What precedes all behaviours, actions and performances?
The Power of Choice
What turns dreams into reality?
The answer is decisions: your decisions. They determine what you think, how you feel, what you do and what you become.
Why are some people successful at becoming slimmer, fitter and healthier? Because they make better decisions. Because they make decisions full stop.
Most of us just hope, wish and, eventually, regret: ‘I’m not good enough…I’m too old…. I haven’t had the right opportunities……I’m jus a fat person…’
Successful slimmers give up hope and make a decision. How can you tell a decision from a hope, a wish – or even a fear?
We’ve seen a lot of hopes and wishes and vague intentions cunningly disguised as decisions: decisions to take regular exercise, decisions to eat a healthy diet, decisions to change jobs… but there so-called decisions never lead anywhere. So how do you know when you’ve go the real thing, when you’ve made a real decision?
Real decisions trigger instant action. Hoping and wishing on the other hand are states of inactivity – almost paralysis.
When do you think a thought and it changes everything, that thought was a decision.
We can give you the information you need to reach your goal, but the missing ingredient that only you can supply is the crucial decision that puts you onto the road to change.
Of course, you are already taking action based on the last decision you made about your weight and it’s producing the results you’ve got now. Eating to change the way you feel, constantly dieting and thinking about food, trying to stick to hard, damaging exercise routines are all actions which have produced results. But they probably weren’t the results you wanted.
So why not make a new decision: one that will give you a happier, healthier lifestyle? The only discomfort you’ll feel is a moment’s anxiety about stepping outside your comfort zone.
Take It Easy
Being overweight is a vicious circle because your body chemistry favours stability. Overweight people tend to take less exercise than thin ones because it’s harder for them- they don’t build as much muscle as thin people do and it’s muscle that burns fat. So when the muscle gives way to fat through inactivity, they burn less of the fat when they do exercise.
It takes far more calories to maintain a pound of muscle in your body than to maintain a pound of fat. Even when muscles are inactive, they burn more calories than fat does.
Unfortunately, the sad truth is that dieting slows down the metabolism and, after dieting for two weeks, your metabolic rate can drop by 20 per cent. So being fat makes you even fatter (because fat people don’t have enough muscle to burn the calories) and dieting makes it worse by slowing down your metabolism.
Fat people get exhausted and breathless when they exercise too hard because their bodies are trying to maintain status quo by saving fat and burning sugar (glucose). The outcome is painful, disheartening and doesn’t result in fat reduction. That’s why I’m telling you to take it very gently first. Forget the sweat lycra, and just do as much exercise as you enjoy.
As you become more active, your shape will begin to change, you’ll feel healthier – and you might start to wonder how you managed without those good feelings you get from gentle, steady regular exercise.
What do you think?
