How to Stick to a Diet...
Want to know how to stick to a diet?
Chances are you have already tried many diets but you haven't been able to stick to them but it's not that something is wrong with you it's just your approach...
Contrary to what most people believe weight loss is an inside job, it has more to do with your mental fitness than anything else because if you feel motivated, determined and certain everything else will follow. And it won't even be that hard.
In this article I'm going to show you how to stick to your diet, get more exercise and have the body you always wanted without it being a burden or a struggle.
How to stick to a diet 101
Before we get into it, we need to understand 2 basic forces that drive all human behavior...
Pain and pleasure...
I know it sounds overly simplistic but it's true, think about it. Why did you fail to stick to your diet last time? Because you wanted to escape the pain that this diet represented and gain the pleasure of eating things you were not supposed to eat.
Why do you dress the way you dress?
Chances are you dress that way because you want to either gain people's approval and gain pleasure or hide your body and avoid pain.
Everything we ever do is to either gain pleasure or avoid pain, more often than not it's to avoid pain though...
Now let's understand how the mind works...
Our mind is always shifting and changing, it processes millions of bits of information every single day but it's like netflix, it remembers your preferences.
If you tend to associate pleasure to eating in an unhealthy way and living a sedentary lifestyle your brain will create a link of neurons to trigger these feelings, memories and impulses faster and more efficiently.
If you associate pain to exercise and having a healthy diet your brain will form a link of neurons helping you avoid all of those things.
This is why sheer will alone is not enough to make you stick to a diet or an exercise program.
You need to speak your brain's language.
If you change your associations you will start to take different actions and when you set new behaviors your brain adjusts to these new behavior.
And this applies to every area of your life, finance, relationships, career, etc.
In order for you to get started on the path to body transformation you need to follow these steps...
Set New Standards:
One of the biggest reasons why you have failed to stick to a diet is because you keep calling it a "diet" as in something that begins and ends in a couple of months until you lose the weight. But what happens after you lose the weight and get back to your old behavior? Chances are you gain the weight again.
You need to set new standards for what's acceptable for you.
If you deem unacceptable for you to be overweight as in it's not even a possibility for you everything changes.
First of all set new eating standards, don't go on a diet, change your eating habits, make changes in the way you always eat don't just half commit, jump with both feet in!
For example, exchange sodas for water, always have vegetables on each meal, try new things and combinations that are healthy.
Set a standard of health in every meal, if you do this you can still enjoy the occasional pizza or ice cream while you lose weight. I wrote something about this in my personal blog.
Have Clear Goals:
A lot of people also give up on losing weight because their goals aren't big enough, if the thought of having a rocking bod doesn't excite you you need a different goal.
Your reasons for wanting to lose weight may be many, it may be for health, to gain confidence, to have more energy, etc.
However if your reason isn't compelling enough you will give up every time, make sure your reason to wanting this change starts a fire in your belly and shoots sparks out of your eyes! Your "why" needs to move you to action.
Ask yourself why do I want this?
And be honest with yourself, maybe it's so you can have more quality time with your kids, or so you can look at yourself with confidence and pride, or so you can take care of your body and have more time on this earth...
Whatever it is it needs to be big and it needs to excite you beyond belief!
10X IT!
Whatever you think you need to do in order to lose the weight multiply it by 10, it needs to be your obsession from dawn to dusk you need to become literally obsessed with physical transformation.
Why?
Because there are always going to be people around you who are going to doubt you, and try to get you to quit.
Maybe even people who are close to you...
Remember that misery loves company, so there are always going to be doubters and neigh sayers saying things like:
- Why do you bother? You know you're going to give up.
- Be happy with who you are.
- You're never going to lose that weight because you're a fatass.
- Why do you eat that crap? Let's order pizza.
- You're still trying to lose weight? What a joke.
You need to be determined that you don't even have time to listen to these comments, you are consumed every single moment with reaching your goal.
And once again you can do this with virtually every area of your life you want to improve.
Stick to these things and not only will you stick to your diet you will change your whole life as a result.
Hope this helped.
Apply this in your life and let me know how it goes.
Yamil Senior Seda
"Better Life Project"
Make it a great day.
