Was This Really a Health and Fitness Chat?

I think our chat friends were expecting something quite different than what we discussed last night on the topic of health and fitness, based on the book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle, by Tom Venuto. I'm sure when people heard the focus for the first week was on goal setting, they probably thought - yada, yada - heard this before. Let's just say the chatters were pretty much "speechless" when we didn't even talk about specific goals we were setting. Instead we talked about why we were goal setting and the necessary ingredients of action, but wait,here's the crazy part - controlling our thoughts? Well, this is usually not a priority with personal trainers. But before getting into that topic and back to goal setting, Zig Ziglar compares not having goals to shooting at a target with a blindfold on. "How could you possibly hit a target you can't even see. If you don't know where you're going, you're probably not going to end up anywhere."

Okay, so that is pretty straight-forward and nothing too earth moving in the way of new information. But, when we put this together with information of goal setting with basic scientific facts of how our conscious and subconscious brain work, this formula can make all this difference in success or failure, whether it be in a weight loss program or your something involving your dating life. By the way, this subject on the conscious and subconscious brain was the most intense focus of the chat, We covered a lot of information , but I'll try to briefly sum it up. Here goes...the conscious - it's the entirely rational, logical, analytical, thinking part of the brain. The subconscious is like a robot or computer that does everything the conscious thinks. But the kicker is that the subconscious is what makes us behave the way we do. It doesn't care whether the information it's receiving is true or false. The subconscious unquestioningly accepts everything that reaches it and carries out the programming we have given it.

Are you getting my drift? Our brains think approximately 60,000 thoughts a day and 98% of them are what we thought yesterday and, yep, you probably guessed it... most of our thoughts are negative self-talk. So, our subconscious has no other choice than to act on the thoughts it was given. Say for instance, we are thinking "I can't lose weight no matter what I do, or I have a slow metabolism, or I have bad genes." These very thoughts will prohibit your body from losing the weight because the subconscious believes the thoughts as facts so it tells the body mechanisms not to lose weight. Sounds like some new age idea? Not at all. This is really how the mind is programmed. It's the correlation between the emotional and physical that's often forgotten and overlooked. So getting back to goal setting. Once our minds are focused on the goal and believe we can achieve it through our constant repetition of positive thoughts, our subconscious tells the body to carry out the tasks of accomplishing the goal. Don't get me wrong though, this doesn't mean we can sit on out duffs and eat bon-bons and think ourselves thin. Of course, there needs to be action through proper nutrition and exercise.

So, our chatting friends agreed that our goals for this week are, first of all, to be aware of our thoughts; and second of all, take control of our thoughts. Easy enough? Not at all! This feat is one of the hardest things we will ever accomplish. Do you realize that the one thing we have 100% total control of in this life is our thoughts? So, why aren't we taking control of our minds and use positive self talk such as: "How can I lose fat and enjoy the process? What can I do today that will help me get closer to my weight loss goal? My metabolism is getting faster every day. What can I eat right now at this meal that will help me lose body fat?"

Give it some thought:) This is great advice for those who not only are interested in losing weight, but who want to "rethink" any areas of our life that need a new and healthier message. Let's quit self-sabotaging ourselves!

So next time destructive thoughts come along... simply think REJECT and REPLACE! And don't get discouraged. It gets easier with practice.

See you in the chat next week!
Kim
Cache' Connections