By Tom Venuto
Author
of Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle
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I have no doubt that a scientist
somewhere just read the title of this article and said out
loud, “YES! Venuto is right! That little thing in your
head – the hypothalamus – it IS the thing that is
keeping you fat! By George, that Venuto guy isn’t a dumb
bodybuilder after all – he’s been doing his research!”
At which moment, I will be shaking
my head and thinking, “you need to get out of the laboratory
and into the real world, with real people, buddy.” Okay,
okay, to be fair, Neuro-endocrine control of appetite and
body fat really is quite fascinating. But today, I’m
talking about PSYCH-ology, not PHYSI-ology. The little thing
in your head that’s keeping you fat is actually just
a….
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Limiting belief!
Self-limiting beliefs are among the
biggest problems that people deal with in their struggles to achieve
a healthy ideal weight. They’re also one of the reasons that
so many people start to falter or fall off the diet and exercise
wagon as early as late January or early February in their New Year’s
goal pursuits.
If you’re that science guy I
spoke of and you’re about to bail because you’re thinking,
“Here we go again… another psycho-babble, self help article,”
then think again. A belief is the force behind the placebo effect,
which is well known by every scientist and medical professional.
A respected doctor gives a patient a pill and is told it’s
a powerful drug. The patient gets well immediately, not knowing
that the “miraculous” substance was a dummy pill. Inert.
Sugar. The miracle was in the mind.
But beliefs are not only involved
in the mind-body connection, they are unconscious programs that
control your behavior. The most important factor in whether you
achieve the body and the health you want is NOT what diet or training
program you follow. It’s what makes you follow your diet and
training program. And guess what? What you believe controls your
behavior - whether you will stick with your program or sabotage
it with cheating, bingeing or inconsistency.
What to do about limiting beliefs
Ok, so now you agree that beliefs
are psychological factors that affect you physically by controlling
your behavior, including your eating, exercising and lifestyle.
What now? 3 steps. 2 questions.
STEP 1: IDENTIFY LIMITING BELIEFS
You are fully aware of many of your
beliefs. For example, beliefs about spirituality or politics are
usually in the front of your conscious mind.
But the beliefs that hold back your
health and physical development the most are usually the ones you
don’t even know you have. They are like unconscious “brain
software,” running silently in the background.
So the first step is to bring those
unconscious and potentially damaging beliefs up to the surface so
you are aware of them. You can’t fix a problem if you don’t
know you have one.
2 Quick Questions That Will Help
Draw Out Your Beliefs
Beliefs can go back to childhood,
but don’t worry, you don’t have to go to a psychotherapist
and be regressed back to kindergarten. It’s simpler than that.
But it does pay to do this questioning process as a formal “exercise”
with serious quiet time, with pen and paper (instead of just thinking
about it).
Question #1: What causes me to be
overweight (or unhealthy, or not having the body I want)?
Question #2: What’s preventing
me from getting leaner? (or healthier?)
Spend some time with it and see how
big of a list you can create. Ask yourself whether each belief helps
or hurts you. Does it move you forward or backward. Does it empower
or disempower you? The ones that hurt you or hold you back will
be obvious. You may come up with beliefs such as:
“I’m overweight and I can’t
get leaner because”:
I have no time
I’m too old
I can’t stop eating
I hate exercise
You just can’t do it when you have 4 kids
It’s impossible after having a hip replacement
But the million dollar question is:
are these beliefs actually true?
Beliefs are not facts. You may hold
your beliefs as absolute reality, but when you deconstruct them
and challenge them, you may see that they don’t hold any water.
Self limiting beliefs are false interpretations
(negative thought patterns) that hold you back. And you keep holding
on to them because making excuses and staying the same is a lot
more convenient than changing, isn’t it? Change requires hard
work, effort and leaving your comfort zone.
Your mission now: weaken the limiting
beliefs and get rid of them
STEP 2: CHALLENGE THOSE BELIEFS
How do you challenge a belief? 4 ways:
(A) Challenge it directly: Is the
belief even valid at all? See if you can find a “counter example”
that disproves your belief. For example; if you think that after
you’ve had 3 or 4 kids, it’s impossible to get a nice
flat stomach, what will you say after I introduce you to a dozen
of my clients and readers who had 3 or 4 kids and went from bulging
belly to rock-hard flat stomach? If they did it, then how could
your belief be valid? Answer: It WASN’T! You believed something
false and inaccurate and it was holding you back!
(B) Challenge the source: Is it your
belief, or have you been living what your parents, peers or culture
handed down to you? Just the realization that a belief wasn’t
yours to begin with is enough to shatter it.
(C) Challenge the usefulness of the
belief: Ok, so you believed something when you were younger. Does
still believing it has any usefulness today? Does it help you move
closer to what you want in your life today? If not, then wouldn't
today be a good time to get rid of it?
(D) Challenging the belief by weighing
the consequences: If you keep this belief, what is it going to cost
you? What will the pain be like? What will you miss? And what will
these consequences be if you don’t change it NOW?
STEP 3: INSTALL A NEW BELIEF
Nature abhors a vacuum, as Spinoza
once said. You don’t simply get rid of a belief, you must also
replace it. What things would you want and need to believe instead
that would create positive behaviors that would move you toward
your goal? Write them down, then massage them into an affirmation.
For example, if you’ve hung your hat on the belief that you
didn’t have time to exercise, could you write a new affirmation
of belief similar to this?
“I’m a very busy person,
so that means I must set clear priorities and I must keep my health
and body on the top of my priority list. I always schedule time
for my most important priorities, I am efficient with my training,
and I use every minute of my day wisely. And if Barack Obama, the
busiest person in the world, can train for 45 minutes a day 6 days
a week, there’s no excuse for me. I can do it too.”
Write down your new belief affirmations
and read them, right along with your goals, every day.
Then “activate” this affirmation by doing what Olympic
and professional athletes do: engaging in mental rehearsal. Visualize
yourself carrying out the behaviors that this belief would generate.
Think about and feel what it would be like to take those positive
actions steps and play mental movies of how your life would change
by doing so. Involve all your senses: see it, hear it, feel it.
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Keep it up until
you start to see your behavior change and your habitual actions
come into alignment with your goals/intentions. If you’re
diligent, you’ll see changes in attitude and behavior
with 21-30 days. It may happen sooner. It may take longer
if you’ve carried deep, lifelong limiting beliefs. But
in less than a month, the roots of the new belief pattern
will be formed.
Then you can update
your goals and affirmations to reflect your current priorities
and move on to the next goal you want to achieve or the next
limiting belief you want to change. Keep THAT up, and pretty
soon, you will be LIMIT-LESS!
BELIEVE ME, spending
quality time understanding and working on your beliefs is
a lot more productive than spending time in forums arguing
about whether a low carb program is better than a high carb
program… or even whether the cure for obesity is found
in the arcuate nucleus of the lower hypothalamus. It’s
in your head all right… but most people have been looking
in the wrong place.
Train hard and
expect success.
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In this candid and revealing
interview, David Grisaffi, an in-the-trenches fat loss and
abdominal training expert and author of the best-selling ebook
Firm and Flatten Your Abs, interviews fat loss expert and
best selling author Tom Venuto.
These fat loss pros discuss
what it really takes to uncover your abdominals, and the reasons
why it takes more than hundreds of situps and crunches to
succeed. Some of the facts Tom reveals will surprise you because
you won’t hear them from most other experts in the weight
loss and fitness industry.
Why? Because they either don’t
know or they have a vested interest in keeping the truth hidden
from you. In this revealing discussion you'll learn top secret
ab training techniques and the truth about diet scams and
rip offs!
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In this interview, Tom Nicoli,
a clinical hypnotherapist who was featured on Dateline NBC’s
Ultimate Weight Loss Challenge, meets with fat loss expert
and best selling author Tom Venuto.
The two Toms discuss what it
really takes to increase or even “skyrocket” your
fat loss success and they uncover the reasons why it takes
more than hard work and physical effort to succeed –
it also takes the right mindset. Some of the facts Tom reveals
you will surprise you because you won’t hear them from
most other experts in the weight loss and fitness industry.
Why? Because
they either don’t know or they have a vested interest
in keeping the truth hidden from you.
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About
The Author
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Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder,
certified personal trainer and freelance fitness writer. Tom
is the author of "Burn
the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you
how to get lean without drugs or supplements using secrets
of the world's best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn
how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism
by clicking
here.
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