In the 1990′s Anthony Robbins, one of the world’s most successful coach and motivational speaker, recognized that we are all driven by the same 6 core needs:

1) Certainty – comfort, safety, order, control, security

2) Variety – adventure, uncertainty

3) Significance – individuality, importance, ego

4) Connection – communication, approval, love

5) Growth – learning, personal development

6) Contribution – service, care

How we satisfy each of these needs determines our level of happiness. If we satisfy them in ways that are not supportive to us – in both the short term AND the  long term, we become unhappy.

An example of satisfying our needs in an unsupportive way is emotional eating. Emotional eating is the most common reason why a person is overweight.

Although your comfort eating may satisfy some of the 6 core needs for you instantaneously, it gives you pain in the long run.

Food may satisfy your short term needs by giving you: the feeling of safety; comfort; control; an instant rush from the sugar; variety from our life; safety from our negative thoughts and emotions.

However the problem is later on when the high of the sugar rush wears off and you are faced with the same old problems. On top of that, you are faced with more of the same – or even worse, unwanted results… excess fat and feelings of disappointment, regret, frustration or a lack of control.

Through understanding how you are currently meeting your 6 core needs, you can understand why you do what you do (ie emotionally eat) and why you don’t do what you know we should be doing (ie eating healthy food to fuel and care for your body).

You can then plan how you could satisfy each need in an alternative, more supportive way.

For example, instead of reaching for food for comfort, try an alternative routine that supports and nurtures you. Some alternative choices are: calling a friend, having a hot bath, doing some exercise, snuggling up on the couch, having a cuddle, reading a good book, knitting.

What other ideas do you have to replace your core need for comfort other than food?

I’d love to hear so I can assist you even more!

The benefits of losing weight are endless.

You’ll feel:

• better AND look better!
• more energetic so you can do everything in life you want to do
• more positive and optimistic
• more confident
• lighter and more alive
• proud of your body
• healthier
• freer

And, very importantly…

• You’ll become a great role model to those around you.

The best way to influence others is through your behavior. Actions always speak louder than words. By making a plan to lose weight you will be giving those you love the greatest gift. Especially the children. You will inspire and motivate them to value healthy eating, exercise and a healthy lifestyle.

Health, vitality and confidence in your body are the keys to living life to the full. To enjoying all that life has to offer. To happiness.

Please comment below!

We live in a time of instant gratification. We were taught to make decisions according to the results we get RIGHT NOW.

People who carry excess fat make their decision based on whether eating a particular food will make them FEEL better instantly. The long-term consequences of the decision to eat the food doesn’t even cross their mind at the time. They see the food, smell it and all their power of decision goes out the window. They reduce themselves to the mental level of a cow… seeing the food and munching on it. Munch munch munch all day long. No wonder they carry excess fat!

It is not until they then FEEL the pain of the consequences of their decision that reality kicks in. They realize their pleasure was only temporary. They see their loss of power; their lack of control. But they don’t know how to change it. They actually don’t even realize that they had made any decisions at the time. Or that they actually had any other choices than to eat the food.

Long-term gratification is completely foreign to them. The feeling of saying ‘no’ in the present moment so that you can feel immense pleasure later on.

To lose weight and be able to keep it off permanently, you need to start practicing a new process of decision-making. After all that’s all ANY result in life is, including your body shape. A result is a series of decisions that you make. Decisions made consistently that lead to one action or another become your results.

By thinking about the consequence of your decision BEFORE you make it, you take responsibility for the long-term consequences. You take responsibility for your results. In that moment you take back your power to be able to control your outcome. The power to be able to create your future. The power to be able to lose excess weight and turn your body into one that makes you FEEL great ALL THE TIME. It’s no longer about the temporary, momentary pleasure of munching on food. It’s having a sense of power, of self-belief and of freedom.

One top secret to permanent weight loss is to use the Be-Do-Have approach.

Statistics show that 97% of people who try to lose weight, fail to lose it permanently.

This is because they use the Do- Have -Be approach. That is, “if I DO something (eat less and exercise more),
then I can HAVE a trim body,
so I can BE happy, accepted, loved, proud of myself, confident, have self-belief, etc.

Using this approach can never give you permanent results because your old habits will always come back to sabotage you. You
will be able to stick to your DO plan only as long as your willpower holds out. However willpower alone is never enough to change your results (ie body shape) permanently.

What do you need to do instead?
You need to start with the BE.
Who do you need to BE and what do you need to BELIEVE
so that you can easily DO what you need to do on a consistent, long-term basis
to be able to HAVE a trim body for life?

Answer this question for yourself, and let me know how you go! I’m here to give you
more tips and guidance if you need it!

A full night’s sleep is essential for a healthy, slim body.

As soon as you have less than 7 hours of sleep, you increase your risk of diabetes, depression, heart disease, cancer and obesity.

Research now shows that deep sleep plays a part in the regulation of your metabolism. The hormones released during deep sleep are responsible for hunger and fat-burning.

It is only during your deep sleep cycles that the growth hormone responsible for fat-burning is released into your body.

The hormone leptin, responsible for feelings of satiety, or fullness, is also released during sleep. So if you have even two nights of disturbed sleep, you will find your hunger levels increase.

The hormone ghrelin will also be triggered after a lack of sleep. This hormone causes you to feel more hungry and crave high-carb, high calorie foods. It messes with your blood insulin levels, causing you to start storing more fat.

So if you want to turn your body into a fat-burning machine so you can lose weight and stay trim, make sure you have at least 7 hours of sleep every night!!

Can you drive a car?

Yes?

But do you remember a time when you couldn’t?

What did you do to learn?

First of all you had the desire to learn and succeed.

Then you had to become aware of all the things you didn’t know about driving a car.

After your first lesson, you were aware of what you did not know and you had to start applying what you had learned – by attempting a few short ‘hair raising’ trips with your parents.

After a little practice, you were then competent enough to pass your driving test… with flying colors!

And with even more practice you can now drive from A to B on automatic pilot, whilst talking on the phone (hands free of course), sipping on your late, changing the radio and brushing your hair – and all at once!

See, if you can go from not having a clue about how to drive, through a few simple steps to finding it SO easy and effortless to drive a car, then you can go from being overweight through a few simple steps to finding it SO easy and effortless to stay trim and proud of your body.

Do you want to lose weight but are finding it difficult to motivate yourself enough to get started?

Then try the following technique.

Imagine that your doctor told you that you had to lose a few pounds of weight over the next few weeks or you will die. Let yourself FEEL how this would make you feel. What would you be losing? What would you miss out on?

By doing this, what changed for you?

What changed was that the issue suddenly became URGENT. A life or death situation.

When something becomes urgent, we suddenly tap into our inner resources and strengths that were there all along, but often remain unused.

If you want to lose weight but don’t want to have to wait for a life-or death situation to be able to get yourself to act, all you need to do is create this sense of urgency in your imagination. Your subconscious brain can’t tell the difference between vivid imagination and reality. If you make it real and vivid enough, it WILL get you motivated to take action.

At the same time as making it urgent to take action to avoid ‘death’, think about how amazing you’ll look and feel when you start losing the weight.

Let me know how you go in the box below! Comments, feedback, experiences, questions are all welcome!

Have you repeatedly attempted to lose weight and either:

• failed to lose any weight, or
• failed to keep it off?

Then it’s no wonder you’re feeling frustrated… all that effort, pain and discomfort you went through for nothing! It’s no wonder you’re hesitant to commit yourself to yet another attempt to lose weight. Going by your past track record you might end up putting yourself through it all again for nothing! Of course you are going to put off, become skeptical, or resistant about doing something if you believe there’s a strong possibility of you failing yet again. No-one wants to feel the pain of regret, anger and frustration that comes with failing something.

Your feelings of frustration are totally justified and, in fact, a good sign. Frustration means that you haven’t totally given up on wanting to lose weight, to settle for a body you are not happy with for the rest of your life. The ones that do totally give up no longer feel strong emotions about their weight. They just feel helpless and have low self-esteem because they totally gave up on themselves. They believe NOTHING will ever be able to change the way things are for them. Avoid this belief at all costs – because if you start believing this, you have NO HOPE of changing it.

Even if you don’t believe 100% yet that you can succeed in achieving a trim body for the rest of your life, at least be open to the possibility that it can happen. After all, there IS evidence that people have transformed their bodies – they were once terribly overweight and an emotional over eater, and they succeeded in losing all their weight and keeping it off.

If you wanted to lose weight in the past but failed to succeed, it was because either:

• You weren’t really committed enough to do what it takes to succeed
• You didn’t make the decision that you were no longer going to put up with emotional eating and not liking the way you look and feel
• You didn’t really believe that you could achieve your goal – your doubt made you sabotage any of your good intentions, or
• You had the wrong strategy by dieting or restricting your food intake.

Remember, that your past does not equal your future. Just because you did not succeed in the past doesn’t mean you can’t ever succeed.

The next time you attempt to lose weight, don’t set yourself up to fail again by using the same approach you used the last few times.

Instead, make sure you:

• Are totally committed to losing weight and keeping it off
• Believe that it is possible and that you ARE going to make it happen
• Find a different approach or strategy (NOT dieting) that shows you what to do to lose weight as well as how to get yourself to do it

I would love to get your thoughts, feedback or questions on this blog, so please make sure you leave them in the box below!

Weight loss is more of a mind game than a physical game.

To lose weight, it is important to change what you do physically- ie eat more healthy foods and foods that burn fat, and do more physical activity. However, without the support of your mind, it is impossible to change your habits permanently. To lose weight permanently, there needs to be a permanent change in BOTH your actions and the way you think.

Follow this success formula:

Set your goal

Believe you can

Make your plan

Commit yourself

Take action and follow through

Be consistent

Be confident

Take responsibility

Let me know how you go!!

Permanent weight loss is possible for everyone. We all know that diets do not work and lead to weight fluctuation or, worse, weight gain. They also lead to a disconnection between mind and body and a lowered self-esteem. This is due to diets being inherently flawed, causing 97% of people who diet to put all their weight back on and even more, shortly after dieting.

Diets are definitely NOT the way to lose weight permanently.

So what is the way to achieve a lean body for life?

The ONLY way is to recognize the mind-body, or mental- physical connection and to make small changes on both levels.

1) Mental – your thoughts create your actions. By creating the thoughts of a person with a lean body, you will start doing the things that lead to you having a lean body.

2) Physical – Think about the consequences of your choices (such as food and exercise choices) on your body. If you were already a lean person, what choices would you make?

Your mind and body are naturally in alignment. It is the stress of modern living that causes a disconnect. Dieting is another cause of disconnect. By focusing on realigning your mind and body, your body will naturally lose any extra weight it is carrying. Once realigned, you will no longer have a need to carry it.

Here is a powerful poem that aptly describes our mental-physical connection and the power you have to change your weight, and your life, through changing your thoughts.

“It’s very simple. Throughout the universe
there is order…”

In the movement of the planets, in nature
and in the functioning of the human mind.
A mind that is in its natural state of order,
is in harmony with the universe
and such a mind is timeless.

Your life is an expression of your mind.
You are the creator of your own Universe -
For as a human being, you are free to will whatever
state of being you desire through the use of your
thoughts and words.

There is great power there.

It can be a blessing or a curse -
It’s entirely up to you.
For the quality of your life is brought about
by the quality of your thinking -
think about that.

Thoughts produce actions -
look at what you’re thinking.

See the pettiness and the envy and the greed and the
fear and all the other attitudes that causes
you pain and discomfort.

Realize that the one thing you have absolute
control over is your attitude.

See the effect that it has on those around you.
For each life is linked to all life
and your words carry with them chain reactions
like a stone that is thrown into a pond.

If your thinking is in order,
your words will flow directly from the heart
creating ripples of love.

If you truly want to change your world, my friends,
you must change your thinking.

Reason is your greatest tool,
it creates an atmosphere of understanding,
which leads to caring which is love.

Choose your words with care.
Go forth … with love.”

Dave Clark, The Theme from Time.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this powerful poem!