Monday, February 07, 2011

Apply Your Resolve and Make it Automatic


When I met Sarah at a dinner party several years ago, I saw right away that she was really quite beautiful, but at just over five feet tall and weighing well over two hundred pounds she was also dangerously obese. As we were talking that night, Sarah told me she was forty-one years old, divorced, and looking for a new man in her life.

I’m sure she was shocked and also probably initially offended when I replied that it appeared to me she was actually trying to kill herself, and if she wanted someone to love and care for her, she’d have to start loving and caring for herself first.



Sometimes it takes that kind of tough-love approach to help people shift their perspective and reframe their goals in terms of a true core desire. I was able to do that for Sarah by allowing her to understand that losing weight and becoming fit was not a goal to be sought in and of itself but rather as a way to fulfill her desire to have a loving companion in her life.

If I’d left it there, however, I’d have been doing Sarah a great disservice, because I knew that making such a big change in her life would not be easy. Not only would she have to shift her mental attitude toward herself and her lifestyle, but she’d be facing significant physical challenges as well. That very evening, I made Sarah a promise: If she was willing to give me four to six weeks, I would stick with her, and she would be able to turn her life around. Armed with her newfound power of intention, Sarah agreed, and the very next day we began to work together to develop an appropriate plan of action that would not be too ambitious, because we both knew that, at least in the beginning, doing any kind of exercise at all was going to be very difficult for her.

To find out how Sarah lost over 120 lbs on my program, buy my book Mind Over Body: The Key To Lasting Weight Lost is All in Your Head!

This article or post is not intended to provide individual advice, which should be obtained directly from your health care professional.

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