The Diet Guy

Get Up, Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone Because You Are Either Growing Or Dying

It's been seven years soon since I decided that I had enough sitting on the sofa and watching my life go past me. It is true that treading water in life isn't an option, trying to play safe and do nothing and just hope everything gets better doesn't work. If you want to really live the life you desire then you have you get up and get out there and make it happen.

I was very good at sitting around moaning about my weight, my life and the fact everything was so tough for me, it took me to realise that I am the director of my own film to actually start sorting it out.

Now every day, every week, every year I push myself into new things so that I am growing, learning and developing as an individual.

Last week I went on the Chase on ITV1 to see if I could beat the Chaser, now why did I do it ? Because it pushed me out of my normal life and out of my comfort zone. Now I have a full time job, I have a house to look after and kids to feed, I have washing and ironing to do and all the other 'boring' things that you have to do in life. But sometimes I need to break free, I need to have some excitement and fear in my life so that then I am happy to go to work and be 'normal' knowing that occasionally I will climb a mountain, go on the TV, do a naked photo shoot or run a marathon.

Life is very much for living but I promise you that unless you decide to get up there and change what you need to change to live it then life will pass without you, and everyone deserves to live the life they desire.

The Definition Of Insanity

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results - that basically sums up my diet lifestyle from the age of 13 to 33.

I started my first diet when I was 13, I lost 3 pounds in two weeks and put it back on within a month. Now the general rule of thumb in life is once bitten, twice shy but in the dieting community it is more like hundreds of times bitten, give it another whirl.

And the reason is obvious ! We all know diets don't really work long term, we can argue all we like but if you look at the statistics then the amount of people long term maintaining weight after finishing a diet is very low. But what else can you do ? If you are overweight and want/need to lose weight then what other answers are there ? You can't do anything but diet surely ? But then you know diets don't really work long term so you do a diet, lose some weight, then put it back on while planning the next diet and get stuck in a lifestyle of dieting which over the years just cracks your self-esteem and leaves you helpless and wondering what the answers are to not dieting but not being big !

I went to a weight conference a few years back where Dr Tony Leeds who was chairman of the Royal Society of Medicine's Forum on Food and Health has done a lot of research and basically stated that regardless of whether you lose weight through calorie counting, weight watchers, slimming world, lighterlife. rosemary conley, cambridge diet, eating fish every other day or only eating foods beginning with the letter P then the regain of weight rates were almost identical.

Focus On Your Actions And Not Your Thoughts

Most people are very good at thinking about being slim, they plan to be slim, they work out how much they would need to lose to get to goal weight, they will research and get excited about every new diet on the market,  they count calories, count points, get a pedometer, they will plan it down to such a degree that surely success is guaranteed.

They plan to always start and stick to their new miracle diet from next week / next month / next year.

But instead of thinking about reducing your weight then what are your actions saying ? If you really want to reduce your weight and then eat a big take away then just because you think and plan that on the Monday you will start a diet then I would question your motivation. To many people talk about being slim but actually you do need to do the 'hard work' for a while to actually get there as you can ready every book on diets and do whatever research you like but at some point you have to swallow hard and do it !

If you really wanted to be slim, and I mean REALLY WANTED it so much that you would crawl over glass naked then it wouldn't bother you to avoid the take away and just get busy on cutting down.

I know I pretended for twenty years to be reducing my weight and basically living the yoyo diet lifestyle but it becomes very very tiring and is a battle that I wasn't winning as I got bigger and bigger.

The key thought to this diet madness is not in which diet you choose, it's not in what day you start or whether you eat more carbs than protein or don't eat after 6:42pm.

It's motivation !! It comes down to how much you really want to be slim and whether you'll let nothing and nobody stand in your way of having what you really want and deserve.

We Give Up What We Really Want For What We Really Want Right Now?

We live in a culture now of have now and pay later. If you drive past an electrical shop you will see them offering huge TV's that you don't need to starting paying for until next year, sofa shops doing finance that the sofa will be worn out before you actually own it and you can get a credit card from Tesco now and pay nothing for the first six months of having it.

The culture in this country of work hard and get the benefits has now reversed to get the benefits and then eventually do the hard work or actually don't do the hard work and just get the benefits. But of course if you don't eventually pay for the TV you get in trouble, and Tesco will also come after you if you just hide the bills eventually and pretend it never happened. And it is the same with weight, how many times have you eaten too many calories and thought that you would do something about it on your next diet, or that you won't eat the following day to make up for it, you are borrowing calories from the future.

The problem is of course that the following day you are hungry and nibble, and the next time you diet you feel so bad about your weight and find the diet so tough that you don't stick to it and fall off and console yourself with eating. So what's the answer ? The answer is you must value the bigger picture, now when you think about being slim in the future is it really that exciting for you ? What is the real benefits of being slim for you ? Yeah sure it sounds great but actually if you had to choose between being slim in a year of carefully eating or having a nice big take away and bottle of wine on Saturday night then which is more appealing ?

Because you may think that one little nibble now won't really make that much of a difference but actually it will, I didn't eat for five months and just drank milkshakes to lose 11 and a half stone and I never ate once, I was never even tempted to eat because I wanted to get on the plane to America being slim and fit and it was far more interesting and fun to do that than go out with my mates and get drunk and eat a curry. So what is your bigger picture ? What is it really about ? If you don't know the real benefits of being slim and what it is going to mean to you then I would argue you may not get there.

New Year, New You ?

 

So today is the end of January, it's a month since all those New Years resolution were made.

 

So how did yours go ?

Do you remember what you resolutions were and are they still being adhered to ?

I set a New Year's resolution of cutting back on caffeine as I drink a lot of coffee because I have a coffee machine near my desk and got into a routine of grabbing a coffee when I went to a meeting.

The more meetings I had the more coffee I drank but I noticed last year that on Saturday's I was getting headaches from the lack of caffeine so decided in January to cut back on the coffee instead.

So anyway job done ! Didn't have any caffeine in January and didn't miss it at all, instead of not having coffee and depriving myself I simply cut to decaf tea and coffee and haven't missed the caffeine at all.

I get asked a lot about how I sometimes am so determined and how do you find the 'willpower' to do things like lose weight, stop smoking, stop gambling etc.

The answer is I don't need willpower to do any of it because I am happy to do it ! And that's the key with weight and dieting, as soon as you are happy to not overeat anymore then you will be slim for years without having to diet and try.

If you dread dieting then you'll never be slim long term, as soon as you love dieting as it means you get slim and healthy then you'll get the results you want.

The secret is there is no secret...

I haven't dieted now for over 6 years in anyway, shape or form. I don't eat diet bars or shakes or soups or count points or anything like that, I just eat like a slim person and don't need food anymore to cheer myself up, celebrate, commiserate or get myself over a bad day at work.

Break the emotional link you have with food and the results are astonishing.

Six Years On

Well it has now been six years since I decided that I needed to trim some weight off and be slim forever. The last six years have been a real roller coaster for me, I have split with my wife, moved house, got a completely new career, climbed a mountain, won a gameshow, done a naked photo shoot and generally had loads of good times and bad times.

But here I am six years on still at goal weight, the reason is that I no longer use food to celebrate the good times and I no longer use food to help me when times get tough.

I remember reading an article that said statistically it is impossible for someone who loses large amounts of weight to keep it off long term, but that's the point ! I don't keep it off as I got rid of it back in 2005, now I am just normal slim Mike !

I spent last night chatting to someone who was telling me how much they love food and love being on the sofa eating etc etc. But then they were doing a diet for a few months to trim the weight off and then they hoped to maintain.

But I have never met any maintaner who didn't change their mental relationship with food, sure you can try any old fad diet on the market, you can do Lighterlife, Cambridge, Weightwatchers or Slimming World and while you do those diets properly you will trim down but it's what you do afterwards that really counts.

And no diet really educates you in how to think differently about food and how to value your health and self esteem above eating too many calories. Most diets want you to go on their maintenance programs which basically means it is still about the food, I haven't dieted or thought about dieting since I finished back then and will never do another diet as the more I dieted the bigger I got !

So here is to the next six years ! Am sure it will be a bumpy ride but I shall be doing it with the same positivity I used for the past six years.

How Do You Label Yourself ?

Are you a mother, daughter, son, or father?

Are you a nurse, plumber, secretary or shop worker?

Are you a dieter, maintainer, ex-dieter, counsellor?

Are you a smoker, gambler, shopaholic, drinker or over eater?

Are you male or female?

Are you a Norwich City Fan or do you support some other football team...

My point is that people accept labels very easily and then tend to live to the expectation of that label.

I think the label of male works well for me, and I will even accept Norwich City fan, but some of the old labels I used to call myself such as failure, useless, fat, chunky, chubby and big Mike did very little for my self-esteem and by constantly putting myself down to others, excusing my weight by calling myself big boned and generally focussing on just how useless I was at weight management, I didn't get anywhere fast!

The reason I mention it is that I was chatting with a diet consultant who was quick to tell me all the negative things about himself and it reminded me of me. He told me he was fat (which he actually wasn't) and that he gambled too much...

Now when he said he was fat I asked 'Is that all you are?'

Of course, he said no, the conversation opened up and we moved it on until we agreed that he was great at his job and that I needed him to help me fix some problems and we got on and did it.

So what labels do you choose to accept, what labels do you let others give to you and also what labels do you call yourself...

Everytime you give yourself a negative label, then just think to yourself 'Is that all I am?' and then see if you can rephrase it to a positive.

Because you can change a label in the blink of a decision...I can become an Ipswich fan tonight if I want to...but the key is I choose not to as I now like the labels I have for myself and I know which ones I accept when other people call me them.
P.S. You are fantastic! (hope you accept that one!)

Don't Think Of A White Bear

I have just been away on holiday and unfortunately sustained a serious knee injury on the first day of my holiday and hence instead of looking around Europe I spent the whole holiday sitting and reading! But never one to dwell anymore on the bad stuff I used it as an opportunity to read some new material and found a fantastic study by David Schneider about not thinking about white bears.

In the 1980's David Schneider did an experiment where he asked people to actively not think about a white polar bear but to ring a bell everytime they did, it turned out that people who were asked not to think about the white bar rang the bell twice as much as people who were allowed to think about it.

As David Schneider put it 'These observations suggest that attempted thought suppression has paradoxical effects as a self control strategy, perhaps even producing the very obsession or preoccupation that it is direct against.'

Now you are probably think what has this go to with weight management and a healthy lifestyle, well in reality most people on a diet are trying to not think about food, they are trying to ignore the foods they like the most and concentrate on anything but food. But like not thinking of a white bear the more they try and not think about a glass of wine, a chocolate bar or a bag of crisps the more they think about it.

I have said for years now that the best way to be slim long term is not to diet as I believe the more you diet and 'not diet' then you become obsessed with dieting and living the diet lifestyle and it was nice to see some studies which supported what I already knew.

More information on the study can be found at Don't Think Of A White Bear

Why Do You Want To Be Slim ?

It's The Key To Success

The "Why do you want to be slim?" question is one of those questions where, as a counsellor, the answer will tell you an amazing amount about someone. Just the next ten seconds of their answer will give away whether or not it is a well formed goal, or whether or not it is likely to fail.

 

I will always remember asking a question to someone at work a couple of years ago who was moaning his career was going nowhere, which was "What do you want to do with your life?" He replied that he had no idea. He sat there for about thirty seconds and just kept saying he had no idea. He actually went off to think about it.

 

Therefore, I ask you again,

 

Why Do You Want To Be Slim?

 

What is your first instinct, is it because you think you should? Because others have been pressuring you to? Because your doctor said so? Because you are getting married? Because you have a holiday? Because you think it will make you happy? Because you don't want to be the big parent in the playground anymore? Because you saw a holiday photo and was horrified? Because you don't want to be the biggest of your friends ?

 

etc etc

 

Whatever your answer is, that is absolutely fine! If it works for you, then fantastic. If you actually can't think of an answer, my advice is to go away and really think it through. You must have a really good reason to do something, otherwise you are unlikely to do it.

 

The reason I asked is that if, for example, you said "I want to be slim for my holiday in March", then you go and reduce your weight and achieve that. The day you get back, if you were asked the question again, your reason has just disappeared. This is a large part of why so many people put weight back on after things like weddings or holidays. The original reason for reducing their weight was a good short term goal but gave no reason for long term maintenance.

 

I was talking to someone who had maintained her weight for about a year longer than I have. I asked her the same question to see her response, "Why did you want to be slim?" and she replied "Because that's who I am". That was exactly my answer! I didn't want to be slim for an event. I wanted to be slim because that is who I am. I am just me now. I am not "keeping the weight off", or jumping on and off diets. If you can really create a great answer, buy into that answer, and truly believe it, then the results will be totally different.

My First Diet

I was chatting to someone yesterday and they asked me the first time I can remember dieting, I thought back and I think I was around twelve years old, I can remember it was a summer holiday and I was staying with my gran. My mum had found a diet that was doing the rounds at work which involved eating spinach on one day and steak on the next day for a week to supposedly drop half a stone.

I can remember seeing it as a prison sentence for a week and spent each day obsessing over when my next bowl of spinach or steak was coming. I would dive on the scales on an almost hourly basis to see whether I had lost an ounce or two.

And from that week I was hooked into the dieting lifestyle, I was either on a diet or not on a diet but both ways it was about dieting. When on a diet I would be struggling to hang in there and keep to the plan and when not on a diet I would be eating as much as I could because I was always a few days off starting the next diet, and everytime I dieted and ate again I was a few pounds heavier than I was the time before. I can remember doing a famous diet for 2 years and being two pounds heavier at the end of it than at the start.

Because dieting grabs you like that, it becomes a lifestyle, you start bonding with your friends talking about dieting, you start planning your meals hours and days in advance, you buy books on dieting, download fact sheets, join weight loss forums, go to gyms, cook special red day meals etc etc. You end up so in the dieting lifestyle that you actually gain out of being overweight because it is a hobby to diet and without needing to diet then what else would you do? I mean if you went to work and everyone was chatting about the latest diet and what foods were good/bad and you didn't need to diet then what would you talk about ?

So forget about your weight for a few minutes and just look at your lifestyle, just how many hours a week do you work on your dieting, how much time do you talk about food and weight, how much time you really invest in the dieting lifestyle and what could you do instead ?

 

I Don't Want To Die

Focus On What You Want And Not What You Don't Want 

Most dieters actually perceive themselves to be quite positive about their weight and their lives. They are taking action and moving on but what they say will very much dictate the results they will get.

What they think is a positive mindset is actually based on fear and what they don't want, as opposed to optimism and what they do want.

 

Let me give you some examples.

 

How many times have you said or heard other people say

 

1. I don't want to die

2. I don't want to be the fat mum in the playground

3. I don't want people to laugh at me

4. I don't want to wear big clothes

5. I don't want to go to a wedding looking like I do now

6. I don't want to get on a plane when I can't fit in the seat

7. I don't want to go on holiday looking like this

 

etc etc etc

 

But all of these require you to feel bad! They all require you to think about the thing that upsets you, hence you have to feel upset or uncomfortable. Therefore, if you desperately don't want people to laugh at you for being overweight, you then think about it, you then feel bad so you then use food to cheer yourself up. You then are in a vicious circle.

 

So what do you really want? Most dieters don't know, or won't allow themselves to think about it, dream it, imagine it and then do it.

 

So let's turn around those six points above, what if you said instead.

 

1. I want to live

2. I want to look great in the playground

3. I want people to wolf whistle me

4. I want to wear that new dress I saw in the shop window

5. I want to look fantastic at that wedding

6. I want to bounce about in my airline seat with room for three others

7. I want to have the holiday of a lifetime

 

It's just a decision to change what you don't want to what you do want. Even better of course is once you had decided what you do want is to make it even stronger by deciding to do it.

 

So

 

1. I will live my life and love it!

2. I will look amazing in that playground, in fact I'll look amazing wherever I am, and whatever I am doing.

3. I will have people say how great I look, and I'll know that I look great.

4. I will wear that dress I really want, and I will feel great in it.

5. I will look amazing on that wedding day.

6. I will get on that plane and make a point of sharing my seat with at least one of the cabin crew.

7. I will have the holiday of a lifetime

 

And then don't doubt it, go ahead and do it!

 

If you don't know what you want though then you will always be in neutral and not move forwards, let me give you another example of when most people know what they want!

 

When you sit down tonight in front of the TV then you are likely to make a decision on what you want to watch and not what you don't want to watch!

 

You may think, I want to relax and have a laugh so I'll watch X-Factor, or you might think I want to watch Brucie and the dancers on Strictly, and guess what! You will!

 

But would you sit there and think

 

I don't want to watch the shopping channels, I don't want to watch a documentary, or a quiz, I don't want to see a round of golf, and I definitely don't want to watch a movie, I don't want to view anything in black or white, or any programme with songs in it, I don't want to watch the news channels or anything with David Dickinson on it...

 

Of course not!!

Therefore if you know what you want to watch on the TV tonight and are happy to think of that, then what is stopping you think of what you want with one of the biggest things in your life! Your Health...

Strategy For Success

People will always have a reason and a strategy for reducing their weight. The reason and hence the strategy is absolutely key to whether they are successful or not at getting to goal weight and more importantly being slim and healthy for the rest of their life.

 

From working with thousands of clients now I have realised that the difference in the strategies people run will usually dictate the result that they get.

 

A lady came to me back in 2008 with around 10 stone to lose (140 pounds), I asked her "Why she wanted to reduce her weight?" she said that she had been to the supermarket and was appalled by what she saw in the mirror in the changing room and hence that was the "kick up the bum" she needed to reduce her weight.

 

So she started to reduce her weight, she was incredibly determined, she had the absolute focus and started shrinking each week I saw her. After about 12 weeks she was around 3 stone (42 pounds) lighter and was starting to really see the results in that mirror....

 

But then it all started to go wrong, she started to eat too much again and spent the next 4 weeks without reducing her weight by a single pound.

 

Anyway we had a quiet chat one evening and she admitted that the motivation was not there anymore as she was no longer the person she saw in the mirror in the Supermarket and hence whereas she was trying to get away from that person she was now far enough away that she felt better and didn't value being slim as much as she did as that was never the original strategy.

 

So we talked again about what she wanted, she said she really did want to be slim, so we worked out a realistic weight goal in the future that she could aim at, we talked through possible hurdles, and the big goal for her is/was to fit in a particular dress that meant something to her.

 

By switching her mindset from getting away from something i.e. not wanting to be the person in the mirror to going towards something meant she suddenly was enthusiastic about what she was going to achieve in the future.

 

After that she was amazing, she went on to lose over 110 pounds in weight and reduced her BMI down to being overweight from morbidly obese. The closer she got to the target the more she could see,feel, touch and smell it and the more she wanted it and was a much better strategy for success. To this day she is still slim having seen her in town a couple of weeks ago.

 

So when you look at your own weight goals are you trying to get away from something or are you working towards a realistic goal in the future. The difference in results is huge!

 

Just to finish off today I met a lady once that I asked the same question of

 

"Why do you want to reduce weight?"

 

She replied in a quite common way "I don't want to die young"

 

I replied "That's what you don't want, so what do you want?"

 

She replied "I don't know actually"

 

Therefore if you don't know what you want then how can you achieve it? Remember to focus absolutely on what you want in terms of your weight and there is nothing in the world that can stop you.

10 Percent Better

Just imagine you were 10 percent better at dieting and managing your weight.... 

Most of the time I spend with people 1-2-1 I find they are stuck in a problem, or they perceive themselves as being "bad" at something. My job is to help and coach them to help themselves realise that actually they have other options and they can be and do so much more.

A technique I use quite often is the "10 Percent" technique which I made up back in 2007.

 

Let me give you an example.

 

I worked with a lady who fantastically reduced her weight by many many stones and was at goal weight. She came back for a maintenance weigh in and a chat and said that her problem was that with a hectic business lifestyle she had to eat when she could and sometimes whatever she could because she rarely had time to herself. She also stated that she could never eat healthily as she was always in roadside cafes and petrol stations.

 

She then went on to say she was "useless" and "incapable" when it came to food which is never good to hear as it is such a limiting belief. 

 

So I asked her "OK, imagine you were 10 percent better at looking after yourself when it came to food then what would you do ?"

 

She then sat and thought for a few seconds, maybe even a minute!

 

And then it started...she said

 

1. She could actually eat the healthier options in Little Chef etc as they don't force you to order the Olympic breakfast.

2. She could buy breakfast bars and have them in the car as she used to skip breakfast and then eat more later when she was hungry.

3. She could plan a 30 minute break at lunchtime in her diary to have some downtime and go and find a nice sandwich bar.

4. She could change to black coffee instead of latte's which she drank 3 or 4 of a day. 

 

All the time she was coming up with ideas I was writing them down for her on a pad, when she left I gave her the sheet and off she went to do them.

 

Now all of a sudden instead of imagining she was 10 percent better, surely if she was doing that she actually was 10 percent better?

 

But of course I never told her anything, as she is the expert of herself and who am I to tell her whether she should eat salad or chips?

 

The key to helping people is to simply be their tour guide and help them help themselves.

 

So turning this to you, think of something that you have a limiting belief about, think about something you percieve you are not very good at and then get a pen, if this relates to weight reduction then great but if not then great anyway!

 

Write down five things you would do if you were 10 percent better at it. When you have the list then the important thing is to go and take action and do those five things.

After you have done everything on the list and you have got 10 percent better then what if you decided you could be 10 percent better than that :-)

Why Do People Procrastinate About Dieting ?

It is very common with dieters that they procrastinate, in other words they put off the high importance things such as reducing their weight before they have health problems for the low importance things such as going out for a meal with friends that night. Putting off dieting and other things in your life is a big problem in todays society and lots of research has been done into.

The reasons dieters put off dieting are

1. Perfect Time - People want to wait until a perfect time to diet, a time when there are no distractions, no plans to go out, no special events, the right weather to stay in and the moons and all the planets lining up together. In other words they are waiting for a time that is never going to happen. No day like today !

2. Fear Of Failure - People who diet have likely dieted and failed a lot in their life, they may have not made it through the first day or first week, or maybe reduced their weight and then regained a lot. Therefore they are so scared of failing again that it is safer to never start in the first place. A total lack of confidence in yourself that you can actually acheieve and maintain your ideal weight. This is very common and usually a revelation to most dieters procrastinating.

3. Confused About Dieting - People are confused with all the diet advice, exercise advice and healhly living advice on which diet or plan to take up. Therefore because of information overload they don't do any of them due to not knowing which road to walk down.

4. It's Too Difficult - People believe that dieting is difficult, it is hard and not fun and therefore don't want to do it. They believe they have so much weight to lose that in reality it just can't be done and therefore they never start.

5. No Motivation - A person may have little or no interest in actually losing weight, they may have been told to by friends, family or the doctor but in reality they would rather eat than diet and therefore 'play along' that they are going to be reducing down but they don't see the real benefits of being slim and healthy.

6. Distractions - A person may have distractions that hinder them being able to focus on dieting, they may have a party coming up, a stressful job or lifestyle or a busy life that requires 'eating on the run'. They therefore prioritise other things in there life above dieting and being healthy.

7. Not Fun - A person may just not want to diet because it isn't fun to not be eating, they feel like a hermit and like the odd one out, they don't want their friends and family to comment.

Which Diet Is Best ?

I got an E-Mail this morning from a lady asking me which diet is the best one for losing weight.

My reply was

'Hi L*******

Firstly any diet you do should be safe and therefore you should always seek advice from your GP / Medical Practitioner for his/her advice as no two people's health is the same and what matters most is that you do a diet which helps you and doesn't harm you !

Once sorted then my advice is to pick a diet that fits in with your lifestyle, now I did a VLCD diet (Cambridge Diet / Lighterlife) which worked really well for me as it meant I didn't have to worry about food choices, I just went all or nothing for a few months lost the weight very quickly, but it did mean I didn't go out much and doesn't work for everyone so look at the market as you have some great diets out there such as Weightwatchers / Slimming World / Rosemary Conley or just good old fashioned Calorie Counting / Healthy Eating.

The most important bit of advice I can give you though is whichever diet you choose make sure you do the head work and not just the losing weight bit, most people who lose weight put it back on quickly and all too often even more weight than they had before, this is because in my opinion, they don't deal with the emotional reasons behind why the overeat and go back to their old habits and lifestyle choices and therefore the weight comes back.

It is fantastic to lose weight and does help with self-esteem but to regain the weight is a big kick to your self-esteem and one which a lot of people struggle to come back from.

Therefore take some time for you, look at why you got big in the first place, what makes you overeat now, what your triggers and trigger foods area, why you enjoy food as much as you do and what strategies you have long term for maintaining weight and for me the real challenge is not dieting and being slim and opposed to just jumping on the next fad diet for a few months and then becoming obssessed by the diet lifestyle.

At the end of the day I can't tell you what is best for you but I promise you that if you pick a good quality safe diet and alongside it do some mind work then the results can be amazing and stay in touch and let me know how you get on.

Mike X

P.S. Plan to make this diet the golden time and your last time and you'll create so much more success !!

 

Quotes For Success

Believe You Can, Believe You Can't, Either Way You'll Be Right

When You Expect Success, Your Mind Focuses On Success – Anonymous

It's Kind Of Fun To Do The Impossible - Walt Disney

Thoughts Become Things So Choose The Good Ones - Mike Dooley

All That We Are Is The Result Of What We Have Thought – Boedha

Life Isn't About Finding Yourself, Life Is About Creating Yourself - George Bernard Shaw

It's Not What You Look At That Matters, It's What You See - Henry David Thoreau

Nobody Knows What They Can Do Until They Try – Sorus

You Cannot Teach A Man Anything, You Can Only Help Him Discover It Within Himself - Galileo Galilei

You Were Born To Win, But To Be A Winner You Must Plan To Win, Prepare To Win, And Expect To Win - Zig ZiglarIf

Opportunity Doesn't Knock, Build A Door - Milton Berle

The Best Way To Make Your Dreams Come True Is To Wake Up - Paul Valery

Failure Is Success If We Learn From It - Malcolm Forbes

The Greatest Thing In The World Is Not So Much Where We Are, But In What Direction We Are Moving - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Happiness Is Not A Matter Of Events, It Depends Upon The Tides Of The Mind - Alice Meynall

The Only Way To Predict The Future Is To Have The Power To Change It - Eric Hoffer

For Last Year's Words Belong To Last Year's Language And Next Year's Words Await Another Voice - T.S. Eliot

Success Does Not Consist Of Never Making Blunders, But In Never Making The Same One A Second Time - Josh Billings

Strive For Excellence, Not Perfection - H.Jackson Brown Junior

Nothing Great Was Ever Achieved Without Enthusiasm - Ralph Emerson

Human's Are Like Tea Bags, We Don't Know Our Own Strength Until We're In Hot Water - Sister Busche

The Person Who Gets The Farthest Is Generally The One Who Is Willing To Do And Dare, The Comfort Zone Boat Never Gets Far From The Shore - Dale Carnegie

A Kiss Is A Lovely Trick Designed By Nature To Stop Speech When Words Become Superfluos - Ingrid Bergmam

A Strong Positive Attitude Will Create More Miracles Than Any Wonder Drug - Patricia Neal

Your Current Safe Boundaries Were Once Unknown Frontiers – Anonymous

If Your Ship Doesn't Come In, Swim Out To It - Jonathan Winters

Insist On Yourself. Never Imitate - Ralph Emerson

People Rarely Succeed Unless They Have Fun In What They Are Doing - Dale Canergie

Be Kind To Your Body - It's The Only Place You Have To Live - Jim Rohn

You See Things And Say Why, But I Dream Things That Never Were And Say Why Not? - George Bernard Shaw

It's Not What You Eat, It's Why You Eat That Really Matters - Mike Scott

Success Is Determined By How Determined You Are To Succeed - Anonymous

Imagination Is More Important Than Knowledge - Albert Einstein

If You Do What You Have Always Done You'll Always Get What You Always Got – Anonymous

What Progress, You Ask, Have I Made? I Have Begun To Be A Friend To Myself – Hecato

You Will Never Find The Time For Anything, If You Want The Time You Must Make It -Charles Buxton

If You Cannot Solve It, It's Not A Problem, It's Just The Reality - Barbara Coloroso

I Am Not Afraid Of Do Not Anticipate Trouble, Or Worry About What May Never Happen. Keep In The Sunlight - Benjamin Franklin

Excellence Is To Do Something Ordinary In An Extraordinary Way - Booker Washington

No Matter Who You Are, No Matter What You Do, You Absolutely, Positively Do Have The Power To Change - BIll Phillips

What We Think, We Become – Buddha

Your Greatest Self Has Been Waiting All Your Life, Don't Make It Wait Any Longer - Steve Maraboli

People Who Enjoy What They Are Doing Invariably Do It Well - Joe Gibbs

If You Can Never Manage With Where You Are At, You Will Never Be Happy With Where You Go - Phillip Bennett

Let Your Star Shine Brightly High In The Sky, It Shines Even Brighter In The Dark – Anonymous

There Is Only One Success, To Be Able To Spend Your Life In Your Own Way - Christopher Morley

What Lies Behind Us And What Lies Before Us Are Tiny Matters Compared To What Lies Within Us - Walt Emerson

Life Is A Big Canvas, Throw All The Paint On It You Can - Danny Kaye

If Your Success Is Not On Your Own Terms, If It Looks Good To The World But Does Not Feel Good In Your Heart, It Is Not Success At All - Anna Quindlen

Live Life Fully While You're Here. Experience Everything. Take Care Of Yourself And Your Friends. Have Fun, Be Crazy, Be Weird. Go out And Screw Up! You're Going To Anyway, So You Might As Well Enjoy The Process. Take The Opportunity To Learn From Your Mistakes: Find The Cause Of Your Problem And Eliminate It. Don't Try To Be Perfect; Just Be An Excellent Example Of Being Human - Tony Robbins

The Wisest Men Follow Their Own Direction. – Euripid

Not Everything That Can Be Counted Counts, And Not Everything That Counts Can Be Counted - Albert Einstein

Every Wall Is A Door - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let Nothing And Nobody Stand In Your Way Of Being Who You Really Are - Mike Scott

Those First Few Songs I Wrote, I Was Taking Notes At A Fantastic Rock Concert Going On In My Head - Jim Morrison

First Say To Yourself What You Would Be, And Then Do What You Have To Do - Epictetus

Believe That Life Is Worth Living And Your Actions Will Confirm It - William James

You Can Because You Think You Can - Virgil

To Accomplish Great Things We Must Not Only Act But Also Dream, Not Only Plan But Also Believe - Anatole

It's Easy To Make A Buck, It's A Lot Harder To Make A Difference - Tom Brokaw

Let This Coming Year Be Better Than All The Others. Vow To Do Some Of The Things You've Always Wanted To Do But Couldn't Find The Time -Ann Landerse

Life Is Like Riding A Bicycle,  To Keep Your Balance You Must Keep On Moving - Anonymous

You Don't Get To Choose How You're Going To Die. Or When. But You Can Decide How You're Going To Live Now - Joan Baezidin

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful - Albert Schweitzer

Don't aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and believe in, and it will come naturally - David Frost

You will never find time for anything. You must make it - Charles Buxton

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Enthusiasm is the steam that drives the engine - Napoleon Hill

Live out your imagination, not your history - Dr. Stephen Covey 

Begin with the end in mind - Dr. Stephen Covey 

Between stimulus and response, one has the freedom to choose - Dr. Stephen Covey

If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten - Tony Robbins

You just can't beat the person who never gives up - Babe Ruth

 

Never let your memories be greater than your dreams - Anon

 

Don't be pushed by your problems, be led by your dreams

Got Four Minutes Of Your Life Spare To Be Inspired ?

 

How Do You Make Someone Realise They Can Change?

When I work with people 1-2-1 one of the first things I try and do is help them realise that they can actually change and can achieve what they want.

So many people who have dieted for years and years start a diet already having decided that they are going to fail on it, or they have decided that they will do it for a short set period before then going back to the lifestyle and food choices that they made before.

Now that is fine, if someone wants to eat too many calories and put weight on and they are happy to do that then I certainly won't tell them not to but when you chat to people and they are being honest then usually they will admit that they hate and are bored of the diet lifestyle and would love to never have to diet again.

But do they truelly believe it ? Do you actually believe it ?

Do you really believe you can trim a few pounds off, get slim and then never have to diet again ?

Or do you think you are stuck dieting and are destined to diet and struggle with your weight for the rest of your life as it is in your genes ?

Because I did ! I really thought that I had to be big for the rest of my life as that was who I was...but it isn't true. At anytime you can stop dieting and just be slim...if you don't believe me then ask yourself why you don't ?

What Do You Make Your Food Choices Based On ?

Knowledge and awareness are definitely power, I spent many years being very overweight and never analysing why I was overeating or why I was choosing the food and portion sizes I was. If you has asked me I would have said I just had what I liked but when I eventually stood back from the situation and thought about what it was all about and understood my behaviours then it made it so much easier to change them.

So I am not going to offer advice in this post, I am merely going to ask you to think about why you choose the food you do ?

Is it based on what you fancy ? what is the most expensive? cheapest? lowest fat? biggest portion? what you know best?

If you are sitting in a restaurant and there is a massive selection of food, anything from a green salad right the way through to a massive mixed grill with chips and deep fried mushrooms. How do you decide?

If you realise what your triggers and how you decision process works then it is so much easier to change them (if you want to!)

When I used to eat in restaurants I used to go for the most expensive thing on the menu, that was because in my head I linked expensive with best, and as I wanted the best thing then the most expensive would be the ideal one. I would also never turn down a starter or dessert because I didn't want to 'miss out'.

I also hated feeling hungry so would make sure I ate so much that I would feel suitable 'stuffed' and that would keep me going.

So back to you, why do you choose the food you do ?

Why Do You Want To Lose Weight ?

I ask this question a lot with my clients, it seems such an obvious question and therefore they are likely to have a really good answer but I usually get replies like 'I don't know really' or 'because I should' or 'my doctor has been moaning at me' or 'I hate the way I look' or 'my clothes don't fit' etc etc.

The usual response is either to do with getting away from something i.e. I don't want to die, or they have no really good reason at all apart from the media keeps bombarding us telling us we should trim and slim down.

The problem is with either of these motivations once you get to goal weight then what is going to keep you there? Sure you do really well, you lose weight and you get to your goal, you look amazing ! everyone is saying how well you have and you start to believe your own hype !

You have done well ! You have changed your life, your slim and everyone is talking about how well you have done...and then what?

Eventually they stop talking about you and normal life is resumed, you get asked out for dinner, or you are bored on the sofa and get the nibbles, you pop into a coffee shop and want to try the caramel slices they have, you see cheap cakes in Tesco on reduced and then suddenly the pounds start to return and why wouldn't they? The original person is still in you ! The person who can eat too many calories for your body is there, sure they hid for a while due to willpower but normal service is now resumed and the weight is coming back.

Rarely when I work with people do they plan to be slim forever, they plan to lose weight for sure ! They can tell me what diet, what exercise plan, what they are going to cut out of their diet, how much water they are going to drink, how they are going to walk every morning and do toning and Zumba classes. But all of that is short term thrills to trim a few pounds off.

It isn't the answer to staying slim and never having to bother about dieting again, now sure you can keep bailing the water out of the boat by dieting for the rest of your life and you may stay afloat but I preferred to just fill the hole in the boat and then stop bailing !

Now if you are thinking what is the answer then firstly can you answer this question with a positive answer

What is the benefit of being slim long term to you ?

Never Judge Others, You Haven't Walked In Their Shoes

I spend a lot of time working with and talking to people who want help with their weight and other life issues, the thing you notice the most is that although a lot of the behaviours and lives are similar at the same point everyone has their own story, their own baggage and their own past and therefore when I work with people I don't judge them based on my own prejudices and experiences.

I was in Tesco last Saturday with a friend and a large lady walked past with a trolley full of cakes, pizza's and other 'less healthy' foods. My friend immediately made a judgemental comment about the food and her, I reminded him that actually he knows nothing about her, for a start the food may not even be for her but even if it is then it is her life choice and you have no right to judge and offer your opinion on what others do.

As it happens he drives a huge red sports car and no more than 24 hours earlier I was sticking up for him when someone was saying what an idiot he looked while driving around the town. Again people very quick to judge without knowing the person inside the behaviour.

Now my life isn't perfect, I am no angel and have no wish to be one either as I don't think the wings would suit me, I screw up all the time, I have a past, I've done some really stupid things, I have prejudices and baggage and all the other things that the rest of the world has but I don't judge others and therefore before you gossip or talk about others whether about their weight, size or anything else then remember the Lawrence Lovasik quote

'It is just as cowardly to judge an absent person as it is wicked to strike a defenless one. Only the ignorant and narrow-minded gossip for they speak of persons instead of things'

 

Think About What You Can Add To Your Life, Not What You Should Take Away.

When people plan on dieting they are planning on what they can't have, a friend of mine is currently planning on starting a diet and is talking about all the things he/she won't be allowed to eat and will have to avoid while they are on a diet.

Now the first thing is they are now eating more of them before they start dieting, almost like a 'goodbye' to the food by having loads more of it, secondly while they are dieting they are going to have a sense of loss and will miss those foods, which then means if and when they finish the diet they will be looking forward to going straight back to those foods, but because they have been 'deprived' then they are likely to eat even more of them and watch the pounds come back on.

When I used to diet all the time it was all about what I wasn't allowed, I used to restrict calories one week, then go low carb for a week, then cut out anything with more than 5% fat, then cut out sugar etc etc. But every diet was based on negatives and restricting myself and to be frank it doesn't work when you stop dieting and try to maintain.

So instead think about what you can add to your life and your diet instead of all of those calories, now for me I was a real comfort and boredom eater so instead of needing comfort I dealt with my emotional issues and instead of being bored I took up hobbies and interests so I wasn't sitting around anymore.

Then when I came off my last ever diet (five years ago next week!) instead of NOT having things I tried new things instead, I now don't restrict what I eat at all, if I want chocolate, cake and cookies I will have them but I also love trying new foods and experiences and therefore I don't overeat anymore.

So can you honestly say when you diet you look for the things you can add or do you simply focus on what you can't eat ?

Why Don't People Just Lose Weight?

I had a fascinating chat today with someone at work, they were talking about stopping smoking and weight and they asked why don't people just lose weight ?

My immediately reply was 'Because of the emotional benefit food gives them...'

They looked really puzzled and said 'Why do people get emotional benefit from food?'

And it really hit me, I am talking to someone who has never been overweight, I have watched them skip meals all the time and generally eat because they have to as opposed to they really want to.

It was really alien to them that maybe somebody eats because they have had a bad day at work or someone has upset them.

You Only Fail When You Stop Trying

When you were a baby and tried for the first time to stand up just imagine as you fell back down to the ground if you gave up, imagine if you thought 'well that doesn't work' and then decided to just never bother trying to walk again and spent the rest of your life crawling around the place as you had one set back.

Of course babies never gave up and continue to try, fall down, bump their heads, try, try and try again until they walk as they learn each time what didn't work and adjust, but with dieting people are forever having 'blips', 'problems' and 'issues' and then allowing themselves to stop dieting and regain weight because they have 'blown it'.

But you only fail when you stop trying.

I spent 20 years trying to get slim, I spent thousands of pounds on different diets, gym memberships, DVD's, exercise equipment and other gimmicks but I kept falling down and not getting slim.

But I never gave up hope, I never gave up trying and I never gave up believing that one day I would find the courage, strength and want/need combination to get slim and stay slim.

So next time you eat on a diet when you 'should'nt' or have a bad day and have that glass of wine, or have too many nibbles at a work do or whatever the problem is then don't give up on yourself, just learn from it and move onwards, upwards and inwards.

You only fail when you stop trying, and never ever stop trying !

New Year, New You?

Well it's been five years for me now since I reduced down my weight and stopped dieting forever, it's been a strange Christmas for me this year but as usual I moderated and had what I wanted and therefore I won't be needing to jump on a diet tomorrow morning like I used to.

I get loads of E-Mails at this time of year with people asking for advice on what diet they should do, what the secret is and general hints and tips on getting motivated to slim down.

My advice is maybe a little controversial but the reason I am slim is that I haven't dieted for five years, sure I had to do a diet back in 2005 to get to slim but once there I got off the dieting bandwagon as I think it is designed and promotes people to lose/gain/lose and then gain again.

When I tell people that dieting doesn't work they look at me like I am mad and try and tell me that it does work and that you just need to moderate and cut back a bit after you finish dieting.

But if that were true then why do 99% of people regain all the weight within 12 months ? Why are there more people on diets today than ever before? If diets were the answer then surely 90% of people would stay slim and less and less people would need to diet? But we all know the diets don't work, but when you are big and need to trim down then what other options do you really have? I stood once at a dieting conference when the presenter admitted that whatever diet people did it was statistically very unlikely they would keep the weight off, I have even seen pictures in magazines of people who are being plauded for reducing weight even though they have already regained it.

And the diet industry is very good at promoting itself at this time of year promising bikini pictures in the summer etc etc but the reality is that diet companies need you to regain weight, therefore I would always question their real motives as if they got everyone slim and not dieting then they would go out of business ? Therefore are they really trying to help you or make money out of you ?

Now I am not saying I have all the answers to everything but I definitely have a different view on dieting to most and the fact I don't now need to do it and haven't for years means I must be doing something right, and one of my things for 2011 is to get out there and tell the world that crash dieting is not the answer for most.

So if you are sitting down tonight to eat and drink with a big plan of a New Year's resolution tomorrow to join a slimming club or gym and get fit then ask yourself the honest question... Why do I really eat too much ?

The answer won't be answered by points, calories or packs of soups...

My hope for you for 2011 is that you are healthy and truelly happy, once you have those then you'll find the weight takes care of itself.

Happy New Year

Mike

Life Goes On...

I thought I would drop in on this very cold and snowy morning for an update and to explain why I haven't been on much for a couple of months.

Over the past few months I have had three major life changes, I have, unfortunately, split with my wife after 21 years together, I have moved house and also moved jobs. And therefore 2010 really has been a year of major changes.

But last weekend I was lucky enough to give away an award at a dieting awards ceremony and to celebrate five years since I got to goal weight and I haven't dieted since.

And throughout the past few months which has been very stressful and emotional I have continued to look for the positives, continued to use food in an appropriate way and continued to live by my life values and I have made it through and I am now looking forward to 2011 which for me is going to be a great year.

I have big plans for 2011 and will share some of them with you late in the month but just wanted to say I am absolutely fine and I hope everyone on here is and I hope you have a very relaxed December as we go into this happy time of year.

Mike x

What Is Life Really About ?

The one thing I have learnt above all others over the last five years is that life really should not be about dieting and the diet lifestyle. I wasted a lot of my 20's and early 30's being obsessed with my weight, what I was eating and what diet I was doing next, I would wake up in the morning thinking about the scales and my breakfast and go to bed thinking about food and how big I was becoming.

But life is definitely too short for that, so for me life is really about being happy being who you really are, and the key here is 'who you really are' as so many of us, me included!, aren't really sure what we are, where we are headed and what life is really about.

Now I have made some huge life changes in the past few years and even more so in the past couple of months but I am doing it with the goal of being happy being who I really am, and more so I am happy to be happy while on the journey to that goal.

If you aren't happy with something in your life then change it, you have the power, it may mean high grade misery for a while as you take on the problem and create solutions but living your life unhappy is such a waste.

It is your birth right to be happy being who you really are, you would never teach your children to put themselves down the pecking order and therefore don't accept it yourself. Let nothing and nobody stand in your way, especially yourself.

If It's Not Right Change It...

As you will see over the past few weeks I haven't been blogging that much, that is because in the 'real world' I have been making some big changes in my life. Now they are changes I have been putting off for a while and avoiding because they cause pain for people but ultimately I believe if you are going to talk it then you should walk it and therefore I have had to change things which ultimately I believe, in the long term, will be for the better.

But how many of us don't do that? How many of us put up with low grade misery in our lives so we avoid the short term high grade misery of doing something about it ?

A friend of mine died last weekend in a motorbike accident and it just polarises for me that fact that you get one shot at life, one chance to be happy and to fulfill all the hopes and dreams you had as a child, you get one chance to make a difference and leave an impression on the planet and therefore if your life isn't working for you then change it...

That doesn't mean just blow your world up, it means looks at what works for you in your life and get more of it, and look at what is destructive and not working for you and let it go.

People come and go from our lives. Love remains. Letting someone go means that we respect their dignity, humanity, and choices. It does not mean that they will never come back in our lives in some capacity. Nor does it mean that we stop caring for them or missing them. It does mean that love is not clingy or controlling. People we love must be free to come and go as they please. 

Do You Really Want It ?

If you really want to do something, and I mean really want to do something then eventually you will do it, I mean if you are 10 out of 10 convinced you want to do something then you would let nothing stand in your way of having it.

But do you analyse what you really want and whether you do really want it that much?

I spend a lot of time with people telling me they want to reduce their weight but their actions and the outcomes are totally different.

So do you know what your goal really is ?

Do you know the reality of where you are now in comparison to that goal ?

Do you know how to get that goal ?

And are you really willing to do whatever it takes to actually do it ?

A lot of people will give up what they really want for what they really want right now, I have always said it is difficult to get excited about living another 20 years when you are being offered something nice to eat as you are trying to compare a long term goal against an immediate win and as a society we are now very much based around 'now' and the future will take care of itself.

So do you really want it ?

What is the benefit to you of being slim long term ?

Stated in the positive why do you really want to reduce your weight ?

Where's your plan ?

I spent 20 years just jumping on and off diets without ever taking a step back and thinking through a well formed plan and realising what it is all about.

I didn't get big because I accidentally ate too many calories, I got big as I was using food to try and make me happier and therefore being overweight is an emotional issue and not a calorie issue.

I promise you that when you stop using food as a sticky plaster and an emotion booster then trimming down is actually very simple and then staying slim just becomes the norm.

It is five years next month since I made a decision to be slim for the rest of my life and sure it has been a bumpy ride and I have made lots of mistakes and been through some dark times BUT I have never doubted the result, I have never taken my eyes of the prize and I really really really wanted it and I still do.

Whats The Benefit Of Being Slim ?

So what's your answer?

What is your initial answer?

Now I have asked you this question loads of times over the past couple of years of doing these newsletters but do you ever actually go inside and answer it?

I talk to people all the time who say they can't understand themselves, they don't know why they eat too much, they don't know why they sabotage themselves, they don't understand why they can't get motivated, they are out of sync with themselves.

But the answers are in there! Remember you are the expert of you, you just need to spend some time, and effort, and work through with yourself what it really is all about.

Back in 2006 I fell to bits. I got to goal weight and I literally exploded my life, I was written off work, split up with my wife for a while, and basically went and hid in a barn in Lowestoft and just wanted the world to end. I couldn't cope with life without being able to use food to help me, I didn't realise just how much food was part of my life and how I used food inappropriately. But I was then sent to experts, I got a counsellor, I got a doctor, I was given loads of pills and everyone 'understood' how I felt.

I became a victim and I allowed myself to go down and down into a pit of despair, but then one day I decided to do something different. I decided to have a chat with myself, deal with the real stuff and then to move onwards and upwards. I threw away the pills, cancelled my appointment with the counsellor and decided to smile for a living.

I sat for an evening with my laptop and wrote out loads of question and answered them honestly. I have shared some of them with you before.

1. Stated in the positive, what specifically do you want? (Not what you don't want)

2. Where are you now in relation to that goal?

3. What will you see and hear when you have that goal?

4. What will you feel when you have that goal?

5. Do you truly believe you will ever have that goal?

6. What steps do you need to take to get to that goal?

7. How will you know when you have reached your goal?

8. What will getting to goal actually allow you to do?

9. Are you sure you want this?

10. Is this only for you?

11. Are you in charge of the result?

12. Where, when, how and with whom do you want this result?

13. Are there any drawbacks of getting this result?

14. What personal resources do you have that will allow you to achieve this result?

15. Do you know anyone else who has achieved the same goal?

16. What resources did they have that you can use?

17. Imagine you have that goal now, what resources did you use to get that goal?

18. Imagine you have that goal now, what advice can you give yourself now to make the journey as easy as possible?

19. What will happen if you get your goal?

20. What won't happen if you get your goal?

21. What will happen if you don't get your goal?

22. What won't happen if you don't get your goal?

Now for me the questions were more around what did I want to do with my life and where was I going but being honest with yourself is the key to all of this.

So what, for you, is the benefit of being slim long term? Are those benefits really strong enough that you won't overeat? I have always said it is hard to get excited about living to 95 when you are 35 and therefore apart from 'being healthy and living longer' then what else does it mean to you?

So my advice for this week is to get answering some questions, by putting some time aside and some honesty. Most people spend more time planning their shopping list for the supermarket than they do their lives so I recommend some 'me' time!

To Diet Or Not To Diet ?

I was talking with someone on Facebook last night about whether to diet or not!

Now normally when you need something then you just go and do it, so if you needed to fix a broken window then you would just put a new piece of glass in and job done.

But being overweight is different, because when you get slim there is no guarantee you will stay there. In fact, we all know that statistically you are more likely to end up bigger in the long term from dieting constantly.

Loads of research shows that, at best, 98% of people regain all their lost weight within 18 months. I was reading a study in the summer that says 75% of people are actually bigger 18 months later than they were before they started the diet.

So if you go with the statistics then the best thing to do is not to diet!

But the problem of course with that is that if you are overweight and someone says don't diet then you just look confused and say 'How will I get slim if I don't diet?'

So it's a catch 22, diet and get bigger in the long term, don't diet and stay big!

And it is this problem that most dieters battle with, they go from deciding to never diet again to going back on a diet and then back to never dieting again and then back on another fad diet.

I did it for 20 years!

And we all go in search of the magic cure and the secret to being like our slim friends who can eat whatever they want and still look amazing in their size 8 jeans.

Now my advice for anyone who really wants to be slim long term is to do it through healthy eating, cutting back a bit, getting more active and generally rebalancing their calorie intake...

But that's not very exciting and we live in a society of quick results, we all want to see the scales drop today and not over the next year or two!

The fact I dropped 160 pounds in 20 weeks was what I wanted. I didn't want to reduce weight over months, I wanted it within minutes, and if we don't get the results then the diet has failed (as have we) and we go in search of the next miracle.

But real results come from new behaviours and stopping old behaviours, it comes from stopping pulling the trigger on why you eat, it means dealing with your emotional baggage, it means stop beating yourself up and be nice to yourself.

You see the issue isn't whether to diet or not, the real issue is why do you eat too many calories? Because as soon as you are honest with yourself and the true reasons you got big in the first place and why you still use food or drink as an emotional sticky plaster then go and pick any safe diet and get slim and then do something far more interesting.

The miracle is in you, not some diet! Between now and Christmas you have loads of time to trim and slim down and tone up, loads of time to go exercising and toning, loads of time to achieve some amazing results. Just depends how important it is to you to go and do it.

What Are Your Priorities ?

If I asked you to go and get a sheet of A4, write down all the things going on in your life and put them in order of importance, it would take you a while!

We now live in a world that never sleeps, we are all busier than ever, we all try and keep plates, balls and everything else up in the air at the same time and what tends to happen is that things that aren't a priority get left to the side while we 'firefight' the daily lives we live.

As an example I bought some tester paint pots to put on the lounge wall back in mid August, everytime I have thought about getting a paint brush out the shed and putting them on the wall then something else has come up, the last time I walked to the shed the grass needed cutting so instead I got the mower out and did the lawn!

All the time your brain is working on what to do next, it tries and prioritises 'on the fly' and from experience most people prioritise on the 'he who shouts loudest' approach. In other words if I am standing in front of you demanding something then you are going to do what I want as opposed to something that maybe you wanted to do for yourself.

Now all this links back to your weight and diet journey, if I looked at your list now then where would your weight be on it? Even more importantly, where would you be on it? Are you on your own list of priorities? Or have you got everything and everybody else on the list but you seem not to be on there?

Most people will give up what they really want for what they really want right now and therefore when you are tired, upset, bored, needing comfort, or just hungry then you will prioritise that above long term weight maintenance.

I have always said it is quite hard to get excited about living for a few more years when somebody offers you a bit of cake! That is ultimately the choice and your job is to prioritise being slim above eating too many calories! If you are doing that then you will be slim long term, if you prioritise food above slim then you won't. There is no secret to this!

I did the A4 exercise above with a lady back in 2007 on a flip chat, she wrote down 65 things she had going on in her life from kids, husband, moving house, getting the car serviced through to finding a new job, and looking after her elderly mother. Of the 65 things she wrote she never put down getting slim! Even though she had come to me for that exact reason, it wasn't even on her radar compared to everything else and therefore was unlikely to happen.

I had someone at work this week telling me they would love to tone up but never get the time to do it, when I asked them why they didn't get up 20 minutes earlier each day and do it then they say they could never do that as they needed their sleep! So all they did was prioritise sleep above being toned!!

Now that sounds like a criticism but it isn't! It's just a choice but don't be surprised when you don't get toned up as did you really want it enough in the first place?

So turning this to you. Do you really know what your priorities are? Remember you can always change them, it's just a decision and then execute!

The Day After

Well yesterday was a real milestone for me, it was my celebration of five years since I decided to trim down in weight, I never realised what a bumpy five years it would be but in all that time I have stayed at goal weight and never had to jump back onto a diet at any point. When I was losing weight I always talking about it being a one way journey and how determined I was to never regain the weight and play the yoyo lifestyle anymore that I had been doing since the age of 12.

I was really nervous yesterday and to go from someone who literally would never take his clothes off infront of anyone to going totally naked in front of total strangers in a photographic studio was something I was very proud of and I actually really enjoyed it (apart from maybe too much baby oil!)

I run a logic in life now of try anything once, if I don't like it then I won't do it again but if I do like it then I'll do it more and more. For me this was something I really loved doing and will go back an do some more shots on my ten year anniversary of being slim.

I did get a few mails last night asking if I will put up my full on photos and the answer is yes but I am waiting to get them from the photo studio, should be a couple of weeks but then I will post them all up.

 

Naked Photo Shoot

Five years ago my eating was out of control, I was a very big guy getting bigger by the month.

I then decided in September 2005 to do a diet and trimmed down 11.5 stone (161 pounds) in 20 weeks.

 
The day I finished the diet I decided never to diet again, never to obsess over food and to prove everyone wrong who said that people who are big are destined to regain all their weight. I dealt with the real reasons I overate and I have never touched a diet since then.

Big Mike would never get changed in a changing room, Big Mike never went swimming for fear of people looking at my belly and judging me, Big Mike was never seen with anything but a full set of clothes on !

Today I went and stripped off naked in a photo studio to show the world that it is possible to be big, get slim and then stay that way for years and years and years !

So not to offend I haven't put the pictures on this blog but to see the pictures then check out the Mighty Aphrodite blog at Naked Photo Shoot - Mike Scott

 

Slim And Happy

What do we mean by slim? What do we mean by happy? We say these diet words and terms and use them as if they are the same thing. But do we really understand what the concept of happy actually is? Or what slim actually means and feels like ?

What does slim have to do with happy and why does being happy depend so much on being slim first ?

Do we actually answer these questions before we go in search of the goals ? Or do we just have a traditional understanding that if you are slim you are by definition happier than any person out there with some weight to trim off ?

If you believe in a positive mindset, like I do, then you will realise that positive results attract more positive results and the more you believe in yourself and what you can do then suddenly you will start delivering more success and the more your realise you can achieve things then the more you will push yourself and go in search of the results you desire.

The results we all get though are dependant on many factors of which although a mindset is fundmentally simple our behaviours in life can be very complex and are based on top of our core beliefs and these can be very deeply buried and show themselves in very strange ways.

I was chatting with somebody today who couldn't make eye contact with me at all, eventually I asked them why and they said that they didn't like anyone looking into their eyes in case they saw through them, it was a fascinating chat as this person was incredibly good at singing and a very talented musician and I would like to have half the creativity they had but their core beliefs about themselves and self confidence really did need a boost.

Self confidence and low self esteem are of course linked but they are both based on the beliefs we have about ourselves and as beliefs are just a perception (I believe I cannot play the guitar and guess what!) then you can change those beliefs in the blink of an eye.

Some 5 years ago now I changed my belief that I couldn't be slim and went and got the prize I wanted, since then I believe that I am a slim person who doesn't need to diet or worry about food and therefore I stay slim and don't struggle with my weight. I speak to people all the time who have a belief about themselves that they will always have to diet and eat food suppliments to stay slim and therefore that is exactly what they do.

Therefore my advice for today is to really explore what you believe about yourself and if you don't like it then change the belief, you can be whoever you want to be, you can be slim, happy and play the guitar if you really want to.

Don't You Care What People Think ?

I went to a great 80's BBQ last night and it was a fancy dress. Now I hated fancy dress when I was big as I always struggled to find a costume and used to go as a ghost as it meant I could just put a sheet over my head !

But last night I went out and bought a Whoopee Cushing costume !

Now when I was there someone said to me that I looked really funny but didn't I care that some people may think I look stupid.

My answer was I couldn't care less what people think of me as my true friends will love me and like me whether I am wearing a silly 80's costume, a designer suit or a pair of pants !

And people who want to take the mickey out of me and say I look stupid aren't on my radar of things to let bother me and therefore it's not a problem.

So I had a great time ! I laughed all day and all evening and was even gladiating as a whoopee cushion !

Life is way too short to care what everyone else thinks about you!

Don't Quit Poem

Thanks to Claire for sending this to me.

Why Would They Solve It ?

I have a stinking head cold at the minute, I have felt really rough all week and feel worse today to the point I am laying in bed and just haven't got the energy to get up.

I was chatting with someone last night about flu/cold remedies and the fact I was drinking some ultra lemon drink with loads of different drugs in but that actually it wasn't making me feel much better.

They then said to me that it wasn't in the interest of the flu/cold drugs industry to fix the problem and make me better, because if they were to say cure the common cold, or create a pill which immediately made you feel better then the industry would go bust and they would lose millions and millions of pounds a year.

It reminded me of when I was a kid when I asked my Dad why they didn't make a lightbulb that didn't last forever and he said the same thing, why would they ?

Anyway my point is why would the diet industry look for a successful product that helped people trim down long term ? I have always taken the logic that if one person can get slim and stay slim without dieting then we all can but the more I look at the industry the more I realise it is not only designed for failure it relies on failure to be able to survive.

Therefore my advice to anyone is to do one more diet, just one ! get slim on it and then give up the dieting lifestyle, it has been nearly five years for me now and I haven't touched a formal diet since, and for that reason I don't obsess over food anymore and I don't beat myself up all the time.

Just remember who has your best interests at heart!

Inspiration For A Sunday Morning

Thanks to Claire for sending me this video link last night, a real inspirational video while having a cup of coffee on this raining yet gorgeous Sunday morning.

If You've Never Failed You've Never Lived

I thought this video was fantastic, well worth a minute of your day !

Great Quotes

As you know I love quotes and here is a great 3 minute video of some of my favourites.

I Love Living Life. I Am Happy

I saw this amazing video yesterday and wanted to share it with you! This is the amazingly inspiring Nick Vujicic.

I cannot recommend enough you give seven minutes of your day to watch it.

I Lost An Inch

When I reduced down my weight I reduced my measurements all over my body, the one that always made me smile was that I went from 6 ft to 5ft 11 inches.

Now being 6ft was a big thing for me ! For some reason I always thought of 6ft as being the perfect height for a guy, it proved you were a real man and somehow that extra inch made a real difference.

So I was disappointed to lose that inch when I got to goal, I would in fact tell people I was still 6ft as I didn't want them to think I was short and in some way weak !

Now I look back I smile as it is merely a number, it makes no difference to my life if I am 5ft 8in or 6ft 3in but at the time I seemed a big issue.

But I do think as you grow older and wiser that you realise that the things you worried about in the past were never really that important in the first place, I used to be really worried about loose skin on my body when I got to goal weight and how bad I would look but now I am at peace with my body and I don't care if I have some loose skin on my legs, arms and back!

Life is way to short to be worried about diets, weight, what height you are, whether you can fit in a pair of jeans or whether your bum sags a bit in your jeans.

Book Review - Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: Your Route Out of Perfectionism, Self-Sabotage And Other Everyday Habits

I first came across the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: Your Route Out of Perfectionism, Self-sabotage and Other Everyday Habits last year and I thought it was a brilliant read.

I am more into NLP than CBT having had a very poor CBT based therapy back in 2005 that I found very hard to work with but true CBT is actually in my opinion a very strong therapy for change.

What happens to you in life matters less than the way you feel about life: that′s the message of cognitive behavioural therapy. If you′ve ever tried to change something about yourself – your mood, your weight, your behaviour – you′ll have noticed that change often hurts, so you stop trying. CBT can help you when change starts to hurt.

In this book, professional CBT practitioner Avy Joseph shows you how to challenge negative thoughts and unhealthy beliefs to improve your outlook in your personal and professional life. Whether you want to break the spiral of depression, anxiety or guilt, achieve work–life balance or make an important change, this book will help you reach your goals and maintain a positive outlook – no matter what life throws at you.

Remember: It′s you – not your circumstance – that holds the key to change. Don′t limit yourself. 

This is a great read, very much designed at moving you on and one of the books I most lend to my clients.

This book is available from Amazon if you click here

What's Your Tag Line ?

Companies use tag lines a lot with examples such as

American Express - Don't Leave Home Without It
BMW - The Ultimate Driving Machine
Thomas Cook - Don't Just Book It, Thomas Cook It

Now what is your tag line? If I said now define yourself in a tag line what is your immediate thought?

Think your name and then what tag line you would put after it on a big 50 foot poster in the middle of London for everyone to read. What would define and explain who you were?

Now my challenge to you this week is to come up with a new tag line for yourself, a new tag line that is stated in the positive, that is forward thinking and that you really can get your enthusiasm behind.

For those that knew me when I was reducing weight I had a few tag lines which I used all the time, examples were

Mike Scott - Letting Nothing And Nobody Stand In My Way, Including Myself
Mike Scott - Eyes On The Prize
Mike Scott - One Way Journey
Mike Scott - Laughing My Way To Slimdom

Now I lived by those tag lines, no longer did I tag myself

Mike Scott - Useless Dieter
Mike Scott - Living The Diet Hell
Mike Scott - Missing Food A Lot And Hates His Life

So next weekend I want to publish on here a section with loads of really great positive tag lines that you all send me, therefore if you have time today to focus on how great you are then can you come up with a tag line for yourself and mail me at mike@thedietguy.co.uk

I won't publish your second names to keep anonymity but would be great to get some really good tag lines that can make everyone feel that much more positive about their diet journeys.

As some fun back to you, and without Googling, do you know who these tag lines belong to?

Where Do You Want To Go Today? -
Every Little Helps -
Just Do It -
Snap, Crackle, Pop -
The Happiest Place On Earth -
No Nonsense -
The World's Local Bank -
Because I'm Worth it -
Keep Hunger Locked Up Till Lunch -
Sense And Simplicity -

Have fun with those, have even more fun coming up with your own tag line, and ideally mail it over and print it off and put it above your computer as your tag line for the week!

Mike Scott - Helping Others Help Themselves

Horse To Water

When I was big I remember chatting to my boss's secretary, she told me straight that if I didn't lose weight then I was going to die young. I remember her saying it, I also remember the macaroon I ate as soon as I got back to my desk and the suet pudding I had for my lunch that day.

This weekend I have been away at a family wedding celebration near London. I met with one of my family and I offered them the world, they are in a really tricky position financially and also job wise and I offered to clear their debt, buy them a house and try to find them a job.

But they turned me down. They spent more time telling me reasons why they couldn't change than seeing the possibility and going for it. They asked where they would live in the short term, I said my spare room. They said how could they afford to pay the bills on their old flat, I said I would pay them. They said that they had to give notice on their job or would get in trouble, I said I would sort that out for them and yet, even though there was no reason I could see for them to not just take the help on offer they declined and put their head back into the sand.

Now, within a year they are going to be financially crippled and  I probably won't be able to save them without digging very deep into my pockets but they weren't ready to listen, they weren't ready to move on and basically saw my offer of help as interference in their life.

And therefore I backed away! Something I learnt many years ago through my own experience and counselling people 1-2-1 is that sometimes people don't want saving. Sometimes people can see the water, they can even smell the water but however much you stand there next to them they aren't prepared to drink it.

Back to the lady who told me that I was going to die, now she meant it to help me and she was astonished I had allowed myself to get that big.  I didn't want helping and certainly nobody can force anyone into a smaller pair of jeans, it has to be you, on your terms, in your time and on your own!

We are all responsible for ourselves, we got ourselves big and we can get ourselves slim and no external interference is going to make any difference.

Sure I coach people all the time. I try and show them a roadmap and a path to walk down but if they choose to go in the opposite direction then that is absolutely fine but don't be surprised if you don't reach where you stated you wanted to go in the first place.

Now maybe my family member will call in the week and say 'I've though it all through, please can you help me' and I will be there, but I won't be making the call to them because it won't be helping them and, if anything, may make the situation worse.

Can You Imagine It ?

A lot of time I spend with people 1-2-1 I am looking for why they do what they do, the reason is that people don't randomly do things, there will always be a good reason (to them) that they have a particular behaviour or characteristic.

 

Therefore one technique I use is the "As If" technique. Basically you can do it now yourself and all it requires is a bit of peace and quiet and some thought.

 

Now allow your mind to relax, just allow all the day to day "stuff" in your head to go quiet and just start to daydream what it will or does feel like to be slim, healthy and most importantly happy.

 

Make the thoughts as vivid as possible.

 

Firstly bring the picture or movie to the strongest it can be in your mind

 

Where are you?

Who are you with?

What can you notice around you?

How do you look?

What are you wearing?

How old are you in the thoughts?

 

Is the picture black & white or colour?

Is it bright or dim?

How big is the picture in your mind?

Are you in the picture or watching the picture through your own eyes?

Is it in focus?

Is it a movie or still?

Is it 3D or flat?

 

Now think of the sounds associated with your thoughts

 

Can you hear anything?

Is the sound loud or soft?

Is the sound fast or slow?

Is the pitch of the sound high or low?

 

Now think of the feelings associated with your thoughts

 

What feelings you can feel?

How strong are those feelings?

Are there any feeling you wouldn't expect?

 

Now really build the picture in your mind, if you want to change it go ahead but make the perfect picture that is just right for you on what you want to achieve.

 

Ok, one of two things will have happened here.

 

The first is you managed that absolutely fine and you have a big smile on your face as you have a vivid imagine or exactly what you WILL achieve and it just reminds you why you are doing everything you are doing. In which case absolutely great and whenever you need a reminder of the journey you are on then bring that image back up in your head, and remember it is fine to play around with it and add to it. Allow the great feelings you get from it to really make your day.

 

The second thing that may have happened is that you were unable to actually imagine it, which basically means if you can't even imagine it then the chances of actually doing it for real are low, therefore if you struggled with this what are the limiting beliefs you have about yourself that would stop you having great thoughts, what makes you think that you won't actually get to where you want to get to? It is through the answers to this that you can help yourself move on and also learn a lot about yourself which you can use to your own benefit.

Anchors & Triggers

An anchor is when your state changes in response to a trigger

 

We all have absolutely loads of anchors in our minds. We may not realise it, but we have. It is an anchor being triggered off that can cause an unexpected reaction from an individual.  

 

An example of an anchor is when you walk into a cinema and get the smell of popcorn hit your nose as you walk in the door, and then you head straight for the counter to order up a bucket.

 

The smell, known as the stimulus, triggered a desire for the popcorn, known as the response, and hence is it any wonder that cinemas don't tend to invest in extractor fans near their popcorn units to get rid of the smell!  

 

This is a basic anchor, but you will find many other anchors if you think about it. For example, when I go into a Starbucks  it is an anchor or trigger (same thing!) for relaxation for me, I always feel chilled out in Starbucks and just wandering in and breathing in the smell of fresh coffee is enough to change my state.  

 

Some common positive anchors can be :-  

 

Hearing an old song on the radio that takes you back to a holiday, or a time in your past when you were really happy.  

 

Looking at a photograph of a wedding or event and remembering what a good time you had.  

 

Picking up your old teddy bear from when you were a child and it bringing back memories of being safe and worry free.  

 

Some less positive anchors can be :-  

 

Hearing a police siren when driving and panicking you are being stopped for speeding.  

 

Seeing someone who looks similar to someone you had an argument with once and it brings back the anger.  

 

Being lonely or needing comfort and going to the kitchen to find it

 

So if you do something and can't understand it, for example why did you suddenly eat a piece of ham out of the fridge, then you need to look for the anchor.  

 

The way of looking at it is "How did you know that it was time to do that?"  

 

Using the example of the cinema I knew it was time to buy popcorn when I got the heady smell of butter as I walked in the door, so if I don't want the outcome, the buying of the popcorn, then I need to stop or avoid or change the trigger.  

 

With the less positive anchors such as overeating when you get a trigger then the good thing is that you weren't born with anchors, you didn't come into this world knowing that when you hear the horns in the street outside that an ice cream van is about to arrive, therefore if you learn an anchor you can also unlearn or collapse that anchor.  

 

The reason that sometimes people "struggle" with triggers is that they feel they are out of control. People will say "I ate one biscuit and it triggered a binge of the whole packet" but actually that isn't true.

 

The thing with anchors is that they are in the domain of the unconcious mind, in other words they aren't concious thoughts, so you don't think "I can hear a police siren so it must be a police car", you just know because your unconcious mind knows what that sound is.  

 

Therefore when you get a trigger to overeat it can make you feel out of control because your concious mind doesn't get time to say "Hang fire, you don't want those biscuits" because you have already eaten one.  

 

Summing up, you basically need to find the anchor or the trigger for everything you do that ultimately has a negative outcome.  

 

So as I said above "How did you know that it was time to do that?"  

 

The next time you eat something you shouldn't, ask yourself the question, if you ate because you were bored then work it back until you find the trigger. Once you know the trigger then you are in control of whether or not you choose to release the trigger.

Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway (With A Big Smile On Your Face!)

Since trimming down in weight I love challenges now, without challenges in my life I get bored and I get trapped and feel like I am treading water and not making a difference and growing.

Now some of my challenges are bigger than others, I like to pick challenges which scare me and excite me at the same time, now when I got slim I went on a six month 'bender' and did a lot of very silly things but in heinsight they scared and excited me at the same time.

When I sorted myself out and got back on an even level then I have continued to do some big challenges, my first was to run a race ! So I did the great south run, now I was scared I would never complete it but I was excited and what it might be like so I did it and completed it.

I then decided to climb Mt Kilimanjaro, as it terrified me but also fascinated me at the same time and I completed it.

Now with my photo shoot next month I am exactly the same, the thought of getting my kit off infront of total strangers makes me feel nervous and excited all at once and it is a powerful mix. I got sent a link yesterday to the new male section of the site --> Mighty Aphrodite Men Section

Now I love the idea of doing it but also I am panicking but in a good way!

Because we need challenges! We need to grow and push ourselves otherwise everything can become a little mundane in our lives.

When I look back now to the end of September 2005 and when I started my last ever diet was the sense of anticipation mixed with butterflies and apprehension, it was a very powerful and heady mix, the fact that I E-mailed my department telling them I was going to be slim when I still weighed nearly 25 stone made some of them raise eyebrows but it was a challenge and it was never in doubt I would complete it.

Eyes on the prize and let nothing and nobody stand in your way, especially yourself !

Trick Or Treat?

I was reading a fascinating study while I was in America last year saying that treating yourself has been proven not to work! The study says that when people treat themselves, or are treated by someone else, then unconciously they think 'Well if I have to be treated then I must be doing something I don't like' and therefore whatever they are being treated for doing becomes something they want to do even less.

I thought it was very interesting and hence have been studying further, they did a test in America where they paid people to clean up a local park, one half of the group were paid really well and the other half were volunteers.

At the end of the cleanup they asked each person to mark out of 10 how much they enjoyed doing the task and how much fun it had been.

Those paid really well rated the job as 2.5 out of 10 and most commented it was back breaking, boring work...

But those that were volunteers rated the job 8 out of 10 and commented how lovely it was to help the community while exercising and getting fresh air...

Now I am not making a statement here that you should never treat yourself but I think it made very interesting reading and definitely rung a bell with me.

I spent years dieting and every week if I lost weight I treated myself and if I gained weight I treated myself and became more and more demotivated and hated myself and dieting even more.

But when I finally got my head in the right place I didn't need to treat myself as I was having too much fun getting slim to need anything to motivate me further.

So do you treat yourself? Is your diet that hard and tough that on a weekend you treat yourself with a nice meal out?

If you disagree with the above (it was a big study and has been repeated in loads of other studies!) and you do need to treat yourself then ask yourself 'Why do I need to treat myself?'

The answer will almost certainly bring a negative response about the diet or meal plan your are on...and ultimately we all agree that the key to being slim long term is to see it as a major positive in your life.

So trick or treat today?