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It’s Your Brain’s Fault You’re Overweight – But Here’s What You Can Do About It

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Is lying bad for your health?

Your body shape is essentially an outward projection of your state of mind and your mental control. Someone who is in great shape with a 5% body fat and rippling abs will be someone who is highly determined, has the great mental discipline and who cares about their appearance and wellbeing.

Meanwhile, someone who is overweight and flabby is likely to be stressed, snowed under with work, indifferent to their health, or simply lack impulse control. There are other factors here too of course, but that’s the crux of the matter.

In short then, if you try to get into shape by dieting and by writing a new training program then really you’re missing the point – you’re tackling the symptoms rather than the root cause of the problem. What you should really be focussing on is your brain, your thought processes, and your lifestyle. And fortunately, there are tools and techniques out there to help you do just that.

Introducing CBT

CBT stands for ‘Cognitive Behavioural Therapy’ and it’s the favorite form of psychology recommended by most health institutions. While other ‘talking cures’ such as psychotherapy or behaviorism focus on early childhood experiences or learned behaviors, CBT looks at what you can do now to literally reprogram your thought processes and make them more conducive to the life you want to live.

This means in other words listening to the ruminations you have and the thought processes and then using techniques such as positive affirmations in order to change those into something more positive.

How to Stop Wanting Cake

Let’s take a simple example – how to stop wanting cake. Now, normally when you crave cake you will find yourself thinking things like ‘it’s so sweet’, or ‘I need a pick me up’ and that will only lead to your will power eventually crumbling. Instead, then, try to change those thoughts by focussing on the downsides of the cake.

Think about the last time you ate way too much pudding and then really focus on the way you felt – probably ill and guilty and stodgy. Focus on that and at the same time grab the role of fat from around your stomach to remind you why you don’t like cake. Then repeat those words to yourself (it doesn’t have to be out loud) ‘I don’t like cake’. Over time this can result in your actually not liking cake, and you may find yourself seeking out puddings that are more healthy and much less rich.

The Gym

Likewise, you can improve your ability to stick to a training routine by looking at the way you think about it. Normally you will dread going to the gym and this will cause you to focus on things like how long it takes or how tired you normally are afterward.

Get around this than by setting yourself a simple and easy challenge – to do just five minutes. Then repeat to yourself that five minutes of training is enough as long as it’s every day. And you know why five minutes is enough? Because once you’ve done five, you’ll find you end up completing the whole session – but you won’t dread it because you won’t see it coming.