4 magic words that can change your life They may not impress Harry Potter, but four little words – How, What, When and Where – can have a magical effect on your slimming campaign! At first sight it seems completely at odds with our belief in steady weight loss through healthy eating and a more active lifestyle. And when you find out what those four magic words are, you might be even more surprised to see that the word ‘diet’ is not on the list. So what kind of magic can you expect from four very simple, ordinary words: how, what, when and where? Can they really be powerful enough to change your life? The key to their magical effect is that they can help you get back to basics, unravelling problems that you may be unaware of, or that you’ve been tackling but in a way that isn’t helpful to your desire to slim. The ‘magic word’ technique can be especially useful if you find that your attempts to lose weight tend to get stuck in a familiar, depressing rut. For instance, when we decide to lose weight, often the first thing we do is to set up a ‘stop contract’ – promising ourself to go without something (No more crisps for me!). But this is counter-productive because you crave it all the more, so you’re more likely to break your contract - your slimming corset is too tight! Even if it works in the short-term, you may one day long to rip off your restrictive tight ‘corset’ because you cant bear it any more. Another typical approach to a slimming campaign is to start with a goal such as ‘I will be a size 12 by Christmas’. The danger of focusing on the goal like this is you can lose sight of the changes that you need to make to get you there – a bit like setting out on a journey with no map. Trying to slim in this way and ‘failing’ each time is very disappointing. But if it becomes a pattern, each setback can become a brick in a wall of negative feelings about food. The harder you try to slim in this way, the higher the wall becomes, and the harder the whole process seems. Hardly surprising then that many people often give up at this point, convinced that nothing will work for them - and worse - convinced they are a failure. This is where these four short words – how, what, when and where – prove to be not just magic, but miraculous! By the simple process of asking yourself questions, it’s possible to replace stop contracts and weight-loss goals with targets that will lead to making positive changes. And the amazing thing is that concentrating on these positive changes often means the weight-loss goal takes care of itself. Sometimes, this process may be so quick and natural that you hardly notice it. For example, if your weight has stuck this week, you may ask yourself: ‘What went wrong?’ If you decide the answer is that you stopped counting your Syns, your action target is straightforward – start counting again! Instead of setting up a stop contract, or feeling guilty for having ‘blown it’, you have identified a positive change. Often, you may have to ask yourself several questions to get to the bottom of a difficult problem. If eating out a lot has always made it hard for you to lose weight, asking yourself detailed questions about Where and When a restaurant meal begins to go wrong, What happens next and How you might be able to change things, could help you change this pattern. For instance, is it when you look at the menu and see all the choices on offer? If so, how about deciding in advance what to have? Is it when you start on the bread and then decide it’s not worth counting Syns? If that’s the problem then perhaps you could ask the waiter not to put it on the table. break down the problem takeaway foodThe power of the four magic words here is that you’re using them to break down the problem into individual steps, so it stops feeling like something you can’t control and starts to feel manageable. Having identified each step, you begin to work out what you might be able to do to change it. It’s important to find out exactly when and where things start to go wrong for you, because it can be different for everyone. And the triggers that send you off track might be unexpected. Some slimmers find that having extra food around, such as the children’s leftovers, is enough to start them picking without counting the Syns. Others discover that it’s an emotion – anything from excitement to anger or disappointment – that prompts them to overeat. The solutions that you find can be immensely liberating, especially if you’re used to putting on that tight ‘corset’ of restriction whenever you try to slim. Imagine for instance that you always have a takeaway and a bottle of wine on Friday night, and that this sabotages your weight loss not because you enjoyed that meal on Friday, but because then you felt you’d blown it so you continued to do just that on on Saturday... and Sunday. One answer might be to give up your Friday evening treats – but how long would that last? Far more effective would be to ask yourself: ‘How many Syns would it take for me to enjoy my evening?, set yourself an upper limit and keep counting. Or What can I do to make my glasses of wine last longer? What if I walked to the takeaway place instead of driving?’ Once again, breaking down the situation, tackling each step as it comes and ‘loosening the corset’ could be all it takes to help you manage Friday nights, sail through the weekend – and record a good weight loss the next week. And while they may not be a miracle cure for your weight problems, if those four little words – how, what, when and where – can do that, they’re magic enough for most of us! The power of the magic words is that having identified What is going wrong, you can decide Where and How to change things and regain control. magic made easy! When you’ve spotted where something is going wrong for you, note it down neutrally, without judging yourself. Then give yourself a pat on the back for having noticed it, since becoming aware of a problem is the first step to changing it. Take care not to answer a question with a stop contract. For example, if you conclude that your danger zone is biscuits, don’t vow to give them up. Instead, check out lower-Syn versions of your favourites and work out how many Syns you would like to spend on them each day. Be prepared to face some quite difficult emotions, if you discover in your questioning that you have painful issues around food or what your weight and weight loss might represent for you. Be kind to yourself while you come to terms with these feelings. Ask someone who knows you to help talk through the issues you identify. Make sure though that the person will not judge you or reinforce negative feelings you may have about yourself. Close friends or family members who love you may not be the best people to help you look at things neutrally. Don’t imagine you have to come up with the ‘right’ answers to your questions, or that the answers will immediately spring to mind. It may take a while for you to absorb the information you’ve learned about yourself and to turn it into positive actions. Reward yourself for every positive step you identify and put into action. Soon you won’t need to do this as your regular weight losses will be reward ... Yes you can together we can do it jxx x
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 13:56:40 +0000
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