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I need to food shop. This joy is tainted by confusion concerning food. I take a mental inventory and all is well, yet I can not shake this sense of pending doom. I will take a long drive to a distant shopping warehouse store, and try and shake this anxiety.
Where does character lie in the self?
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Causes of Obesity: Psychological factors
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Specific objectives are clear and well-defined. This helps both the performer and the manager, as the performer knows what is expected of them and the manager is able to monitor and assess actual performance against the specific objectives.
Ethos uses trust, and focuses first on the speaker. showing the speaker's:
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These are techniques for creating change, adoptable for people like myself interested in overcoming an eating disorder.
* Boiling the frog: Incremental changes may well not be noticed. This method is ideal for a parent or spouse interested in helping the family in the kitchen with better eating habits. Small incremental change may be more difficult for a self-help program, but may prove more effective over the long haul than too radical a change. * Burning bridges: Ensure there is no way back.This may be the most effective way to instigate change, yet one the most difficult to implement. Just as divorcee tend to repeat similar relationships, so too dieters fall back into old patterns. There may be rituals that can be eliminated, weekly and daily habits that draw a dieter into old patterns, but short of joining a cult or moving to a third world environment, old patterns are a tough nut to crack. * Burning platform: Expose or create a crisis to get things going. This is a scare tactic that has proven effective for some... diabetes, a stroke, or a severe warning from a doctor has helped many change their life around. Others though, still smoke in the Lung Cancer Wards, or binge-eat after a doctor's weight warning. * Challenge: Inspire them to achieve remarkable things. Weight-loss TV show challenges are inspiring to watch, and we all wonder if we too would be a better dieter if the whole world was watching. But the whole world is watching. Many people do challenge us daily with their off handed comments. Keeping it positive and effective is the trick. * Coaching: Psychological support for executives. For those who can afford it, this is a good way to go. If one can find a qualified coach all the better. * Command: Tell them what to do. Boot camp methods can and do work, but there is a risk of reactionary 'binge eating' if the grunt does not end up believing in the changes created by this process. * Destabilizing: Shake people out of their comfort zone. This is employed by many new age self-help communities, as both a challenge and test of commitment. Some stay and fight others run. * Evidence for change: Cold, hard data to show need for change. This shows respect to the recipient but more may be needed for deep rooted change. * Evidence stream: Show them time and again that the change is happening. For dieters, who must face day after day of discomfort without any measurable form of success, an evidence stream would be a godsend. A conscientious coach may be able to find a wide variety of markings (i.e. blood pressure change, increased stamina, cheery disposition, issue confrontation, etc.) to create such a stream. * Education: Learn them to change.Empower the dieter with facts and methods that are proven effective. * Facilitation: Use a facilitator to guide team meetings. Facilitator, mentor, coach... godsend to the dieter. * First steps: Make it easy to get going. Follow through is key here. Once a diet is started, perseverance is the crucial next step that needs facilitation, to avoid bounce-back disastors. * Golden handcuffs: Keep key people with delayed rewards. It is tempting to plan diets in terms of weeks or months, but dieting needs a life plan, and in that life plan there needs to be rewards to mark success and the passage of time. A good planner takes into consideration the celebrations that reward perseverance, as a lover remembers anniversaries. * Institutionalization: Building change into the formal systems and structures. Essential for the community. * Involvement: Give them an important role. Yes! * Management by Objectives (MBO): Tell people what to do, but not how. Key for many personalities. * Open Space: People talking about what interests them. Community based development for dieters. * Re-education: Train the people you have in new knowledge/skills. Necessary for most obese people. * Restructuring: Redesign the organization to force behavior change. Necessary for most obese people. * Reward alignment: Align rewards with desired behaviors. Keep dieting human. * Rites of passage: Use formal rituals to confirm change. We all love being stroked. * Setting goals: Give them a formal objective. * Shift-and-sync: Change a bit then pause restabilize. * Socializing: Build it into the social fabric. * Spill-and-fill: Incremental movement to a new organization. Some familes, friends and/or spouse resist a dieter's life-style changes. This needs to be dealt with. * Stepwise change: Breaking things down into smaller packages. Great coaching! * Visioning: Create a motivating view of the future. * Whole-system Planning: Everyone planning together. Family and friends working to help not hinder the dieter. What a great idea. Implementing this would be a challenge for many but a worthwhile objective. These are also available, sorted by Lewin's freeze phases, as: * Unfreezing techniques to get them going. * Transitioning techniques to get them to the right place. * Refreezing techniques to keep them there. New challenge: Get them looking to the future.
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At a fundamental level, the brain has a simple carrot-and-stick biochemical system of forcing us into action, as illustrated below. 
1. Stimulus The stimulus to the brain starts with a physical condition such as low blood sugar. It can also come from a visual signal from something desirable or undesirable, or even pure thought. In each case, the stimulus is a trigger for a sequence of internal events which will result in external action. 2. Urge The thalamus in the limbic system ('leopard brain') converts the physical need into an urge within the cortex. It is, in effect, saying 'Hey, do something! You have an unfulfilled need!' Cognitively-driven urges have a similar effect, where internal imaginings trigger an urge response. Urges are, quite literally, urgent. They have priority and force other matters aside. They are frequently felt as a kind of 'emptiness', typically felt physically as a gnawing feeling in the abdomen. For example the low blood-sugar gets translated in hunger. The lack of human company, especially close companionship, is a more instinctively driven situation that provides urge. Note how both give you a feeling of emptiness. 3. Desire The cortex then translates this urge into a targeted desire for something specific, which gives us a conscious motivation towards a particular goal. The underlying urge becomes wants and needs. Wants and needs have to struggle against one another in a priority list for action now or later or not at all. The strength of the urge is thus important, with strong urges leading to needs that jump the queue, demanding immediate action. For example the felt urge of hunger is translated into a desire for food, whilst the urge for human company becomes a desire for company. This can be a desperate desire, as the starving person thinks of nothing but food and the love-struck individual cannot get the object of their desires out of their mind. 4. Action Eventually the urge-desire reaches its goal and the person takes physical steps to satisfy the internal nagging that has prodded them into action. The action may be small or it may take significant time and effort. It may also be undesirable in some way, such as when a person on a diet does not really want to eat. This only goes to show the power of this internal motivation system to force us into even uncomfortable action. 5. Evidence To complete the loop, the brain now needs proof that the action has been completed before it proceeds with its reward. It is not enough to remove the stimulus, for example intravenous feeding or going to a crowded place does not make you feel good. The evidence has to come in a particular place. It is specific actions which are rewarded. Going to a restaurant is not good enough. Looking at food is not good enough. Putting it in your mouth is in the right direction. You can almost hear the brain shouting 'go on, go on'. But it is the swallowing where you feel good. 6. Reward When the limbic system detects that we are satisfying the urge, like any motivation system it must reward to encourage continuance of the desirable behavior. The brain rewards us in two stages. The first stage is to tell us that we are doing the right thing and to encourage us to keep doing it. Thus we get to feel satisfaction for each mouthful of food. It's as if the brain is saying ‘That’s right! Keep doing that!’ However, we can't keep eating forever and there is a point at which our bodies have sufficient input to sustain them for a while. The job of the brain is now to stop us eating. It does this by making us feel fulfilled, often by a literal feeling of being 'full'. It is as if the brain says ‘Well done! That’s enough for now.’ The gnawing emptiness is now replaced by a replete sense of completion and satisfaction as we sit back and relax in an after dinner snooze.
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One way we are unable to start doing something we should is where urges clash,and one overcomes the other.In Anorexia Nervosa, the urge to be socially accepted and the consequent desire to be fashionably thin overrides the urge to eat. Cleverly, the part of the mind that wants to be thin compensates for the painfully thin reflection by hallucinating it into a fat and undesirable person. We can also break cycles merely by interruption. People who fast for political or religious reasons will tell you that once you have got past the day or so, it becomes increasingly easy to not eat, to the point where they have to force themselves to eat for some while before it becomes pleasurable again.
The reverse of Anorexia is over-eating. In this case, it is the system which tells us to stop which is broken. This may happen where the urge for comfort and to feel good drives us to do those things which have made us feel good in the past. Eating is thus driven less by the body's need for food as the brain's need for comfort. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a classic syndrome where non-helpful urges fall into a can't stop cycle. These can include peculiar 'can't stop' activities, from counting and repetitive movements to collecting and other actions that others find annoying or trivial. So what? So this is the inner secret of how the brain prods us into action. You can use this system to change behaviors. Breaking the cycle To stop someone over-eating, you could provide something more desirable. When they reach for the food, show them a picture of a healthy person. You can also do the reverse, showing them a picture of a fat person. You could put a mirror on the refrigerator. You can also break cycles by removing stimuli. So take away the food. Or replace it with fruit and vegetables. Make mealtimes short. Fix the times when you eat. Introducing other urges You can also overpower them with other urges that blot out and distract from the urge you want to extinguish. Get them interested in sport and being healthy. Take them out to dinner and let them pay. Go to expensive restaurants. Put something that smells nasty in the refrigerator. Changing the rewards Finally, you can attack the end-point, the rewards they receive for both acting and completing the action. Make the food bland so it doesn't taste so good. Change the texture or appearance. Watch a horror movie or listen to disliked music during the meal. Give completion awards earlier and make them significant. So eat before going to the theater, but go late so you've only a short period before the play. Have a small first course followed quickly by a very tasty second course. See also Carter, Rita's "Mapping the Mind" and her "Exploring Consiousness" Meet the Author, University of California Press
ExRx.net: Estimated Calorie Requirements
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Dr. Kosich invites you to ask yourself where you want to be in 10 years. "It's not what you do for the next 10 days, or 10 weeks, or even 10 months, that determines where you'll be in 10 years," he says. "It's what you do for the next 10 years that counts." To get started, Dr. Kosich recommends that you follow the eight keys listed below to adopting a healthy lifestyle. Key #1: Don't Rely on Magic As much as we might want it to be true, there's simply no magic way to achieve a healthy body weight. Many of the "magic" pills, potions and powders can lead to significant weight loss for a short period. But the vast majority of people who lose weight using these approaches regain the pounds within a couple of years. No short-term program can help you maintain a healthy weight. It's not what you do for the next six weeks or six months that counts. It's what you do for the rest of your life, including regular activity, healthy eating and maintaining a positive attitude and self-image that determines your ability to stay at a healthy weight. Key #2: Forget the "One-Size-Fits-All" Mentality Many of us think we need to look like the superfit models, actresses and athletes we see on TV or in the movies. And advertising messages reinforce the impression that thinness equals happiness. The truth is, we're all very different. Body weight and shape are influenced by factors we can't control, including genetics. Your genes determine the number of fat cells in your body as well as your metabolism. This doesn't mean you're destined to be heavy, or that you can't lose weight if you need to. It does mean your progress in a sensible weight management program will be unique. It also means that your ultimate healthy weight may be different than you think. Key #3: Develop a Positive Self-Image Weight management is often promoted as a process of learning to change the things you dislike about yourself. This attitude becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, it makes you focus on disliking yourself. Effective weight management is just a natural extension of your desire to take responsibility for your health and take good care of yourself. Don't get in the rut of "If . . . , then . . . " thinking—"If only I lost 30 pounds, then I would be happy with myself." Instead, practice acting "as if." Acting "as if" you are a person with the ability to nurture and care for yourself may well be the first step to becoming that person. Key #4: Set Realistic Weight Goals Achieving and maintaining a healthy weight is important for good health. But a healthy weight isn't necessarily the one that's suggested by a height/weight chart! There are many techniques for estimating a healthy weight. One of the easiest is to shoot for the lowest weight you've been able to maintain for at least one full year since age 21, when you were active and eating a prudent diet. Who knows—you might be at your healthy weight right now! Ultimately, you should focus on taking care of yourself today, not achieving some future weight goal. There's no rush, since maximum effective weight loss is about a pound a week. Key #5: Learn to Play Again Regular activity is one of the few proven predictors of successful weight maintenance and significantly reduces a number of health risks, ranging from cardiovascular disease and high blood pressure to breast cancer. Unfortunately, we've forgotten what children already know—that activity is fun! We've also forgotten that exercise is an act of caring and self-respect, not work or punishment. These are great reasons to rediscover the joys of play! But if you think of exercise as drudgery, it won't become part of your healthy lifestyle. Find activities you enjoy and you're more likely to stick with them. Be sure to follow the American College of Sports Medicine's recommendations of 30 minutes or more of aerobic exercise on most days of the week. Aerobic exercise is the type that sends a lot of oxygen to your heart and muscles. Walking, swimming, bicycling, and group exercise classes (step and high/low impact aerobics) are all great examples of aerobic exercise. Key #6: Get Stronger "Lift weights? Me? Never!" If this was your initial reaction, think again. Resistance training, whether with weights, machines, elastic bands or tubing, even in water, does more than aid in weight control. It also helps maintain good posture and reduce the risk of diseases such as osteoporosis. Strength training just twice a week will bring you a long list of benefits. Plus, stronger muscles burn more calories even when you're at rest. It's important to practice good technique with each strength training exercise, though, so consider working with a qualified fitness professional, such as an IDEA Member group fitness instructor or personal trainer member, at least a few times before you try it on your own. Key #7: Harness the Power of the Pyramid Some weight control programs focus on what you eat instead of emphasizing exercise and active living. The problem with this approach is, people have a tendency to look at eating with a rigid, always/never perspective. And that doesn't work for very long for most people. How many of us can eat nothing but cabbage soup or grapefruit for an entire week! Instead, try the 80/20 approach. Eat what you know you should 80% of the time, and leave 20% for acknowledging and accepting that you're not perfect! That way, you won't set yourself up for feeling guilty or testing your willpower against cravings for foods you know you don't need much of. Follow the U.S. Food Guide Pyramid recommendations to nourish your body in a healthy way, with plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, grains and water. Key #8: Be Patient and Persistent Plan and choose attitudes that demonstrate self-acceptance and self-care. It takes practice. Most experts recommend that you keep a simple log or record of your new healthy self-care habits. Just take a few minutes each day to note what activities you did, a general description of the foods you ate, and the positive things you did to take care of yourself.
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Already I am working with his 'Personal Power' series and felt confirmed in his integrity. This new process 'The Body You Deserve' is specific to weight loss. Here is a sampling of the logic and methodology:
7 Steps to Neuro-Associative Conditioning
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 WHO: Overweight, Obese Could Swell 50 Percent in a Decade
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The diet process is a monumental transformational process that few of us do, yet all of us are capable of. I am interested in making this work. |
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Animated
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Peer group.
