When Change Takes “Too Long”…
Hey! I was just reflecting with a friend on the process of discovering the keys to consistent weight loss and the sustainable shift to a new way of eating and taking care of your body…
Part of what triggered it was that I hit another new weight loss/fitness milestone yesterday.
I weighed 207 pounds for the first time since… MY EARLY 20’S…
COWABUNGAH!
In the past whenever I wanted to slim down a bit, I would just increase the number of clients I took on for weight loss hypnosis… LOL…
Because ALL hypnosis is SELF hypnosis, the hypnotist often gets the benefit of the hypnosis sessions he or she does with clients as well.
But there came a moment about 5 years ago when the stress I was going through and the way I was eating were overpowering my “Personal Mind Mastery”…
So, like millions of other middle aged people, I signed up for a gym membership and a twice a week personal training session… I mean after all, I was eating “healthy”. So it had to be the exercise.
Right?
6 months later. Nope. same weight. Same size. Just a little stronger.
Screw that! :o)
Then one day my personal trainer guy just never showed up… The gym had no idea where he went.
So I went back to my own personal supervision…
I took response-ability for my results and started researching and shifting through all the weight loss and fitness BS to find out what actually, consistently worked for me.
One of the first things I did was get rid of all grains and white, starchy foods like potatoes.
No change weight wise but my mind got much clearer.
So I kept that change and only indulged in bread or white stuff one day a week on “cheat day”.
(BTW reduced calorie diets fail because after about 7 days or “eating less” your unconscious mind adjusts your metabolism down to burn less. You can “reset” your hormone levels back to “normal burn” by “feasting” once every 7 days.)
I increased my healthy fats.
No significant change except I stopped feeling hungry as often… and wasn’t as obsessed with my next meal…
Next I got rid of my chair and made a standing desk… starting doing “slow burn” resistance training for less than 10 minutes a day…
Made progress! Started seeing the fat go down, the weight go down, the muscle % go up
Next I got rid of fruit and any “hidden” forms of sugar except on “cheat day”
Made more progress! Who knew FRUIT was making me FAT? Isn’t it supposed to be healthy?
(to test it I added fruit back in, in moderation once per day… and guess what? I started gaining weight back. So nix the fruit except on “cheat day”/”feast day”.)
Next I got rid of BREAKFAST… actually you CAN’T get rid of breakfast EVER… because it literally means “Break Fast”… but I started started moving my breakfast back on hour or so each week until I was actually having “Brunch”…
so I was fasting pretty much 5-6 days a week from dinner to “lunch time”. It saved me a lot of time! And I basically stopped even feeling hungry until noonish.
And I made progress…
And the key thing for me, the thing that has helped me smash through the “plateaus” was one or two days a week, fasting for 24 hours. From dinner to dinner.
I recommend you check out a book by Brad Pilon called, “Eat. Stop. Eat.”
So I would have dinner around 7 pm, eat nothing else afterwards, go to bed pleasantly satisfied and then push breakfast back until dinner time the next day… Once a week to maintain, Twice a week to lose.
And I combined it with every Friday doing what I started calling a FEAST day. On that one day, I eat pretty much the way I have eaten all my life.
Breakfast first thing.
Then Lunch
Then an afternoon snack
then dinner and a snack after dinner…
as much fruit, chocolate, carbs and bread as I want…
And it is pretty obvious that eating that way every day was why I was getting fat. I was eating way more than my body actually needed…
So after what seems like a MASSIVELY LONG TIME, Instead of frustration, I have started getting MASSIVE, STEADY, PREDICTABLE RESULTS…
And the positive feedback loop is keeping me motivated.
I am setting my sights on ACTUALLY SEEING MY ABS!
and what’s really cool is that all of this TOOK A HELL OF A LONG TIME. This process took about 5 years! However when I got super serious about it was October of 2014. I saw a picture of myself and I was shocked by the size of my belly…
Ever have one of those moments of truth? The key is to hold on to that intensity of MOTIVATION over a long period of time. Particularly when progress seems elusive.
This has been a process of experimentation and practice that has not been without frustration. But with the tools of self hypnosis I was able to keep myself in the game even when it looked like I was not getting anywhere.
The point of today’s Mind Mastery Message is this:
Sometimes the desired goal or result we long for in our lives just takes WAY LONGER than we think it SHOULD.
And that is NOT FAILURE! It is only FEEDBACK.
It’s a sign of some limiting beliefs and old programs that need to be addressed.
It’s a sign that you are simply not done yet with exploring different ways of thinking and taking action.
Ultimately physical fitness starts in your MIND. However, if it just stays in your Mind, and you don’t actually implement intelligent action that actually leads you towards the results you want, you ain’t gonna make much progress…
We HAVE to combine the Mind and the Body.
We HAVE to get support from the important people in our lives.
We HAVE to keep track of our progress in multiple ways so we can Measure our successes.
One key to success in any endeavor is to uncover and clear the “hypnosis” of false beliefs and expectations.
If you’re interested in going deeper with me in this area of your own life, you might want to check out my online weight loss program that I call, “It’s Not Just About The Food!” (this is a $900 course that you can grab for only $99 bucks right now)
In it you will discover and implement the tools and techniques that quite literally will work for anything in any area of your life that you want to accomplish or change.
If we don’t care of our bodies, where will we live?
So your Mind Mastery Assignment today,
should you choose to accept it, is to look at your own physical level of health, fitness, strength, size, weight, whatever you most important challenge is, and see if you can notice the repeating pattern.
You might want to make a note of what worked in the past and where you habitually stopped doing what worked. Or Notice what Never worked in the past and see if you just kept doing it anyway.
And as always be GENTLE with yourself.
Today’s Transformation Tune
is one I’ve shared a few times recently. It bears repeated listens as it is quite literally a Weight Loss/Fitness hypnosis Session in the form of a song…
Song #330 “Eyes On The Horizon”
have an awesome day!
– Mark
p.s. I’m off to CT to do an African Drumming and Storytelling program for some awesome 7th Graders… Speaking of things that “Take Too Long” remind me to tell you the story sometime of how long it took me to actually get my first paying school gig after I decided to “go for it” and do assembly programs for kids…
The really important thing is just to be fully aware that you can realize the change you’re looking for…
And here’s how
Click the link below to:
- Check out It’s Not Just About the Food
- Review my hypnosis video programs
- Contact me today
Or just leave a comment below 🙂