Let’s face it. Losing weight naturally is a constant battle. I am not talking about diet pills, diets, medical weight loss or weight loss surgery. I’m talking about fat loss through regular exercise. If you start already in the middle of the creek, you relax the kilos that you had lost, they come right back, like an armed man.
You know what I mean. You start with the recommended exercises but after three weeks the weather changes and temperatures drop or you get the flu. Waking up in the morning or exercising after work becomes less attractive. Your brain tells you to get up and exercise, but your body refuses to cooperate. There’s that voice in your head that keeps saying, “Bob, it’s cold outside. Why don’t you try it tomorrow? Look, it’s only one day, plus you worked out last week. Plus you don’t feel good.” The next morning, the resistance to not exercising becomes even stronger. After a couple of weeks you give up. The fat loss plan is abandoned. The two pounds that I had lost sneakily come back.
Do you recognize the trend? It is like a script, written in advance and sealed. I’ve been through it many times. That helped me? The turning point came a year ago when my father-in-law visited us. He noted that he had gained weight. That’s what he hated to hear. I told him that controlling the weight was quite difficult. He looked me in the eyes and told me something that would change my life. He said that “losing and gaining weight is a disease of the mind. Don’t let your thoughts control your actions. Your actions should control your thoughts and not the other way around.” I thought long and hard about what he said, but I couldn’t fully understand what he meant.
Full realization came two months later. I watched a six-year-old girl struggle for an hour and a half to put together 54 puzzle pieces that form a map of the world. The girl did not know where the different countries were located on the map but she believed that the pieces would add up and that she could do it. She related how to combine the different colors to join the pieces. She tried all the options and made many mistakes, but she did not give up. She had seen her older sister do it and she believed that she could do it too, that it was only a matter of time. After an hour and a half she reached her goal. She was able to assemble all 54 pieces to make the world map.
Watching that event changed my life. I remembered my father-in-law’s words. The girl even had to give up her lunch. She didn’t let her thoughts control her actions. When she felt hungry, she kept going. When she felt tired, it was time to work even harder.
Yes, fat loss is on the mind.
When you’re not in the mood to exercise, it’s a signal to move on. When the body feels cold it is time to jump out of bed. When you feel sick it is time to exercise. Never let your thoughts control your actions. Control your diet but persist in the prescribed exercises. The fruits of a weight loss plan are at the end, not at the beginning. To experience rapid weight loss, change your mindset and follow a consistent plan of action.
