Sit! Stay!

Imagine how skinny you would be if you only ate when you body needed the nourishment. If your'e like me, you eat when your not hungry. If your'e like me, you frequently eat to feed something other than your body. On any give day, I eat because I am tired, lonely, bored, sad, happy, annoyed, aggravated, frustrated, excited and the list goes on. . . and on . . . and on. I think a lot of people eat to feed an emotion. The problem is that food doesn't actually feed the emotion. In fact, it usually makes things worse or simply replaces the emotion with another emotion like guilt or shame. Even worse, is when guilt and shame tote along their traveling buddies fat and flab. blech.
So what do I do? Just everyone else does. I eat too much and then resolve to do better tomorrow. Of course this is a paradox because it's always today. To those who have played this game, you know tomorrow never comes. You think it will but, it won't. And therein lies the problem. You THINK! Hah! This is not about thinking. This is about emotions. Emotions and intellect speak totally different languages. You can't reason with emotion.
So what can you do? The answer is surprisingly simple. Be your own dog trainer. Since the part of your brain that drives emotion is a lot like the brain of a puppy, dog training can be just the ticket.
In her book, "US: Transforming Ourselves and the Relationships that Matter Most" Lisa Oz talks about a brilliant technique she uses to put the brakes on emotional eating. She calls it, appropriately enough, Sit! Stay!
To begin she makes a rule that when she finds herself about to emotionally eat, she stops and thinks, "Stop what you are doing and sit down." This is brilliant because it is so easy and it gives the emotional brain a little jolt. Why would the emotional brain agree to such an obvious ploy to keep it from wolfing down brownies? Because Lisa has made a deal with the emotional brain that goes something like this, "If you stay here for one minute, just one, and you still want to stuff our face. I promise to be OK with it."
Then the magic happens. With this jolt, the emotional takes snooze. Frankly, it is all too aware that the intellectual brain is gonna start yammering on about . . . blah, blah, blah, Zzzzzz.
Now, with the emotional brain fully disengaged for a minute (remember just a minute), all you need to do is ask yourself some powerful questions.
Not difficult questions, just powerful. Of course, these questions only work when you answer them honestly.
Question 1, "What exactly do you want?" Maybe the answer is that stale brownie from last week. That's OK. As long as the answer is honest and specific. Saying you want to forage around the kitchen for something sweet and gooey is not specific enough.
Question 2, "How do you feel right now?" The answer "hungry" is out of bounds. "Hungry" is not an emotional state. Name your emotion. This is usually not a pleasant emotion. The answer is rarely, "Awesome, ready to take on the world, thank you!"
Question 3, and this is a kicker, "How will you feel right after you eat what you want?" Be honest. You've been here before and you know exactly how you're gonna feel.
Fourth and final question, "How are you going to feel 10 minutes after you eat?" If question 3 doesn't get you, question 4 should get you thinking.
And there it is. Thinking. This whole thing is about slipping your emotional drive into neutral long enough so that your intellectual brain can knock some sense into you.
Still "hungry" after all this? Fine, you made a deal after all but, you didn't say the terms of the mini-feast weren't negotiable. This is great time for the intellectual brain to make healthy food suggestions to the emotional brain. You may remember that the emotional brain is just waking up at the end of the agreed upon minute. It's still a little groggy and therefore easily influenced. So, bring up the fact that there is a great lookin' salad in the fridge and, you never know, the emotional brain may just go for it. No matter what the outcome, this is great habit to work on.

Update your operating system!

When people find out that you have lost 200 pounds they ask a lot questions. The most common question is, “How did you lose it?” followed closely by “How long did it take?” I can understand why people ask those particular questions. They want to know exactly what to do to lose weight and for exactly how long they will have to do it. The less time the better and then back to business as usual would be ideal for most people. I don't blame them. I wish it were that easy. Unfortunately, weight loss doesn't work that way. Not lasting weight loss anyway.
One question that took me completely off guard was when a seemingly sweet little old lady asked me, “How did you ever allow yourself to get that fat?” Ouch. That question really hit me hard. Not just because she used the "F" word, but also because of my weight loss history. What I don't often discuss is all the weight that I lost (and gained) prior to losing this last 200 pounds. I had been on diets since I was about five years old and I had plenty of success losing weight. The problem was the weight always came back. Does that sound familiar? All told, I had lost and gained a total of about 500 pounds on my way to my top weight of 410 pounds. The idea that I had actually "allowed" this to happen over and over again made me a little sick.
After the initial sting of the question wore off (it took about two years), I decided I should answer it. I realized this decidedly irritating question needed to be answered precisely because it was so irritating. Answering irritating questions, as I have come to understand, has the unique ability to unlock hidden wisdom. I knew if I could find the hidden wisdom in how I "allowed myself" to become over 400 pounds, it would not only help me to stay at 200 pounds, it would help a lot of people to lose weight and keep it off.
The first thing I realized was my body weight is simply a result in my life. A result of my actions. While this idea made perfect sense to me, it also made me really uncomfortable. I think it bothered me because I know I choose my actions. Did I choose to spend most of my life fat? Did I choose to regain weight after every successful attempt to lose it? Did I "allow" myself to be over 400 pounds or did I choose it? I hated being that heavy. I hated everything about it. I hated the way the rolls of fat hung around my frame. I hated the way other people would look at me and whisper to each other. I hated the physical limitations that my size put upon me. I hated the psychological pain. No, I did not choose any of that. While I certainly understood the role of my choices in being overweight, I knew there had to be more to the story.
As I started to really observe my own past and present behavior, I noticed that all of my actions came from someplace. Everything I did (or didn't do) arose from an impulse in my brain, a thought. Even my seemingly "mindless" habits were simply automations of behaviors that all began with a thought process. I even noticed that sometimes when I tried to change a habit, my thoughts would kick in and sabotage my efforts. This was even more irritating to me because I consider myself pretty smart. How could my thoughts betray me like that? Clearly, there was even more to the story.
Wait, did say thought process? Yes, I did.The actions that lead to the results in my life arise from a thought process. A process that begins with a belief or set of beliefs. Once I understood that, it became crystal clear to me that my beliefs lead to my thoughts lead to my actions lead to my results. (Beliefs --> Thoughts --> Actions --> Results) What was beginning to unfold was a system that determined the way I operate. Just like a computer, my mind has an operating system that underlies the results I experience in my life.
This explained why simply changing  my actions (as with diets) never gave me lasting results. Actions are one of the LAST steps in the operating system. When you try to change your life by forcing new actions on yourself, you short circuit your operating system.
Armed with this new understanding of my brain's operating system, I began to observe that each aspect of  my life had it's own operating system. In fact, every result in my life could be directly linked to an operating system. I had an operating system that determined the quality of my relationships, the money in my bank account, the condition of my car and, yes, the condition of my body.
In some cases, a specific result in my life was determined by more than one operating system. This is particularly true when it comes to body weight. It became apparent that there is an operating system that creates eating behavior AND another operating system that determines body fitness. The interaction of these two systems literally sets body weight like a thermostat sets the temperature in a room. Any attempt to change body weight by changing actions without updating those underlying operating systems was doomed to short-term success at best.
Look at it this way, imagine you are in a room that's too hot. You go over and open a window but when the temperature in the room drops, the thermostat turns the heat on. When this happens, two things occur. One is that the room returns to the original temperature and the other is that an incredible amount of energy is wasted. Does remind you of a past dieting experience?
Probably the most important realization I discovered about operating systems was that there is a special system for the process of change itself. All humans have the ability to grow and change. How else do you explain the ability of a relatively weak, naked ape to thrive under such a wide variety of environmental conditions? The problem is that most people don't actually change. They can change, but they don't. Our world of modern connivence has made it unnecessary for us to adapt to our environment in order to survive. As a result, our "change" operating system runs sluggishly.
While adapting to the world around us may no longer be critical to survival, it is essential in order to thrive. Those who are able to "re-invent" themselves are usually the most successful among us. Think about it. Steve Jobs re-invented himself in order to come back and save Apple.  In fact, business magnates, entertainers and public figures have to constantly evolve so that they can stay on the top of their game. When they don't evolve, they're no longer effective and they fade away. In essence, it is a functioning "change" operating system that allows them to consistently be on top as opposed to being a one hit wonder.
After all my contemplation, studying and work in helping people achieve weight loss success, it occurred to me that most people have a lot more control over their operating systems than they realize. Those that have been successful with lasting weight loss methodically update their "change" operating system first. Once they have a functioning "change" system, they use it to update their eating and fitness operating systems. Finally, they install one additional operating system that locks them into permanent weight loss. I call this the For Good Operating System. If you want to lose weight and lose it For Good you need to install these four necessary updates.
In my next article, I will reveal some critical elements of the "change" operating system. We will then use that information to design your operating system update, If you're interested in losing weight for good, you're not going to want to miss it.
Bio - -
Dr. Russ L’HommeDieu is a doctor of physical therapy and success coach who has lost half his body weight. He not only went from 410 pounds to 200 pounds, he has maintained it for over a decade. He has spent the last 10 years helping literally thousands of people to lose weight and keep it off. He is particularly proud of clients that apply his operating system updates in other areas of life and enjoy financial, business and relationship success, to name a few. Currently he is finishing his much anticipated self-paced audio program called "Lose Weight Good! Retrain your brain & become a person that NEVER has to diet again."  He is also a highly sought after trainer / motivational speaker and as a former stand-up comic, his programs are not only fun, they're transformational. He been invited to speak at many conferences and events including Hartford Hospital and Harvard University and now, if he is available, you can book him for your event. You can follow him on facebook at www.facebook.com/losewt4good and his website is:www.loseweightforgood.org His email is docrusspt@gmail.com