You have discovered by now, that what I promised you in the beginning is quite true...and that this is unlike any other weight loss program that you may have tried before. We don't give you a 1000 calorie diet and tell you to stick to it and you'll do fine. My 25 years of private practice and your own experience tells both of us that generally doesn't work. Even if you do manage to suffer through it and get to a goal weight, .95% of the time you gain it back within 5 years.

The reason this happens is simple, the solution is not so simple. The reason is because we never changed the way we think about food and eating. Changing life long behaviors can be a challenge....but you're about to discover a way that will help you enormously. What you're about to hear was prepared for me and my patients and this program by Jeff Murdock. Jeff is one of the outstanding counselors and motivational experts in the field. It's called Positive Affirmations, and it will help you change the way you think about food and eating.

Here's an extremely powerful point!

Nothing has ever existed and never will

unless it first exists as a thought.

Actions are created by thoughts. Creations exist first as an idea in the mind of the inventor or creator. If we are ever to reach a healthy weight we must have thoughts that will lead us to that goal.

We have known for centuries that our thoughts control our actions. It was written in the Bible, "As a man thinkth so is he" and that was a couple of thousand years ago. So it's nothing new. Motivational expert Earl Nightingale said it slightly differently, "We become what we think about all day long."

Thoughts are not just ideas. Each thought is an electrical impulse within the our brain. This electrical impulse set off a chain reaction and bring abut certain results. Your success at controlling your eating and your weight is strongly influenced by the thoughts you have.

We could compare our brain to a very complicated audio-video cassette recorder. It records images of what we see and what other people say, but it doesn't stop there. It is also recording every word we say to ourselves from minute to minute. We all talk to ourselves and we do it in words, pictures and feelings. And we are a lot smarter that you might think, because we do this at a rate of three to four hundred words per minute. We are constantly molding our self-esteem and our actions with thoughts about ourselves and about our goals. It has been estimated that by the time we are thirty years old, we have stored some three trillion pictures of ourselves and it is these three trillion images which define who we are. In fact, our mind will not allow us to act consistently in a manor that is not in-line with our self-image.

The ever popular "Clean Your Plate Club"

Since the time we were little babies we have been receiving messages about ourselves and about food and exercise. Some of these messages may be holding us back, preventing us form changing our weight. A simple example would be the "clean plate club' that you have heard us speak of before. Many of us we're told to eat every last bite of food on our plate whether we were hungry or not. Sometimes we were even given reasons for having to clean our plate, any of these sound familiar?

Children in China or some other 3rd world country, are starving.

It's a sin to waste food

Mom slaved for hours over a hot stove to put this great meal on the table for you.

Food costs money.

You're not done eating until your plate is clean.

But what ever the reasons...we were being taught to ignore our bodies telling us we were full, and over-ride the impulse to stop and clean that plate. When we did we were rewarded or at least not punished, and some times that was the same thing.

Now the problem is that since that time...that clean your plate message has replayed in your mind in one form or another every time you sit in front of a plate of food...maybe it is played without your even being aware of it. Nonetheless, the message takes its toll and we eat every morsel of food available...even if we are not hungry. Each time a parent said clean your plate it strengthened this internal program. Each time the program replayed itself, it was strengthened further. Over the years, this results in a very powerful clean your plate program indeed....that has played back thousands of times.

More over, we have similar messages about our ability to stick to a diet, drink water and get exercise. We have messages about our own self-worth and our chances of success. We have programs about what kinds of food tastes good and what foods need to be eaten at certain meals or on certain holiday occasion. Popcorn at the movies....turkey at thanksgiving....have you ever had divinity candy anytime other than Christmas or holidays? Food is a central part of our life and it's estimate that at least half of the three trillion images we have, relate in some way or another to food or our ability to achieve our healthy weight goal.

Can we re-program? Sure! Is it hard? Easier for some than others, but that's what this section is all about Using the positive affirmations can help override much of the previous programming....although it will not completely replace it.

The Basketball Boys

First I want to make an extremely valuable point. Several years ago an experiment was conducted with a class of high school basketball players. These young men who had similar skills on the basketball court were divided into three groups. Each group was tested to see what percentage of free throw shots they could make.

The first group was told not to practice shooting free throws in the gym for one month. Group two was told to practice for an hour every afternoon and the third group was told to practice shooting free throws in their imaginations only, for one hour a day, during that same month.

At the end of the month, the players were tested again. The first group that wasn't allowed to practice, their average fell. Group two who practiced an hour a day increased by an average of two percentage points overall. And group three....who only practiced in their mind...they increased by the same 2 percentage points as the group that practiced in the gym everyday.

The point is that the mind cannot distinguish between physical programming, such as throwing free throws...or leaving food on your plate....and mental programming such as imagining free throws or imagining leaving food on your plate. This is extremely important. It means that we can create or enhance existing programs through mental practice. That's what self talk affirmations are all about.

The purpose of these self-affirmations is to reprogram certain areas of your mind's audio-video recorder, in order to give you a fighting chance to overcome programs that are preventing your success. For example...to overcome the clean plate program we will have you understand and repeat messages such as "I leave some food on my plate" to get the most out of the programming you should say them aloud to words and repeat them in your mind and picture in your minds eye what this would look like.

Pretend you are a little fly on the wall watching yourself eat and see yourself finish eating and leaving the table with food still on the plate. Also get an image of what this would look like through your own eyes as if you were looking down at the plate with some food still left on it. You place your silverware and napkin on the plate, and scoot back a little bit from the table. The smells the sounds, the feel of the napkin etc. It's also important to experience positive feeling about the image you have just created your mind. Don't you feel proud of yourself!

Each time you read the affirmation, "I leave some food on my plate" repeat the words to yourself and quickly review your success pictures. In doing so you're going to be accomplishing several things. You'll increase your positive emotion state, and therefore your emotional strength will increase. When something we experience is emotionally intense it stimulates more of the brain. The larger the area of the brain that gets stimulated the higher our retention rate. In addition we usually replay emotionally intense experiences over and over.

This is why creating a visual image and getting in touch with the positive emotional aspects of our new affirmation is important. This creates the emotional bond that adds strength to the new program.

Reprogramming for future success!

Everything you experience is recorded on your mind's audio-video recorder. Each time you repeat a thought or action it becomes stronger and more integrated with other programs. When a given thought occurs in our brain a specific chemical bond is created between two nerve cells. When we repeat this thought several times....this chemical bond get stronger. The more repetitions, the stronger the bond and the larger the number of nerve cells which will play our new program. So listen to the affirmations over and over....it will help.

Twenty One Days to success!

Depending on the strength of a program and the amount of repetition, it takes at least three weeks to create a new chemical bond strong enough to override our old programs and bonds. It's important that you understand that listening to the affirmation tape once is not enough...you must use it daily, for the next three weeks in order for the new thoughts and programs to become strong enough to over-ride years of bad programming.

When an affirmation is clear and specific, it is more powerful! The more clear and concise, the stronger the new programs we're installing. For example saying "I eat better"

Is not very clear . . . or specific. How do you eat better? Do you eat better foods? Do you eat fewer foods? Do you eat more regularly? Do you leave food on your plate? An affirmation which is more clear.....is more powerful. In addition we need to hear an affirmation in terms of what to do, rather than, what not to do, the mind thinks in terms pictures, words and feelings. The mind doesn't think in negatives.

Let me give an example. What ever you do in the next 10 seconds....do not think of an elephant....especially do not think of a big gray elephant with big floppy ears and a small tail. Now, what's did you just think of? I told you not to do that! But you get the point, don't you. The mind in trying to avoid thinking about an elephant must first think about an elephant and then try to erase it. Unfortunately once we've thought about it, it's hard to completely erase it. So a message such as "I do not clean my plate" is not as clear as one which says, " I leave some food on my plate."

When our true emotional desires and actions are in harmony with our programming the program will be much stronger. On the other hand if we have conflicting desires and actions, our programming will be weaker. Let me tell you of a young man who Jeff Murdock was counseling. This young man wanted to lose weight but he also wanted to eat when he felt stressed because eating relaxed him. You can see the problem. He felt really frustrated and confused until Jeff was able to confront and change his stress management and self-esteem programs so that his goal of weight control and stress control were not in conflict.

The greater number of sources of a program the greater its validity. When we were children and we receive messages from our mother or father, our brothers and sisters, teachers and even doctors who gave us a sucker for being a good boy or girl. The message that `sweets are treats,' had more impact because of all the images and reinforcements.....than if only one person had told us that. One way to bring variety into these affirmation is to listen to us say them, listen to yourself say them and vividly imagine them in your mind. Also once this programming begins, you'll begin to find new sources of messages in your environment.

The truth factor!

A program that is solidly based in the truth will have much more power. This is perhaps the most powerful single factor. Unfortunately many of our programs are in conflict with the truth so when we hear the truth we resist it. Having been programmed over the years to clean our plate, there is a strong urge to act on this program even when a more feasible program comes along. A more feasible program is one which is more in harmony with the laws of the universe....such as "eat the amount you need to satisfy your hunger!" It is therefore important that any new programs we try to instill be in harmony with the truth as it exist in nature.

Don't get confused, some of the affirmations may not be completely truthful `at the present moment.' For example saying, "I leave some food on my plate" is not completely true, if you're still cleaning you plate. However the statement is in harmony with the laws of nature and the way our bodies were meant to work. Eating only as much as our body needs to perform well is more consistent with the way we are supposed to be...than cleaning our plate will ever be.

 

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