What is your Lose Weight for Good!® Vision?

This week I had a great conversation with a client who was struggling to lose weight. She revealed to me that she had lost weight before – and she simply could not recapture her old enthusiasm and get back on track. I asked her to tell me what it was like to be 130 pounds. How did she feel? What kind of clothes did she wear? What did she do then that she doesn’t do anymore? In other words: How was her life different when she was at that weight? Did she feel better? Was she happier? I asked her to find that “thin self” within her – knock on her door and have an honest conversation. Chances are, I said, that former you is dying to hear from you. I am sure she has a lot to teach us about how to help you get better and what you need to avoid.

She immediately perked up. "I do remember one thing I did before! When I lost weight the first time, I made a game out of it! Like, if I wanted ice cream, I told myself I would go for ice cream on Saturday if I were real good all week – when Saturday came - I would decide not to go BECAUSE I was so good. I challenged myself not to go and I didn’t! It was like a game and I was winning."

After asking her to connect with those forgotten thoughts and feelings, I thought it might be a good idea to start looking forward.

I asked her to write a list of all the things she would GAIN when she lost weight for good!. Sort of a bucket list but rather than things you want to do before your life ends, hence the name “bucket list”, it would be a list of opportunities her new life would offer her. “I want to ride my bike to work”, she said. “I haven’t been on a bike ride in years – I think I would like to do that.”

She also mentioned that she used to get excited about clothes. She remarked that she used to like looking through women’s magazines for clothing ideas. Lately, she admitted, all she bought the magazines for was on the off chance that they would contain the latest fail-safe diet miracle.

I then remembered a book I had read on success by Keith Ferrazzi ( http://www.keithferrazzi.com/ ) where he talked about how he would look through magazines and cut out pictures of his vision of success: a new car, an expensive watch, a house, a family on vacation in a tropical paradise and the like. It was a visualization technique he used to keep his mind trained on his goals. This sort of stuff is the substance of legend in the success world. It is said that Jim Carey wrote himself a million dollar check while living out of his car as a way to maintain his focus. For Keith – nothing made this exercise more real than the day he moved into his dream home and happened across one of his “dream boards” as he called them from years before. The power of the visualization became clear to him when he realized that the house he was moving into was the EXACT house he had cut out of that magazine!

I asked her to make a dream board of phrases and pictures of what Losing Weight for Good!® would bring her. I told her to include clothes, vacations, men – it was her dream board. I hope that she pulls it out in five years before her night out on the town with Josh Groban she gets a chuckle.

Although I never made a wish board, I might consider it now. I do remember my list though. It was to ride a horse without it being considered cruelty to animals, go rock climbing, take flying lessons in a small plane, run a triathlon and do some kayaking. . . to Block Island. Although that may seem ambitious for a 410 pound man, I have done it all. My list helps me to stay focused on what it means for me to Lose Weight for Good!. Every time my list runs short, I make a new list. Now, my list includes the Adventure racing (http://www.genesisadventures.com )with my son, hiking the entire Appalachian trail (http://www.appalachiantrail.org ), the 500 mile walk of El Camino de Santiago in Spain - (http://www.caminosantiago.com/way_of_saint_james/index.php ) and the Tough Guy© (http://www.toughguy.co.uk/ ) event in England.
By the way, one of my clients, Jack beat me to that one. He is did the grueling Tough Guy© challenge with his son in February 2009.