aroma I was so used to was the smell of fat. It made it easier to give up junk food. You never know how a meal is prepared when we talk about take away shops, cafes and restaurants. Have they used reduced fat products in the preparation of your meal? There is not much difference in flavour from using reduced fat products but there is a huge difference in kilojoules. Of course, this problem does not occur when we talk about frozen meals and meal prepared for weight reduction. We know they are kilojoules controlled and usually the ingredients are listed on the side. My only suggestion to you is when dining out you try your best or plan by reducing kilojoules intake during the day or week to allow for your night. DIET PLANS You can look through any magazine on any topic and almost be guaranteed it will contain someone s version of a diet plan to reduce weight. Most diet plans will work but they must satisfy a qualifying question for me before I consider it as a worthwhile diet plan. Can you live off this diet plan indefinitely? You weight loss is not about a quick fix and that is all it will be if you cannot live off the diet plan. If the eating habits of the plan cannot be incorporated into your lifestyle then I consider it a fad diet and nothing

5 more. Most fad diets will help you to lose weight. Whether they are safe or not is another matter. To me a diet is not something you go on to lose weight; it is something we all do to survive. A diet can therefore be a good nutrition diet or a bad nutrition diet. Is one right and the other wrong? Of course not, it is just a diet. One is healthier for you than the other and the choice is yours whether you wish to be on a healthy diet or not. I hold a similar view about obesity. It is your choice if you are over your ideal weight or not. Is it wrong to be over-weight? No. It may be a drain on the economy as you are treated for obesity related diseases, but that too is your choice. Should you lose body fat? I don t think so, unless you answer yes to either of the following qualifying questions. Well, here are my qualifying questions. 1. Does being over-weight make you unhappy? Yes/No If it does, change. 2. Does being over-weight affect your health? Yes/No If it does, change. What do you look for in a diet plan to know it is not a fad diet plan? A good nutrition diet plan should contain: Sensible kilojoules count for your requirement Correct protein amount for your requirement Low saturated fats but adequate essential fatty acids Correct amount and types of carbohydrates Then ask yourself Can I live off that diet plan? If not then it is a fad diet and not a lifestyle diet. Diet plans are not as expensive as meal replacement supplements and prepared meals because you are generally doing the cooking yourself. You may not necessarily have control over the types of food you are eating, though if it is a good plan it will include sufficient variety so you may ignore the foods you dislike, like Brussels sprouts and rhubarb (Personal opinion only. I am told some people like these foods). It will also require effort from you to purchase and prepare meals, but this is a good learning process. Kilojoules and Fat Counting This is the most effective and intensive of diet change. It is effective because you are not really changing your diet rather than manipulating the foods within your present diet. What do I mean by this? This diet plan begins with you not changing a thing about your eating habits. You simply record what you are eating as you eat it (this ensures accuracy) and then use one of the many kilojoules calculating process to record the energy going into your body. I like to use the Calorie Counting book put out by the Calorie King. It is small, you can carry it around and you see so many alternatives to the food you have just consumed when you look up the kilojoules of that food. It makes it easier to swap the high kilojoules food with a lower kilojoules alternative. You do not necessarily have to change your diet; you only must manipulate it. Is it hard work? You bet your aunty it is but what a nutritional education you are undertaking. You learn the information only when you need it and you remember it because it is relevant to you right at that exact moment. If you are with company you will probably share the information with them and thus immediately reinforce it into your short-term memory. Because this little book offers all the information on the page at a glance it is far superior to your learning process than any digital download that gives information on only that item you enquired about.