It isn’t a willpower thing, or lack of motivation when it comes to the struggle of losing weight for good. There is a self-identity issue at play...

YOUR PSYCHOLOGICAL SET-POINTS

Your mind carries a picture of who it thinks you are. This image is built up over many years and acts as a psychological set-point, a bit like a thermostat designed to control the temperature in a room.

Every time the room gets too cold, the heating kicks in. And when the room gets too hot, well, the aircon quickly cools the temperature back to pre-set. The only way to permanently alter the temperature in the room is to change the set-point, the temperature at the dial.

If we are to permanently change our weight, health and fitness – we need to change our own internal set-point. 

Just as opening a window in the room will only offer temporary temperature change until the system brings the temperature back to pre-set, dieting or joining a gym will only offer a temporary solution too. Whatever image we hold of ourselves in any arena of our lives will control that area of our lives. 

We all have a pre-set for our health, for our wealth and for our happiness. Once you complete re-set your set-points you will begin to experience new results in your life. 

WHY IS IT SO MANY PEOPLE STRUGGLE WITH THEIR DECISIONS TO LOSE WEIGHT, GET FIT AND BE HAPPY? 

The Answer: THEY DON'T TRULY DECIDE!

They get too EASILY distracted.

And they just DON'T see things through.

When we TRULY decide, a switch goes off in our heads that it's time. It's time to change once and for all. There are some activities designed to flick that switch in your mind that we can try together. 

As simple as this might seem, so often we initiate changes in our lives without really properly deciding. When I say deciding:

I mean making a decision with absolute certainty it is what you want to do, that doing it will lead to the result you desire and that nothing will stop you in the process. I mean WITHOUT a plan B. I mean by burning your bridges back to your old life, making sure this time is the last time you ever need to lose weight or get fit again because this time you do so for good.

AND SO, WHEN I SAY DECIDE, I ALSO MEAN DECIDE TO CHANGE WHO YOU ARE ON THE INSIDE NOT JUST WHAT YOU WANT OR HOW YOU LOOK ON THE OUTSIDE.

If we don’t do this right our sub-conscious mind, in "stealth mode" without us even knowing, steers us back to pre-set i.e. it controls our cravings and drives our behaviours to be consistent with the image we hold of ourselves in our mind.

Whatever pre-set we have (and remember this is for any area of our lives) our mind, sets up filters accordingly. You see, there is far too much information coming in every day for our conscious mind to process everything. So, instead, our pre-sets (how we see ourselves) set up filters. In our brains, this is called our Reticular Activating System or RAS for short. And, accordingly, we mostly notice what reinforces who we think we are! 

Once we change these filters or our RAS, by altering who our mind thinks we are, we will begin noticing more of what will aid us. And so, the momentum will shift. And instead of our mind orientating us back to our old self, we will quickly start moving towards our new!

If we want to change our outside world (how we look and feel), we must first change our inside world (how we think and see ourselves). 

This is changing from the inside-out. 

And when you change in this way, like changing the temperature on the dial, it will be permanent.

Darren Tebbenham BSc MSc - Zig Zag Fitness Company